We had to significantly reduce the scale of excavation at The Cairns this year but before the covers go back on we’re inviting the public to come along for a tour and an update on the work undertaken this year.
We’re sorry to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances this summer’s excavation at The Cairns has been cancelled.
The recording of Martin Carruthers’s talk – People of the Broch: Excavating an Iron Age Community at The Cairns – to the Orkney Archaeology Society on Thursday, May 26.
Our ongoing excavation at The Cairns is the subject of this year’s summer exhibition at the Stromness Museum.
Excavation will resume at The Cairns this summer – from June 13 until July 8, 2022.
Archaeology Institute excavations at The Cairns, in South Ronaldsay, will be among the topics covered by the University of Glasgow’s new season of free online seminars.
The four University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute talks featured in the fifth annual Orkney Archaeology Society Brochtoberfest are now available to view online.
All University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute excavations were cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic. This summer, as lockdown measures ease, archaeologists are looking forward to getting back to some fieldwork.
A new paper co-authored by the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute’s Dr Ingrid Mainland and Martin Carruthers was launched today and is free to access online.
The Orkney Archaeology Society talk on the ongoing excavation at the Iron Age site at The Cairns, South Ronaldsay, Orkney, is now available online.
“The Life and Times of The Cairns : A Thousand Years of living at a Broch” was given by University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute lecturer, and Cairns site director, Martin Carruthers.
Dr Simon Gilmour, director of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, discusses the post-excavation work at the ongoing University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute excavation at The Cairns, South Ronaldsay, Orkney.
A new radiocarbon date for a shell-filled pit at The Cairns Iron Age site in South Ronaldsay shows that it was in use in the fifth or sixth century AD.
The pit appears to have been used to cook shellfish and after consumption, their shells, all 18,637 of them, were put back in it.
A tiny sliver found during soil-sample processing has brought the number of ancient glass fragments from the interior of The Cairns broch to nine.
However, unlike most of the eleven examples of glass recovered across the South Ronaldsay site, this dark-green shard does not appear to be a bead fragment but may instead have come from Roman glassware.
The Cairns Excavation Site Director & University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute Lecturer Martin Carruthers talks about the multi cultural experience of Iron Age society in Orkney as the exploitative Roman Empire appeared in Britain.
As a society we are aided in our understanding of the Covid-19 emergency and the way we can address the social, economic and political effects through our use of technology…..but what of society in the Iron Age? How did they cope with emergencies that affected their way of life? Did they change their way of doing things permanently?
DNA investigations undertaken on a large collection of whale bone from the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute Iron Age archaeological site of The Cairns, have afforded a glimpse into the complex relationship of Iron Age communities with whales.
Dr Antonia Thomas is a lecturer in archaeology at the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute based in Orkney, Scotland. Antonia’s work focuses on art and archaeology in its broadest sense – from the interpretation of prehistoric art, to the intersections between contemporary art practice and the archaeological imagination.
The University of the Highlands and Islands research dig at The Cairns has now come to an end for this year. With the site safely covered up, it is time for site director Martin Carruthers to sum up…
