Today was day 10 on site and therefore we approach the midway point of the project season. What a couple of weeks it has been!
There’s been quite major progress in areas like the broch interior and the extramural building complex on the Northern side of the site.
Meanwhile the artefacts turning up across the site have been stunning from glass bead to whalebone chopping bock and bronze ring to antler mount. Obviously, in the last few days, in particular, the site has produced items which are just astonishing! I’m referring to the contents of the ‘well’ structure.
The existence of the wooden bowl is just well-nigh miraculous. Its hard to convey how unusual and rare this sort of preservation is in a Scottish context and particularly away from a crannog, or wetland site, such as the wonderful on-going excavations at Black Loch of Myrton in Dumfries and Galloway. Indeed, it seems to have been a weird time in Scottish Iron Age studies recently with sites yielding up this kind of normally exceptionally rare preservation!
Today as we took stock of that particularly dramatic situation, there was minimal work in the well structure itself, however, we did inspect the deposit at the base of the well again and I can reveal that a third substantial wooden object is present. It appears, at this stage, to be another peg-like piece and possibly driven into the deposit like the previous one, but it appears to be larger and firmer than the first. There is also evidence of other organics including what looks like twisted plant fibres here and there, which may be a simple grass or heather weave, possiby the remains of a net, a mat or a bag! We’ll keep up with the updates over the rest of the work in the well.
Elsewhere on site, Linda’s time with us as supervisor for the South area of the site drew to an end today and so we bid her farewell for now, and reflect on the great progress made even today in revealing the building (Structure J) tucked into the lee of the terrace revetment.
Down slope from the broch on the Northern side of the site in Bobby’s area things have changed dramatically with lots of new walls and new understandings of existing walls coming into evermore sharper focus, and the fascinating thing is that these seem to reflect substantial structures of a likely contemporary date with the broch itself.
Here’ a few pictures, some to remind us of what we’ve seen so far and a few new ones of recent finds and features on site. I look forward to sharing the news from Week 3 with you…
I look forward to sharing the news from Week 3 with you over the next few days.
Martin Carruthers, Site Director, The Cairns.
I’ve just been discussing carved stone balls, again – and it occurred to me – there might also have been carved wooden balls – similar function/s to the carved stone balls – whatever a person might perceive that to have been. I would have presumed that, if such things did exist, they would probably have rotted away. But…now …you’re finding wooden objects from a time when we might expect wooden objects to have rotted away. Imagine finding a carved wooden ball? Just imagine…..