The second week at Skaill, Rousay, has flown by with some exciting new discoveries, a wall of sound and the open day. By extending the trench a wee bit, we now have a much better understanding of the site. Project co-director Dan Lee provides an update:
Excavations in the main trench continued apace with the flagged floor in the square building fully uncovered.
The silted abandonment layer that sealed it contained animal bone, a ceramic spindle whorl and a fragment of bone comb and more – but not the wealth of artefacts that might be expected from an occupation layer.
This deposit was clearly allowed to accumulate at the end of this phase of the buildings use, after the doorway had been realigned and roughly constructed internal walls installed. The flag floor may not be the primary floor level and next week we will investigate below.
The southern trench extension revealing a paved path around the end with earlier walls continuing below the main building, hinting at earlier structures further south. The southern part of the range was converted into a dwelling house, apparently in the early 18th century – dated by a large sherd of a fine Delft faience plate found below the central hearth setting (pictured above).
The floors at the southern end of the house consist of a series of stone slabs, whereas in the central area an earth floor was used.
One of the key discoveries this week occurred when the trench was extended to the east by only 0.5m! The wall thickness and blocking along this side of the trench was unclear and we wanted to remove a large architectural fragment of dressed red sandstone.
Having re-opened Trench 20 to the east, which contained a large 1m wide wall previously exposed in 2019, it provided obvious comparisons to the large square building. Were they the same phase?
Extending Trench 20, we soon found the corner of the building with the wall head just below the turf. After embarking on some good old-fashioned wall chasing (it had to be done!) we realised that it formed a large rectangular building, with the corner just outside the main trench.
Extending down the eastern side of the main trench revealed the entire western end wall face of the building. It is now clear that our earliest phase in this part of the site was the square building accompanied by a large 9m long rectangular building (perhaps even as early as the 12th or 13th century based on comparisons), constructed on a similar alignment to the Norse hall.
Were these buildings and the hall in use at the same time or was the hall replaced?
The farm certainly grew in size over the next few centuries, before reduction and demolition, with complete remodelling in the early 19th century.
If that wasn’t interesting enough, having removed the large piece of red sandstone from some blocking, Logan noticed that he had revealed what looked like a stone step! More blocking removed, and there it was, an external staircase leading down with more than five steps, built on to the end of the rectangular building.
Was this the main house or a large store? Tantalising insights into the early phases of the farmstead (but excavation must wait until a future phase).
This week, we were joined by UHI Orkney art graduate Anna Gardiner who draws inspiration from the excavations in her costume making and performances, based around a horse skull excavated from the buildings. Sound artists Aileen Ogilvie and Lara Band created audio pieces and a “sound wall”, used to document sounds from the site on stones from the excavations which were used to fill in a small trench (more on these soon).
Saturday was the site open day, with over 60 folk making it down the hill to visit.
The highlight was Alan and Keith’s Viking and medieval living history, inhabiting the old diary. Activities included making bone pins and a steatite (soap stone) bowl. That drew a close to the UHI student field school, thanks for all the hard work.
Next week we will focus on the internal floors.
