Our annual, two-week practical environmental archaeology module drew to a close on Friday with a field trip focusing on coring.
The day dawned bright as the students set out for Finstown and, led by Associate Professor Scott Timpany, made their away up and over the hills to the north of the village. The destination was an upland peat bog, overlooking the Loch of Wasdale (and with some impressive views of the entire Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site).
There, Scott outlined the coring and sampling processes and the interpretation of the results. Subsequent cores then showed the students that the area was once woodland before becoming an uphill lochan.
After making their way back to the bus it was on to the Bay of Ireland – a body of sea water between the parishes of Stenness and Stromness. It was here, in 2013, that a section of an oak trunk was discovered within the intertidal peat.
Excavation, recording and radiocarbon dating of the oak trunk took place in 2015 and it was confirmed as dating to the Late Mesolithic period with a felling date of c.4400BC – placing it in the Mesolithic period. A study of the pollen grains and the seeds within the peat showed that one of its phases was a reed-swamp fringed by woodland of willow and birch.
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