An amazing day of artefacts
Today was something of an amazing day for unearthing artefacts at the site, so we’ll give you a short update, mostly artefacts-related…
A nest of stone tools!
In the west room of the broch interior, Declan discovered an amazing cache of stone tools – which the team immediately nicknamed the “dinosaur eggs” – and the images will hopefully convey why. These were a set of coarse stone tools (CSTs), and although they might look like simple beach cobbles to the untrained eye (in fact they are), they also exhibit lots of use-wear.
CSTs get a bit neglected in certain archaeological circles, partly because they don’t, at first sight, match the glamour of fine lithics such as flints or stone axes.
But although they may seem a bit mundane, one of the most interesting things about coarse stone tools is that they are often “artefacts” only by virtue of having been used and thus they develop distinctive types of wear.
During the Iron Age especially, many CSTs were cobbles taken from pebble beaches and simply used.
But not only were they used for tasks such as grinding and hammering they are also frequently found in contexts which we might consider special in some way – such as the foundation or closing of buildings – or found in concentrations or combinations with other items that suggest some very deliberate thought has gone into their placement.
Declan’s little group of seven lovely stone tools look like a little nest and they seem to have been placed near to one of the upright slab divisions between the west and central rooms of the broch and at a stage early in the structure’s life – so quite possibly a foundation deposit. It joins many others we’ve excavated, so far.
An alternative possibility is that this little group of tools had been hanging from the ceiling of the west room in an organic bag or net (long since decayed) and it fell from there to the floor. However, this seems less likely given the early part of the sequence that the tools are part of. If they simply fell in that manner, early in the life of the broch, why were they not picked up and tidied away?
Whatever the true nature of their placement within the west room of the broch, these tools are a beautiful and evocative little vignette of a set of tools dating back 2,000 years and the day they came to rest on the floor in a nest-like arrangement.
A rotary quern
Our next item was a very nice rotary quern, or half of one at any rate.
It was discovered, by Logan, in Structure O, the large courtyard space immediately outside the front door of the broch and effectively formed part of the paving. It would have been one of a pair of such millstones and it’s a lower of the pair.
It’s still in situ in the ground at the time of writing this diary, so we have not yet seen the underside. What we can say, though, is it’s a substantial, well-made piece, broken across its central perforation and showing very nice peck-dressing on part of its surface and lovely wear patterns on others indicating details of its use.
We’ve found many querns at the site (upwards of 60) and though some are probably in, or near to, their working-stances, many are incorporated into the architecture of the settlement, in floors, walls, pits, even in the slab roof of our souterrain, (Structure F).
This, again, fits a pattern seen more widely across large parts of Iron Age Britain and Ireland regarding the “afterlives” of querns. They’re very frequently reused and deployed in the foundations of buildings and features.
Perhaps incorporating querns in buildings made a direct physical link to the past and ensured good fortune was reflected onto households via the association with their previous histories of sustaining the community. There’s a lot of archaeological literature out there discussing these remarkable items and the interpretation of their deposition.
Pottery
Finally, a quick note on the pottery from site.
This season pottery has been coming thick and fast and popping up everywhere across the settlement. There are lots of ordinary sherds, but also a large volume of distinctive rims and bases which show us how particular forms and shapes of vessel looked.
Today was no exception and out the front of the broch, in Structure O, Bev was finding loads of the stuff, apparently smashed on the slab floor of the courtyard here. Ultimately, we might get a better idea of some of the activities that were going on in the courtyard from the nature of the pottery and its contents from residue analysis…
Meanwhile, inside the broch, Val, excavating near the earliest hearth deposits in the north room, found a lovely single sherd of distinctive pottery. Just a little sherd with a little raised ring motif.
Intriguingly, we have found similar sherd of this type of decoration from the north room previous seasons but in later deposits and, additionally, this type of decoration is much more commonly found in the Western Isles during the Middle Iron Age.
It’s just one of the many fascinating facets of the finds from The Cairns that we will follow up after the excavations are completed…
Martin Carruthers
Site director
