Day Twenty – Friday, July 13, 2012

That’s it for another year . . .

Fiona and Mic lifting one half of a rotary quern from the roof of the souterrain.

Today has been the final day on site. We have covered the site in sheeting, bolstered the deep sections and walls with sand-bags and weighed it all down with used tyres. Hopefully it will keep the site pristine until we return next summer.

Catherine and Colin excavating delicate floors inside Structure C, the late Iron Age workshop.

As a special farewell, the remaining members of the team still present on site at the very end have each contributed a short statement to the blog.

  • ‘My first dig was great, can’t wait till next year!’
    Callum Murray, BA Archaeology student, UHI Orkney
  • ‘My first Scottish excavation! My first quern discovery! All in all – amazing . See you next year!’
    Fiona, Masters in Archaeological Practice student, Orkney

  • Part of the team busy excavating rubble from inside the roundhouse-broch.

    ‘I’ve had a great time at The Cairns, my first broch site! Thanks for having me.’
    Rachel Pickering, Edinburgh

  • ‘I had a fantastic time – especially sorting through all the ROCKS and DIRT!!!’
    Sarah, Poughkeepsie, New York
  • ‘Sad to see another season over, but happy that we’ve had such a successful one! Roll on next year! Thanks very much to our hardworking team – see you guys again for TC’13!!!’
    Amanda Brend, ORCA, Orkney College
  • ‘Great Archaeology – Great People. Had a fantastic four weeks.’
    Colin, Masters in Archaeological Practice student, Orkney
  • ‘The Cairns was my first dig, learned a lot, met great people, can’t wait till next year’
    George, BA Archaeology student, UHI Orkney

    The possible Viking hearth under excavation.

  • ‘A pile of rocks and dirt never looked so beautiful…’
    Matthew, Kelowna, BC, Canada
  • ‘So four weeks have passed very quickly and we found ourselves closing the gate to The Cairns for the last time for another year with some sadness in our hearts. It was my first time on this site, and I feel privileged to have been allowed to share in the excavation of such a wonderful site, so many thanks to Martin and Amanda who gave me this chance.
    ‘Did we do everything we planned to back in those first few days? No. But we discovered a whole new side to the site, and with the fantastic work that has been done by everyone on site, 2013 should be an extremely fruitful season, and I know I’m not alone in this year’s team in hoping that I will be there to share in that harvest! So farewell for this year, but watch this space…So long and thanks for all the stone’
    Dave McNicol, ORCA, Orkney College
  • ‘It has been a phenomenal season of excavation at The Cairns! Even the mundane tasks undertaken unexpectedly illuminated important aspects of the history of the site while the set-piece encounters with those parts of site that we already knew to be key outdid my expectations many times over.
    ‘We hit on some cracking archaeological stories whether it was the growing evidence for a very early Viking presence on site, or recovering details of the architecture of the souterrain, and the features associated with it.
    ‘Most of all though, it has simply been good fun and a great privilege to share these discoveries and investigations with the cheerful, hard-working and thoroughly smart team – I’m very proud of them and personally grateful to each one of them’.
    Martin Carruthers, Archaeology Department, Orkney College UHI

Martin Carruthers would like to thank the public of Orkney, and beyond, for visiting the excavations and expressing support for, and interest in, our work.

He would also like to express deep gratitude to the landowners Charlie and Yvonne Nicholson and their family and friends for once again making our four weeks at The Cairns such a pleasant and fun time. The practical assistance given by Charlie in particular makes our excavation possible at all! Thank you!

Some of the team from the 2012 season!

Day Nineteen – Thursday, July 12, 2012

Fiona and Mic excavating the rotary quern on the roof of the souterrain.

The second quern stone appears underneath the first one.

As we draw inexorably nearer to the end of this year’s excavation, today we began the process of “putting the site to bed” for the year.

It’s never the team’s favourite point in the project.

For one thing it means quite a bit of backbreaking work.  Secondly, it spells the end of the work on site for the season and that’s always a little sad.

However, amidst the work of laying down protective plastic sheeting over everything, and weighing it down with sandbags and used tyres, there was still some excavation work going on in one corner of the site.

The removal of the quernstones over the roof allows light to flood into the end of the souterrain passage giving a good view of the side walls.

Over by the souterrain we still had to deal with the beautiful rotary quern that emerged yesterday, which has been set into the roof slabs of the souterrain.

Fiona and Mic got to work recording and lifting the two halves of the mill stone.

As they did so there was a surprise – another quernstone lay directly underneath!

It’s too early to tell if the lower one is the actual partner stone that would have completed the pair of working stones or not.

One thing is certainly clear – this seems to represent some form of special deposition relating to what has possibly been quite an important underground building.

Once the second stone was lifted a clearer view of the actual subterranean passage underneath could be obtained.

Martin Carruthers

Day Eighteen – Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Hi there, today was another exciting day!

While the digging on the site is gradually winding down, to be replaced with final recording of all the new features and areas, we are still doing a little excavation work.

This includes work in the area of the souterrain – the underground building – where we have discovered that one of the rather ephemeral walls on the surface nearby is partially resting on the stone roof of the souterrain and was therefore constructed afterwards. These kinds of facts, established during excavation, are perhaps small and seem trivial but they ultimately add up to a rich story about the life of the site and the lives of the community who lived here.

Perhaps most exciting today was the opportunity to see the site from high above. We had the hire of a “cherry-picker” for the day and so we got lots of elevated photos of the site.

It really makes a great deal of sense (mostly!) from up there and I think the team really enjoyed the opportunity to put all the various areas of the site, that they have been working on so hard, into an overall context.

Swapping their ground level views of everything for a birds eye one, everyone was exhilarated to see the sweeping curve of the broch wall, or the regular lay out of the late Iron Age/Viking long building. Impressive stuff!

So here are a few of the overhead shots from today. I hope you enjoy them.

Martin Carruthers
Site Director

The site from above looking south.

The site from above looking south-east.

Day Seventeen – Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Today’s blogger, Fiona, excavating in the area of the rotary quern, on the roof of the souterrain, near to where we suspect the entrance lies.

Hello everyone, I, Fiona, am one of the postgraduate students studying for a Masters of Arts in Archaeological Practice.

This year has provided me with many first experiences and writing a blog is among them! So please bear with me!

Without sounding too overly British, my first topic to report is the wonderful Orcadian weather! I assume you all note the sarcasm in that sentence?

Actually, it has been okay, having decided not to update or scare myself by watching the BBC weather, I prepare for the worst and hope for the best! All in all, it’s working quite well – a somewhat drizzly and grey start to the day, with short, sharp bursts of sun throughout the day.

The previous night’s rain, however, made the site particularly slippery and me particularly filthy – however the rain and mud could not dampen our spirits following the previously anticipated find of a rotary quern, situated in Extension 2, located on the possible entrance to the souterrain.

Our excitement increased with the identification – with the use of a torch – of the end wall of the souterrain observed through the entrance open to the north-north-east of the quernstone.

A close up of the rotary quern.

A curved stone that underlies the quern stone may be an additional quernstone – perhaps saddle in nature – although this has not yet been confirmed.

The rotary quern has been broken in two – it is not known if this was done deliberately or was a natural break. Of course, with this identification a better understanding of the meaning that lies behind its deposition – either for its stone like qualities or for a more meaningful depository nature – dare I say “ritual” or “special” or “deliberate”.

Either way perhaps when it is lifted we can decide upon the best possible description.

In addition to this spectacular find, work in Structure A, principally clearing the rubble has continued at a steady pace.

All work came to a momentary holt with the discovery of a whalebone among the rubble, any contextual evidence had already been lost. However, as if by fate, Ingrid Mainland, our environmental specialist, appeared on site providing her expertise, noting in particular possible cut/butchery marks.

The large whalebone object, possibly a vessel, being carefully lifted by Dave and Matthew.

Excavations have continued in Structure C which is becoming more and more colourful as the days go on.

The majority of today’s efforts have been given to the floor deposits that surround the previously excavated hearth to the east and also the excavation of a pit also to the east of the hearth.

A section and plan has also been undertaken to establish the relationship between the facade and the outer wall of Structure A.

Given the finds from today and the ever increasing amount of work that is required and as the excavation progresses into the deeper, earlier stratigraphic layers, who knows where the excavation shall take us tomorrow – only the blog can tell!

Nevertheless, the days are drawing in and what we want and are able to do are two very different things. It would be nice to get the quern lifted – if not fear not! I shall return (if allowed) to do the honours next season – along with the excavation of the souterrain.

Day Sixteen – Monday, July 9, 2012

Structure C today.

Hello folks.  It’s the final week at the Cairns, but we’re still busy across the site in all of the main areas.

Structure A, our broch, is looking amazing as the team are starting to get down onto probable occupation deposits within this substantial building. Although I’ve seen the broch emerge over the six years since the project began, I still can’t quite believe the scale of it and the huge amount of work and skill that went into building it.

It’s a real testament not only to the Iron Age builders, but also to our hardworking excavators, who have spent the last three weeks removing tonnes of rubble to reveal the arrangements of stone uprights and settings in the interior.

Deposits over the suspected entrance to the souterrain, Structure F, yield into a large “voidy” area.

In Extension 2, working at a different pace and scale, the team have been homing in on the entrance to the souterrain today.  They have revealed some of the rubble infill at the entranceway, and the uppermost slabs of the roof of this underground passageway.

A linear arrangement of stone uprights to the south of the entranceway and a lovely hearth with cobble tools at the corners (similar to other hearths in the Structure B area) may represent remnants of an above ground building associated with the souterrain.

We have made good headway in Structure C, our late Iron Age workshop/smithy building.  Murray and Catherine are busy excavating an occupation deposit associated with an early hearth built directly on the reduced wall-head of the broch.

Excavation of this building has seen quite a lot of heat-affected features and deposits, but this hearth is the earliest yet and we hope to obtain some good dateable material from the peat-ash and heated clay within it to confirm this.  The floor surface we’re digging has so far yielded some pottery and a lovely stone spindlewhorl.

I had the opportunity to excavate a nearby pit filled with peat-ash, perhaps outcast from the hearth, and containing some pottery, a cobble tool and pieces of a burnt material that may be a by-product of industrial processes.  This would certainly fit with Structure C’s busy life as a metal-working area or workshop.

Lastly, I just want to say what a treat it was to have so many visitors come to the site on our open day last Friday.

It’s always rewarding for us when we get the chance to show people what we’ve found over the last few weeks and to have so many people from both home and away come and see some archaeology in action!

Amanda Brend
Site Supervisor