Quern fragments, a scallop shell and a bead…
It was a windy day on-site today, although the sun shone all of the day.
In the overburden area, Claire and Meghan continue to expose a linear pile of stones and it is now looking potentially like a wall of one of the village buildings – which may connect to the adjacent Structures O and T. Tomorrow should provide more clarity.
Structure B2 – the Wag building – has been set up with a grid and each grid square is being gradually excavated to help us better understand what might be going on in what is the physically highest area on the site mound.
A lovely piece of a rotary quern has been found together with two other potential pieces. Fingers crossed more will be found tomorrow – maybe some pieces will fit together!
Graham is continuing to excavate the floor of the Structure U4 cell, which contains large deposits of animal bone in the section. Today’s finds include a lovely stone tool with two other stone finds that might turn out to be tools also.
It’s been another exciting day in the broch. Excavation of the hearth continues in the south-east room and has revealed a lovely peat ash deposit. It looks like there might be an earlier hearth to the east of it too.
Excavations in the north-east room have been focusing on a hollow that was filled with black soil – more evidence of wood has been found today which appears well-preserved in this wet environment.
Pollen and thin-section sampling is also under way in this area – the results should be available in a few months’ time, but they’ll be worth the wait.
A beautiful find in the north room was a scallop shell – the first one to be found on site and an absolute gem of a find! It was found while lifting a roughly laid slab floor – totally incredible! Excavations of occupation deposits in the north-west room revealed some more pottery sherds.
The level of rubble in the broch frontage continues to be taken down, bucket by bucket, though really significant progress is being made. Joanne and Grace have found several large bones and some very large stones.
Holly has been recording the remaining baulks in the souterrain prior to Scott coming in next week to carry out environmental sampling.
I also found the find of the day, a beautiful stone bead! It came out in two pieces though they fit together perfectly. It would have been difficult to fashion the hard stone into this beautiful article and it would have required tremendous care and attention. It popped out of the rubble and quite literally made my day – I’ll remember it for a very long time!
Ame has been kept busy in the finds room with lots of whale and deer bone and, more unusually, a seal bone.
There have been quite a few impromptu tours of the site today, so we’ve had lots of enthusiastic visitors, including Buddy the dog!
Louise McFaul
Volunteer
