Sunshine blessed the start of the final week
At the start of our final week of the 2025 excavation season here’s a quick note to update you on what we were doing on site today.
In the broch, work continued in the west room, where Rick was recording the beautiful hearth and prepping it for nice clear photographs. Travis returned to his work in the central room, investigating ashy deposits and the low walls of the corridor space there.
Work was also moving on at pace in the south room, where, amidst groups of animal bone discovered by Emma, Ceiridwen found a sizeable, localised spread of pottery, apparently most of a single vessel, with large fragments of its base, side walls, and rim present.
In the south-east room, Amanda continued working on the south-west quadrant of the hearth, where she may just be coming down on to the heat-affected floor at its base. Meanwhile, Aspen gridded-out and actually began to excavate the clay floor of the south-east room.
Thore has been excavating in the north room and it looks like he will soon come down onto an earlier hearth slab.
In the north-east room, Scott continued with his excavation of the ashy deposits and has been revealing more of the very early features, including an intriguing curving setting of edge-set stones that look like they may be part of a hearth surround. These are set in the natural clay and would be a very primary feature of the broch.
Outside the broch, Holly continued to sample the remaining souterrain deposits and is very nearly finished. Meanwhile, Craig has been uncovering more of the likely drain capstones at the foot of the broch wall.
Neil dusted down his drone and took some lovely aerial shots of the parts of the site we’re actively working on.
Find of the day, however, largely due to its context of the stone triple-decker cupboard in Structure U1, must go to Ole, who discovered a large stone tool in one of the cupboard niches.
Altogether, a great day of work, with steady progress across the areas of the site that remain the scene of our attention. Lovely weather and lovely visitors made the day even more of a pleasure.
Martin Carruthers
Site director
