A tour around the broch exterior
In the last diary entry, I discussed progress at the mid-season point for the broch, so today I’d like to reflect on the rest of the site, beyond the interior of the broch.
The surrounding context of the broch is as important as the broch itself and the relationship between the broch and its “extramural” settlement is a key part of our research project.
Immediately outside the east-facing front door of the broch, in the area we have traditionally referred to as “the Frontage”, Holly and her team have been very hard at work revealing the approach features that led up to the souterrain, Structure F.
They’ve shown that the underground passageway of the souterrain possesses more extensive walling than we realised and we think this was an unroofed approach feature leading to the roofed over underground section.
Overall, it makes the souterrain much longer and more sinuous in shape. It also should give us a much more accurate sense of where the souterrain was entered from and, right now, it is pointing us in the direction of “the cells” – the multicellular Late Iron Age structures (see below) to the south. Â Â
All the work around the front of the broch wall, and the excavation of masses of large rubble from the broch exterior, has also provided an amazing view of the outer wall of the broch and its monumental scale and substance – very impressive.
Nearby lies Structure O and as we continue to see more of this structure revealed relative to adjacent features it is becoming quite possible that the O area may represent a substantial yard, or formal approach feature, lying outside the broch front door, rather than a roofed building such as an actual house.
Even today, the excavation of a rough, upper slabbed surface within Structure O, has allowed the retrieval of a beautiful rotary quernstone. It is a basal stone and, for once, may just be in its actual in situ position, set in a working stance as it was in the Iron Age. I say “for once” because so many querns at the site have been recovered in re-used positions, often as fragments, for example, in slab floors or set on edge in clay floors, or even in the roof of the souterrain.
Indeed, this year, the settlement area of the village has been replete with querns and it very much accentuates the agrarian substance of the site and the importance of processing large volumes of cereals for consumption by the community.
The ‘Overburden’
Further round the outer circumference of the broch, and lying to the north, is an area that has been referred to as “the Overburden” – a nickname it earned when it was somewhat “out-of-phase” as we had intentionally left it higher than the surrounding deposits and features.
It is certainly no longer lagging behind the adjacent areas and it is now fully developed and full of walls and features.
Ross, Claire, and a myriad of others (including today Django, Lewis, Ellen, Carrie, and Nathan) have been working very hard, untangling these walls and surfaces. Essentially, it looks like we have the fuller outline of the Structure T coming through this area (very good news) and this building is overlain by an extended portion of the Structure O wall (also very good news).
A slabbed flagstone surface attends the Structure O wall and helps create a little paved cellular area tucked between these two walls. We know that O, even in its later incarnation, is contemporary with the broch, so this is all showing us how the broch-period settlement itself changed through time.
It also reassures us how early Structure T is. What we need to do is fully define T, because it is clearly an original broch-period building, and we want to excavate as many of these contexts from this period as we possibly can to provide good comparative findings to the broch.
The Wag: Structure B2
In Structure B2, one of our sub-rectangular wags, where last year we discovered decorated later Roman vessel glass, it has been lovely to see ashy, charcoal-rich, occupation deposits surrounding the central hearth of this building.
So often Late Iron Age buildings yield up solid flag floors but they relatively infrequently preserve soft organic-rich floors that give us lots of information about how a building is used.
In Structure B2 we have been very lucky to have a suite of clay and ashy floors, which ought to inform us of the use of the building and also the wider environmental conditions that prevailed during the 4th and 5th centuries, when the building was occupied. It has clearly been a much-used building with changes being made to the building over several generations as it was modified.
Our current concentration on the central, slightly sunken-floored, part of the building takes us back to the inception and earliest use of the B2 building, we think. It will be intriguing to see what other finds emerge from these floor deposits.
The Cells
In the cells, the Structure U area, with its beautifully curving chamber walls, Anthea, Deryck, and now Ole, have been advancing the cause of unravelling the sequence of these Late Iron Age buildings.
These are probably later still than the wag-style buildings on site and may be as late as the 7th and 8th centuries AD.
Some lovely, well-fired pottery rims and bases have been forthcoming from the latest of the cells (U4) and it seems likely that we will reach upper occupation deposits in here very soon. We aim to uncover floors, and any internal features, of this building this season and would love to be lucky enough to encounter a hearth also.
But as Structure U4 lies on the edge of the main trench, only a little time will tell if we do indeed get that lucky…
Martin Carruthers
The Cairns site director
