Unbelievably the digging season is nearly at an end at The Cairns. It only seems a few days since we started! This blog post is written by Holly Young who is about to start her MSc with us at the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute.

As the season begins to draw to a close and our thoughts inevitably start turning to the mountain of tyres and tarps that need to be moved back onto site to put it to rest for another year, digging work on site is also being wrapped up.

With the haar rolling in across Windwick Bay, the day began with the final site tour for the team where we got to look at the results of the last four weeks’ hard work and ask any remaining questions about the developments that have occurred.

The rest of the day was spent sprucing up the archaeology for final photographs and recording.

In the broch, Therese, Connor, Calum and Mika have been removing deposits around the primary hearth in the NW quadrant, where a large plan has been drawn that includes the newly revealed substantial paving. Our resident soil wizard, Jo, finished up with her quadrant of beautifully coloured deposits in the SE room, and Alanis photographed the results of her sampling work in the NE quadrant.

Down in Trench Q, Bobby and his team of eager students and volunteers have been doing final digging, cleaning and recording of the various areas across the ‘broch village’. Many areas of the rubble are still giving up finds, including evidence of metalworking, various animal bones and stone tools. Bobby has also been spending his tea-breaks providing us with astounding aerial shots of the site with his drone.

Up in the SW area of the site, Rick and Jen have been polishing off the final pieces of recording. This area of site has been getting progressively more complex with new areas of building popping up and new insights into the substantial terrace that was dug to make way for the construction of the broch coming to light. The portion of the large ditch surrounding the site, which is present in this area, has been blessing its diggers with a large number of finds, including a localised area rich in animal bones and shell which has been very carefully excavated over the last few weeks.

Rick and Bobby have also been putting the various students through their paces across the last few weeks, with various workshops to help build up their archaeological skills. Today, they’ve continued planning various areas across Trench Q and the SW extension.

Now, to task. I am here to draw to attention to the activities that have been taking place in the souterrain this year.

For those of you who are not familiar with these enigmatic structures, souterrains are subterranean passageways, the uses of which are massively up for contention. Whether they be for storage or ritual, or several uses that don’t even occur to us, these buildings remain shrouded in mystery.

We have been methodically sampling the possible floor deposits in the formerly-roofed portion of the souterrain, the large roof lintels of which were removed in 2016. In similar fashion to the sampling taking place in the broch, we have been removing contexts on a 50cm grid, for everything from finds recovery to the chemical breakdown of the individual soils in an attempt to understand the kinds of things people were using the souterrain for.

Several things from the sampling are worth noting. The first is that, in the southern section of the grid, a series of greasy deposits have been excavated, including one that was quite a vivid orange colour. These deposits are significant as it may shed light on the activities that were taking place in the souterrain and around this section of the souterrain roof. Above these deposits, the large roof lintels were positioned in such a fashion as to leave a gap, above which were broken fragments of rotary quern-stones and a ‘stone box’ filled with winkle shells. There is a possibility that some kind of liquid was being strained through these shells, gently pouring into the souterrain and being absorbed into the soil. In relation to this, a small cache of the same species of shell was found tucked in a small deposit flush against the souterrain wall.

Now, in the final sampling stages (as is always the norm whenever the end of dig season is nigh!), just as we begin the closing down the site, some deposits of interest have begun to be revealed. The lower fills of this area of the souterrain contain fairly substantial rubble, some of which may possibly be associated with earlier buildings that were part of the broch village. The people constructing the souterrain built through these earlier broch-related structures, sometimes incorporating useful pieces of masonry, sometimes smashing through others, continuing the theme of reuse of earlier structures that is so common throughout the Iron Age in Orkney, and appears to hold a huge amount of significance for the inhabitants of this site.

Finally, the sampling grid has been extended in the last week to cover the portion of the souterrain passage and chamber that was created by the reuse of the broch entrance way. This strategy will be utilised across the next few seasons to draw all the information from across the different areas of the souterrain together to create a coherent story.

And, so, onto the shutting down of the site, which seems to have arrived far more quickly than any of us would like. Putting the site to bed is always a stark reminder that we’re a whole year away from getting stuck in once again.

Thanks to Holly Young, MSc. Archaeological Practice student to be…

Hello again to the Cairns followers – it doesn’t seem a year since I was last here on site, and writing once more for the blog! I’m Jo McKenzie, a research geoarchaeologist with the University of Bradford and currently one of the small team working inside the broch as we go into the last couple of days of the excavation.

This is the third year that I’ve been one of the visiting specialists at the Cairns, and as always it’s been amazing to see the development of the excavation and how much changes as – especially for me – we progress through the deposits preserved in the broch interior.

As a geoarchaeologist, my focus is using a range of archaeological science techniques to investigate the soil deposits on site. At Cairns, my analyses will hopefully help us understand the very important floor surfaces which are now exposed in almost all areas inside the broch. I’m using a technique called soil micromorphology to enable us to look at the floors in a way we can’t using traditional excavation methods. Small blocks of deposit are carefully removed, using a metal tin so that they remain undisturbed. Resin is poured into these blocks and hardened, allowing a microscope slide to be made through a ‘slice’ of the floor surface.

Under the microscope, we can examine in detail what often prove to be many, many more deposits that can be seen with the naked eye. This technique is a powerful tool for understanding how the floor surface deposits form and the microscopic information they contain – fuel residues, bone, plant residues and other pointers to human activity, as well as a whole range of indicators for environmental conditions on site and how these have changed through time. 

This year at the Cairns however, it’s been a case of less sampling and more trowelling, as it becomes clear that we’re getting closer to what could be the absolute primary surfaces within the broch – a crucial stage and one that it’s so important to get right. All samples are meaningless without understanding their archaeological context, and so this year I’ve mainly been within the so-far largely unexcavated south east quadrant of the broch, carefully cleaning the complex activity surface we can now see there, doing some head scratching, and making comparisons between the sequence of hearths, floors and features we see in this quadrant and those of the other areas of the interior, so that we can plan the next stage of our sampling strategy. Roll on next year, and once again, so many thanks to Martin and the rest of the Cairns team for a week of the most amazing archaeology!

Thanks to Dr Jo McKenzie, University of Bradford

Site Director Martin Carruthers takes up the story of the successful Open Day at the excavation….

Well today was the open day on site and the decision we made to slightly postpone the open day really paid-off as we basked in sunshine and blue skies all day!

The visitors seemed to really enjoy the experience of making their way around the site, witnessing the massive broch and the other buildings, hearing from us about the findings and looking at some of the fascinating artefacts; pottery, stone tools, metalwork, glass beads and fragments, and large volumes of animal bone. As well as showing the fruits of our labours, we also had a demonstration of a little light metalworking going on from Fiona Sanderson, who showed our students and other diggers how to go about it, and our own Carnegie Trust scholarship student Paul was also performing some experimental metalworking!

Lots of the team were involved in the open day, leading tours, and explaining what is happening across the site however, even in the midst of the festive atmosphere of the open day excavation progress continued.

In Bobby’s area the northern wall of Structure O was further traced and its outer face, in particular, came nicely into view, reminding us of the solid, double-faced nature of this walling and the substantial upstanding building it must have belonged to.

In the Southwest extension the last remnant of the special deposit that had included the sheep skull and other items was lifted allowing us to lift and look at the saddle quern rubber stone. It is an object with a more complex history than we thought.  Initially used as a top-stone to grind the grain against a saddle quern, it also shows signs of having been subsequently used as a mortar to crush substances. Finally it looks like large flakes were removed from its original grinding surface.  These may have then been used as ‘Skaill knives’, a form of butchery or skinning scarping tool, or the flaking may have been intended to remove the old working surface from the rubber, a phenomenon sometimes seen in prehistoric querns and quern rubbers!

Finally, inside the broch, recording was under way as we prepare for the end of the week and closing down the site.  Prior to this though we still have a few days digging work left and we’ll keep you informed of what we find!

Martin Carruthers, Site Director, The Cairns

The weather conditions at The Cairns this week have been appalling, so Site Director Martin Carruthers has combined Day 14 & 15 into one blog post….

Well what can we say- this blog incorporates two days of work on site as we’ve been rather truncated and interrupted by recent weather conditions.  Firstly, high winds, and then persistent rain have had an impact on our ability to sustain fully productive excavation across both days.

Nevertheless, some very interesting insights and results have been forthcoming from the site. In the broch the work has continued to reveal more details of the early occupation. Therese and team have observed a very densely rich crushed shell deposit around what we think are the primary floor surfaces.  This is especially the case in a zone tucked between the western wall face and the edge of the substantial floor slabs. This shell material may be the earliest deposit that we have reached so far in the broch, perhaps even dating to the construction of the massive building, or part of a foundation deposit of some significance.  It shows that even once we have dealt with the ‘primary’ floor slabs in the area (which will be next season) we still have very interesting things in store to find out about the early moments of the broch’s life!

Elsewhere in the broch Yesterday, work recommenced in the Southern quadrant/room.  This began with a gentle clean over the area to remind ourselves of where we left off in the previous season.  Well so much for that simple recognition exercise! Within minutes Mika, one of our Leiden University interns had discovered another little copper alloy (bronze) object.  A roughly ring-shaped object.  This time this piece appears slightly D-shaped and may be some sort of fitting, or even a contorted pin fragment rather than a ring like the one found earlier in the season within the Western room.

Outside the broch in the Southwest extension, Rick’s team have also been “coming up with the goods”.  You may recall that this area encompasses a part of the village settlement, and a portion of the inner ditch that formed the enclosure that once surrounded the site.  Rick’s team have been busy re-writing what we thought was going on here.  On the one hand they have established that quite a lot of what we thought of as the natural glacial till is in fact redeposited, slumped over, or actively employed as a building material by Iron Age builders.  The result is that the village building, Structure J, which had the appearance of a rather compact, and neatly defined kidney- shaped building has expanded exponentially to form a rather massive, much more complex, multi-roomed building.  The net result is that the broch-period village on this SW side, which had appeared confined to small belt of features hugging the broch outer wall face is now much larger and impressive! 

A little ‘treat’ for us in this area came when Jenny, one of our UHI excavation module students, was working on the rubble in-fill behind Structure J. This is an area probably related to the foundation of Structure J.  A cache of animal bone and other items seem to have been deposited in the upper part of the rubble. There was an inverted sheep skull, several femurs, some worked deer antler, and a very nice rubber stone for a saddle quern.  This is one more instance of apparently special deposits made at the site relating to the foundation or decommissioning of major buildings and features during the Iron Age.

In trench-areas M & Q on the Northern slopes of the site, Bobby’ team have been doing great work also on the village buildings here.  Almost everyday the substantial nature of the remains there seem to get larger, more massive, and more complex.  There are now myriad walls relating to rectangular, cellular and circular buildings.  Some of the walls are double faced and substantially built in a style that may make them contemporary with the broch, others are single-faced revetments that have been added over time.  It’s a complicated and not immediately clear area to resolve, but this complexity will, ultimately, result in a lovely detailed story of the development of the settlement.  For now, a clearer picture of the interconnected nature of the broch village is emerging with passages, thresholds and wall-piers serving to link some of the buildings and show how movement was achieved between and around this important part of the village complex.

Finally, and by no means least Holly has been busy, as ever, excavating and sampling the souterrain to the east of the broch.  This underground passageway has a series of in-fill deposits present but is now resolving on to floor surfaces and we hope to be able to recover deposits that relate to the early use of this enigmatic passageway to the past!

If you’d like to see some of these things for yourself we’ll be hosting an open day at the site on Monday the 8^th of July from 11am to 4pm!  Please do feel free to join us on site.

Day 13 turned out to be unlucky for us as the weather closed in and torrential rain set in, meaning that we had to leave site early. There is always tomorrow!

So today on site we were subject to some less than conducive weather- with squally rain and wind hampering our activities. Across all of the active areas of the site we are now working in fairly sensitive areas so eventually, when the rain really set in for the day, we had little option but to pack up and head off.  Therefore, today’s blog is a photo montage of events and activities from earlier today and yesterday….

Martin Carruthers, Site Director.

We are pleased to welcome international students from around the world at The Cairns and today it is the turn of Mickey Van Lit from Leiden University to walk us through the day at The Cairns……

Mooing cows and squeaking wheelbarrows shape our background music. The scrape of trowels against stones is like a war drum, urging us on to keep working. Hoodies are taken off. Five minutes later, hoodies are put back on. Rain nor wind nor sun can stop us from doing what we do. But what exactly are we doing?

At first glance, the area I have been working on – and am still working on – might seem a bit boring. There is a whole lot of rubble, and even more dirt. Yet, with a bit of singing, talking and the occasional ray of sun, it is quite a nice area to work on.

It is located right at the entrance of the broch, with only the souterrain between the broch and ‘my’ patch. On the right, there is a wall that seems to dive underneath our area. When we started two weeks ago, the area looked quite different than it looks now. Near to no stones were visible. Along with four others, I have been trowelling the dirt away to try and uncover the rubble. Underneath this rubble are the remains of at least one wall, but hopefully more.

When trowelling, we quickly learned to squat while trowelling, as the rocks dug into our knees whenever we would kneel. During the second week, voids started to appear. According to Bobby, we should be happy with these voids, as they signalled that we were getting close to the big rubble. Unfortunately, the voids meant that there were no stable rocks to stand on, as everything was wobbly or crumbling. It was quite like playing Twister. But Bobby was right (of course) and we soon got down to the bigger rocks that we were hoping to find.

Closer to the trench edge, the soil was trampled by us, and we could not get through with our trowels. We got out the big tools: mattocks. Within a day, we had cracked down upon the bigger rubble there as well. In fact, the first rock we found was massive, and it took us a while to find the end of it. Finally, after two weeks and one day, we were able to take the obligatory pictures. While I am writing this blog, my co-workers of this area are removing the rubble on top. When that has been done, we will find the rest of the wall that ducked beneath our area.

Even though the work appeared to be a bit monotonous, we had a lot of fun. My team had a tendency to sing, if only two lines before we switched to a new topic of conversation. The conversations consisted mostly of nonsensical facts and awful jokes – you know, the interesting kind of conversations. Every once in a while, Holly would pop up from the souterrain to make a comment, which of course only added to the fun. We have gotten quite good at multitasking: talk and dig, people, talk and dig.

To end this blog on a (slightly) more serious note, it has to be said that this site is brilliant, and the people just as much. No matter the weather or the hard work, everyone is enthusiastic and interested in what we are doing. Therefore, I propose a round of applause for everyone that has been working here. Looks great, keep going, guys!

Thanks to Mickey Van Lit, Leiden University Archaeology Student

Today, University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute student, Aime Sohkhlet writes our blog…

For most of my time on site, I have been working on area Q and as the two weeks passed by, I was slowly able to see new and great developments throughout.

From a levelled area of soil to emerging rocks, bones and walls, area Q now has character and definition through all that we have uncovered. Day 10 at the Cairns has been quite a productive day. With no rain and relatively no sun, I think it was a perfect day to work and bask in the fog that sheltered us from any harsh working conditions, considering the task that was given to my group today.

The task set for my final day on site was simple but equally important as the rest of the work involved in understanding the lives of Iron Age people. We were tasked with photo cleaning area Q specifically context (1851) and getting it picture perfect! This process in my opinion might have been the most difficult thing I’ve done so far (and this is saying a lot because fieldwork is hard work all around haha…)

Photo cleaning is an aspect of fieldwork that I am now appreciating. The most important thing that my supervisor got me to think about is presentation and perspective. The skill of presenting our work through a single photograph not only involved our hard work of cleaning the site but it also depended on Mother Nature. Just picture us all praying for a cloud to pass in front of the sun everyday so that our pictures weren’t over exposed by the harsh sun haha… the presence of the fog today was a great bonus really. 

A single shot is supposed to be able to tell an observer a story. A picture can serve a thousand words and because of this, we had to meticulously clean and present our site in such a way that even a person with just little knowledge about The Cairns would be able to understand the context and what our aims were for that particular part of it all. Every angle and every shot was taken and recorded and through this process, we are able to see progression on site and present it to everyone else with the confidence that everything was, and I say this with much joy haha… Picture Perfect!

Fieldwork demands dedication and through every task that was given to me and the group that I was in, I think we learnt to dedicate ourselves toward hard work and something close to perfection in everything that we do and because of this I think my first two weeks of excavation (EVER) at the Cairns, was a success!

Thanks to Aime Sohkhlet, UHI, BA Archaeology Student

Today is Day Eight and Area Supervisor Therese McCormick continues the story at The Cairns…

Cool and calm weather today at The Cairns and work across the whole site continues steadily. Inside the broch, we’ve been working on some of the floor deposits that will allow us to characterise how the internal spaces within the broch were used throughout its lifetime. 

Calum, Connor, Mika and Lorna have been making great progress in the north-west quadrant of the broch interior, where you might remember from previous seasons, a series of hearths and associated layers of paving and burnt material have been being steadily uncovered. So far, three large flagstone hearths have been excavated, each one revealing the next underneath. As each flagstone deteriorated and cracked from heat, the inhabitants replaced it with another, and the surface surrounding the hearths was built up in concert with this. So each of these layers represents its own phase of activity within the broch, meaning the inhabitants have helpfully left us a nice sequential story to uncover.

This season, we’ve uncovered a mounded area of clay, which seems to be packing stones which may represent a more formal hearth arrangement preceding those we’ve already removed. We should be uncovering this feature in the near future, so we look forward to bringing you an update!

The team have been working their way through the layers overlying this promising feature, using a grid to systematically remove the deposits for sampling. All of the sampled material will be sorted through and chemically analysed, which allows us to build a detailed picture of what kinds of activity took place in this area – and how this part of the broch was used over time. This is also revealing a further layer of clay-packed stones in the vicinity of the hearth, possibly another episode of paving. The process has also revealed some interesting artefacts, including a partial stone lamp and several pieces of pottery. The deposits have also been rich in animal bone as well as charcoal, giving us some useful dating evidence for the hearth sequences. 

Meanwhile, Gary has begun a sondage at the western edge of the broch interior, between the mysterious pit he uncovered and excavated last year and the broch wall. This is already proving very illuminating, giving us some hints about the nature of the pit which now looks to have been clay-lined. It also shows a thick layer of orange clay up against the broch wall. As it progresses, the sondage will provide a useful window into what we can expect to encounter as we take the broch interior down to its primary surface. 

Just through the broch entrance, Holly and Sara have been busy sampling the floor deposits in the souterrain, hoping to establish whether these represent primary or secondary phases of use. The area they’re working on includes a greasy deposit towards the entrance, which may be associated with a deliberate pouring of liquids into the souterrain, in a potentially ritually significant act! 

Outside the broch, the team in Trench Q have been busily taking down rubble deposits to reveal more of the extra-mural village buildings and establish their relationship the main broch structure. 

In the south-west extension, the team are further defining the external structures visible on this side of the broch’s outer wall as well as uncovering potential new features and investigating the deposits revealed in the primary cut for the broch itself.

All this progress bodes well for the weeks ahead, so please stay tuned to see what rewards it all yields!

Thanks to Therese McCormick, Area Supervisor