A polished and perforated pommel
Howdy Yall, I’m Declan, a UHI Archaeology Institute student at The Cairns dig.
It’s been an eventful day here at the Cairns with plenty of fun and good times. We’ve enjoyed some wonderful weather (a nice breeze to keep the temp just right).
We’ve continued excavation in multiple sections of the Cairns. In section B2 they found some really amazing stone tools (seven of them). They have also found a large bone, tonnes of charcoal and a rodent mandible. However, the top find in B2 has to be a fantastic stone bead.
Folks inside the broch are having a really interesting day as well. In the west room, there was the incredible find of a bone mount with two perforated holes. As well as waterlogged finds that include hair, wood fragments, and grains. However, one student commented on being slightly troubled by the lack of chocolate!
In the north room, there was a lot of excitement. They found two stone tools and a heat-shattered stone tool and, topping-off the incredible finds from the north room, must be the beautiful polished and perforated dagger/sword pommel that came from the floor there.
Two more views of the pommel fragment. (Click for larger image)
Moving to the south room, excavators found a really cool find of a broken whalebone disc, approximately 16cm wide, and there are many more bones here still to excavated.
Amanada and Elspeth, in the south-east room, did some really amazing work today, continuing to excavate the hearth and floor doing an incredible job excavating all the layers finding lots of charcoal and burnt bone.
Moving back outside the broch into Structure U1, there was an interesting structural find of wall lines that differed from what was originally thought on the south-east wall of Cell U1. At the backend of U2 (not the band!), one of our field school students has been working hard on excavating the wall and seeing how it interacts with the broch.
Work in the broch frontage has also had its fair share of excitement today. One of the volunteers in this group conducted two great tours of the site. When he wasn’t working hard in excavating and levelling Structure O and helping to move large stones. The broch frontage near Structure T is also providing us with a lot fun as we found lots of animal bone and shell caches that were carefully excavated and now the work begins on the rubble infill.
Martin has working on top of the broch wall, where he found charcoal and clay infill against a wall face that suggests his suspicion of a high-set wall chamber here may be correct.
Last but not least we can’t forget to mention that we got a visit by the UHI Archaeology Institute’s Dan Lee, who said it was great to visit the site, see everyone in action and check-in. Of course, it was also nice to do some digging.
Thank you for reading and we hope to see you here at The Cairns or in future blogs!
Declan Fladstool
MSc Archaeological Practice student
