OIC cash for archaeology

projects
Story dated: thursday, february 4, 2009

Thirteen projects look set to receive money from Orkney Islands Council’s fund for archaeological investigations in 2010.

Members of the OIC development committee have backed recommendations to award funding to the projects selected by a panel made up of the OIC manager of museums and heritage, the county archaeologist and the Orkney Museum’s curator of archaeology.

Of the 13 projects, nine are Mainland-based with four in the isles.

Set to receive the highest amount is the ongoing excavation on the Ness of Brodgar, which is described in the report as having huge tourism potential and exciting archaeology.

Led by Nick Card, of the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (ORCA), the project has been allocated £8,000.

Other ORCA projects were also successful in attracting funding, including the Brae of Habreck, in Wyre.

This scheme is set to receive £7,136 because it is a rare site, where archaeology can reach complete excavation without damaging the site potential.

The Hoy and South Walls Landscape Interpretation work has been approved for £4,662 in funding.

This project is a continuation of another scheme that has so far “hugely changed the interpretation of an area of Hoy”, including a mound, previously thought to be a broch, which turned out to be a Neolithic chambered cairn.

Expected to receive £1,500 is Oxford University’s Birsay-Skaill Landscape Archaeology Project, which, councillors heard, “should deliver interesting results”.

Due to its “huge media potential”, the “Wrapping places: interpreting the Ring of Bookan complex” project has been approved for £2,500 from the fund. The investigation is led by Dr Colin Richards of the University of Manchester.

Three geophysics projects, led by Dr Susan Ovenden, of Orkney College, look likely to receive £1,000 each.

These include ongoing geophysics work in the World Heritage Area Inner Buffer Zone, which completes a long running programme of magnetometry, and the Skaill Loch Environs Project, which, according to the report before councillors last week, “fully utilises the geophysics unit using new methodology in a particularly interesting site”.

Dr Ovenden’s third successful project is the World Heritage Area LiDAR Zone, which is approved for funding because it enables Orkney to contribute to the national “Scotland’s 10” programme.

Another Orkney College project, “Investigating Orkney’s Medieval Parliament Sites for Public Benefit”, was also successful. Members heard the topic is under research and agreed to approve £1,500 in funding.

A further £2,500 is allocated for the Windwick Bay/The Cairns Archaeological Field Project, which is linked to the Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership.

Also set to receive £1,000 is the Stenness and Orphir Uplands Project, led by Amanda Brend and Mary Saunders. This scheme has the “potential to increase amenities e.g. walks on the Mainland”.

The University of Bradford’s “Orkney Gateway to the Atlantic” project, in Rousay, looks set to receive £5,656.

Finally, £2,546 is set to be awarded to the investigation of reported submerged mounds on Gairsay.

This project, which will research ancient harbour works, could prove significant if the findings can prove to be a Norse harbour, which would be the first in Britain.

Four projects missed out on funding this year, however.

They were “The Aircraft Crash Sites of Scapa Flow”, “CSAR Orkney”, the North Ronaldsay Project and a University of Hull scheme to assess the potential of pollen analysis.