The excavation at Cata Sand not only unearthed the remains of Early Neolithic Houses, but also the skeletal remains of at least 12 whales from the 19th century.
The team led by archaeologists from the UHI Archaeology Institute, University of Central Lancashire and volunteers from Sanday Archaeology Group travelled to Sanday to excavate a possible Neolithic site. However within a few hours, two trenches were discovered to contain remains of whale skeletons.
During the excavation, eight individual skeletons were lifted and transported carefully to the UHI Archaeology Institute laboratory in Kirkwall, where Stephen Haines and Claire Mackay, began to examine the remaining bones last week.
Stephen is a recent MSc graduate in Forensic Anthropology (UCLAN) and has volunteered to help clean, assemble and analyse the bones. Claire has recently started a research masters at the UHI, in which she will be exploring the exploitation of whales in Late Iron Age and Norse Orkney.
As Stephen assembled the bones into anatomical order, it soon became apparent that, as the area where they were found was an intertidal zone, many of the bones were waterlogged and brittle. However, Stephen assembled the bones in order and a number of interesting facts emerged.
All of the animals appear to be missing their heads. A likely explanation could revolve around the known practice of giving the heads of whales as prizes to captains involved in the hunt, or local landowners in the case of beached whales. The head of a whale was especially valuable as it contained a large quantity of precious oil.
Perhaps surprisingly the evidence points to the fact that the animals were not butchered for their meat. There does not appear to be any cut marks on the bones themselves and they were not disarticulated and scattered – as usually found at butchery sites.
So how did these huge skeletons get into the ground?
In a 19th century account of a whale beaching, a visitor to the island complained about the terrible smell coming from the decomposing animals. Reading the account further, it would seem that this complaint resulted in the local people burying the carcasses on the beach. And there they remained for over 200 years – forgotten by locals and visitors alike.
Sadly, as we don’t have access to the heads, identifying the species involved is incredibly difficult, however based on the general morphology we believe the bones belong to the dolphin family – potentially a Risso’s Dolphin. Further research will confirm the species.
The initial findings have now been edited into a series of videos clips…..
The excavation team included Prof Colin Richards, Prof Jane Downes, Christopher Gee from the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute and Dr Vicki Cummings from UClan in addition to participants from the Sanday Archaeology Group, University of Cambridge, and students from UHI and UCLan, but also involves specialists from as far away as the School of Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, Galicia, Spain.
If you want more information on studying at the UHI Archaeology Institute then email us at studyarchaeology@uhi.ac.uk or check out our website.
