Fragment of rare quern emerges from Structure B2
Today was full of progress on site.
In the broch today things were very busy, with a substantial part of our team working across multiple areas.
In the west room, Rick was planning the current surface reached, as well as getting the copious records ready in preparation for a big push in the excavation of this zone coming very soon. In fact, Alison has already begun to excavate the southern end of the west room.
Similarly, in the adjacent north room, Graham and Thore are getting close to finishing the plan they’ve been drawing of this whole area and then we will be resuming excavation here also.
In the south-east room, Amanda and Meghan have been teasing out deposits around the hearth and in the “aisle” area of the room – a corridor-like space, with a flagstone floor, that must have had some purpose ancillary to the main part of the room. Perhaps our soil samples may reveal something of this usage.
Scott, SJ, and Amy, worked in the north-east room, where they’ve been excavating the vivid-red, ashy occupation deposits and black charcoal-rich layers there. They’ve also been finding fragments of waterlogged wood in the peat ash.
This is an important development because these will be really helpful in helping us understand the timber available during the broch occupation and also how that wood was managed.
Finally in the broch, Sarah excavated in the central room, and she revealed vivid orange-red ash contained by a series of low edge set stones. It’s just possible this may turn into and early central hearth in the room, so stay tuned for news of this as it develops…
Over in Structure B2, our Wag building, Eleanore, Beth, Gill, Robert and Jan have been getting their teeth into the occupation deposits as they excavate on the sample grid to maintain good control over the distribution of the items that we find across the building (both artefacts and environmental remains). Indeed, in one grid square Gill found a concentration of fine red pottery sherds.
In another grid square, what is probably the find of the day emerged as Eleanore uncovered a rotary quern fragment.
This very finely made quern has a slightly raised rind around the central “feeder” hole or hopper, and a very finely carved slot for its handle. It’s the more rare type with a side-handled, or side-slotted aperture for the handle, which may have been designed to receive a shoe-shaped wooden handle with a vertical pole to give the rotation extra oomph.
Of the more than 60 querns from the site, we have only one other example of this type of quern, and it was excavated from the same phase but over the other side of the site on the roof of the souterrain.
In the “Overburden zone”, on the northern exterior of the broch, Claire, Django and Meghan (before she moved to work in the broch) have done a great job, ably assisted by occasional help from Kev, and area supervisor Holly.
The volume of rubble that has been excavated from against the broch wall in recent days has revealed, today, what appears to be the upper parts of the village building walls on this northern exterior of the broch.
Hopefully these will connect up with village walls (Structures O and T) to the south, and this would be important “fleshing-out” the layout of the settlement.
Holly has been examining our previous records and getting prepared for recording the structure of the souterrain (Structure F).
Towards the end of the day, it looks like the work undertaken by Grace, Joanne, Amy, and Craig in this vicinity has also paid-off as Holly was able to spot what we think is the construction cut for the souterrain – essentially the outline of the original trench that was dug to lay the souterrain into.
Finally, Val, Ryan, and Jenni have begun to excavate the beautiful well-built cell, Structure U4, over on the south-eastern edge of the main trench, and having cleaned up the section (lots of animal bone in here) they’re ready to start excavating deposits in here tomorrow.
Overall, a highly productive and promising day for just day seven of this field season!
Martin Carruthers
The Cairns site director
