Thwarted by Storm Floris
As expected Storm Floris put paid to any work on site today – the rain and strong winds in the morning making any work impossible. We could have coped with the blustery conditions in the morning but a sodden trench is a different matter.
Not only is it dangerous for diggers but the archaeology too. Not to mention that it’s difficult to excavate when you can’t properly see any subtle colour changes in the material you are troweling.
Instead, the UHI Archaeology Institute students decamped to the Heilsafjold community centre, where Chris took them through a planning workshop. This was followed by an introduction to the Orcadian Neolithic and Bronze Age from Professor Colin Richards.
By then the wind had dropped completely and the sunshine was back.
So it was off to see two of the settlement sites Colin had mentioned – Toftsness at the north-eastern tip of Sanday and Pool, an eroding coastal site in the south-west. At the latter the students were shown an eroding section of a multiperiod settlement dating from the Neolithic through to the Late Norse period. All under an azure sky in 19 deg C temperatures!
Eroding archaeology. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)
Storm Floris is forecast to kick in again later tonight, bringing more (and slightly gustier) wind and rain. But although the wet weather is due to die out by morning the wind is expected to hang about until Wednesday.
But we’re used to a bit of wind in Orkney so we’ll be back on site tomorrow and will hopefully soon make up for lost time.
