Dig diary – final week at Skaill, Rousay

As another season at Skaill Rousay comes to an end, project co-director Dan Lee provides a final update. You can find out more about the excavations here and see a plan of the site here. 

Download a leaflet about the site here.  

The final week at Skaill saw some fascinating discoveries. Excavation focused on the easier phases in the main trench and confirmed that the remains of an even earlier phase of substantial buildings below! Although fragmentary, we have the opportunity to explore these below the floor levels of the upper buildings.

The most interesting find in the rectangular building adds more weight to the idea that the ground floor had a suspended wooden floor. Excavations below the flag floor revealed the remains of a wooden plank, covered with plant matter – a great discovery by our young archaeologist Callum.

Our colleague Dr Jen Miller was on site to excavate and sample the plank for further analysis in the lab. The discovery suggests that the original lower floor was wooden and raised, further hinted at by a stone scarcement in the wall and the high level of the doorway threshold stones. Another indication that these buildings were high status.

Excavations in the section to the north revealed a construction cut, showing the foundations were cut into the slope and levelled. The walls were very well built with even horizontal stone coursing. A fine building in its day.  

In the central room, excavations continued to reveal the early lime mortared and plastered wall discovered in week two. A narrow paved entrance was revealed with a box feature on the inside. The lime plaster appeared to have been internal.

Exposing and excavating the early walls. (📷 Dan Lee)

The building continued below the walls of the central room to the west and east, with the foundations for the square building constructed directly on top of the early floor to the north. Accurate dating is required, but it is possible that this building is Norse in date. This early building appears to be the remains of a high-status structure to the east of the early hall discovered in 2019. It is possible that the rectangular building was then constructed upslope from this, continuing the row further east.  

Excavations in the square building below the later stone floor have demonstrated that well-preserved occupation layers from an earlier floor surface survive below. These were only partly exposed this season and will require more excavation next season. It is likely that the remains of the early phase of Norse buildings survive.  

Excavations in the southern room in the main trench had reached an external working area with the discovery of a quernstone in week two showing that it was used for grinding grain. This is supported by the broken knocking stone, found upturned within a levelling layer in the 2024 season. Excavations reached a fine external stone paved area, contemporary with the earliest floor in the central room.  

Associate Professor Helen Mackay, from Durham, joined us for two days, taking more sediment samples for the Norwegian-funded V2C project (Viking to Christian Landscapes).  

This is investigating what we can learn from the traces of DNA from past animals and plants, as well as looking at traces of faecal lipids left behind by animals. 

Last year the project visited Skaill, taking samples from our contexts, and taking a pollen core from the nearby bog.  Results are just starting to come in and are very promising. 

During this season, three test pits were excavated on the northern side of the farmstead (in the line of test pit 27). 

An extensive stone surface, most likely a yard area, sealed a thick deposit of burnt ashy material. This corresponds with the large anomaly shown in the geophysical survey and may result from some kind of industrial processing, such as fish processing, close to the shore. Our bulk samples will hopefully provide some more information.  

As another season comes to a close, we’d like to thank all the students and volunteers for their hard work, and the landowners for hosting us. Next year we plan to investigate the Norse horizons of the site and the early hall.  

Skaill was funded this year with grants from OIC Archaeology Fund, Birdhouse Trust and Rousay Egilsay and Wyre Development Trust.  

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