The Cairns dig diary – day four
A day of steady progress across the site and a spectacular find to end the day.
Category: Iron Age
The Cairns dig diary – day three
Day three at The Cairns and the finds begin emerging…
The Cairns dig diary – day two
Cleaning and preparatory work continued today, with a few nice organic finds around Structure B2.
The Cairns dig diary – day one
Back on site for the penultimate season of excavation.
Holm broch talk and archaeological show-and-tell this weekend
The UHI Archaeology Institute’s Martin Carruthers and Amanda Brend will be in Holm on Saturday, outlining the results of geophysical surveys at the Loch of Ayre Iron Age broch.
Crafting kin and marine molluscs – two institute research projects outlined at Iron Age conference
A delegation from the UHI Archaeology Institute was in Wales recently, where two gave presentations at the Iron Age Dialogues conference.
Latest SCARF newsletter puts postgraduate students’ research in the spotlight
Research by two of our postgraduate students features in the latest edition of the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework (SCARF) newsletter.
A brough and a broch – Yesnaby trip considers the Bronze and Iron Ages
The west coast of Mainland Orkney was the destination for a small group of archaeology students yesterday, with a field trip to Yesnaby and Borwick.
A brief look at the Broch of Borwick
A brief look at the Broch of Borwick, Sandwick, Orkney.
Video: ‘Mysteries of Prehistoric Scotland’ series now available to all
There’s a veritable cornucopia of institute faces in a 2022 documentary series on prehistoric Scotland now available to view online.
‘Digging for Britain’ episode featuring Orkney excavations online now
The Digging for Britain programme featuring the Orkney excavations at The Cairns and Blowmuir is now available on BBC iPlayer.
January date for The Cairns on new series of ‘Digging for Britain’
The Cairns dig will feature in Digging for Britain TV series on January 9, 2025.
Institute researchers heading to Norway for project investigating prehistoric climate change
Professor Ingrid Mainland and Associate Professor Scott Timpany have been awarded funding to participate in the international ‘Climate, Crops and Crisis’ research project.
The Cairns dig diary – day twenty
Over to dig director Martin for a summary of this season’s work.
The Cairns dig diary – day nineteen
Finds supervisor Kevin looks back at the artefacts discovered during this season’s dig.
The Cairns dig diary – day seventeen
Over to UHI Archaeology Institute masters student Ross for today’s update from the Cairns.
The Cairns dig diary – day sixteen
A busy day on site, with a steady stream of visitors, and some intriguing finds.
The Cairns dig diary – day fifteen
Although we were rained off today, we’ve got some very exciting finds to share – particularly fragments of an engraved Roman glass vessel.
The Cairns dig diary – day fourteen
As well as another quern, today saw the discovery of a void beneath Structure O.
The Cairns dig diary – day thirteen
A day of exciting discoveries, not least an early rotary quern from Structure O.