Early Bronze Age arrowhead discovered by Chris Gee while field walking in the World Heritage Site Buffer Zone, Orkney
The University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute have secured funding from Orkney Archaeology Society and Historic Environment Scotland for this year’s community fieldwalking project.
Organised by Dan Lee and Chris Gee, they will be building on the success of the 2016 Orkney World Heritage Site Buffer Zone fieldwalking project in which over 2000 finds were located, recorded and catalogued by archaeology volunteers. Last year, significant scatters of flint, pottery and cramp were found, including stand-out finds such as flint knives, WWII material and decorated pottery.
The project will commence in the next few weeks (dependant on the weather) and will concentrate on fields in the Ring of Brodgar and Maes Howe area, and wider buffer zone which extends either side of the lochs.
If you wish to participate in the fieldwalking and acquire training then contact Dan Lee, Lifelong Learning and Outreach Archaeologist, on studyarchaeology@uhi.ac.uk
We ask that participants are local to Orkney as dates and sites can change at short notice due to farm activity, weather and other issues outside of our control.
Thanks to Orkney Archaeology Society (OAS) and Historic Environment Scotland (HES) for grant funding to undertake the fieldwalking.
There is also a talk being held on Wednesday 8th March by members of the 2016 fieldwalking team at 7.30pm in Stenness Hall. All are welcome and it is free to enter.
If you are in Kirkwall at 2pm on Thursday 12th January then you are cordially invited to the launch of the field walking exhibition being held at Orkney Museum.
The launch is being held at the Orkney Museum, Kirkwall, located in the small temporary exhibition space in the downstairs prehistoric gallery.
The exhibition is the culmination of a year long field walking project started in early 2016 amongst Orkney’s world famous monuments in collaboration with Orkney Archaeology Society. It has been planned and put together by a team of trainee archaeologists who have participated in the project. Exhibits include maps, finds, case studies and personal accounts. Stenness Primary School children have contributed posters about their experiences during a day workshop field walking next to the school.
The project ran throughout 2016 with a series of workshops and events designed to teach people about the practice of archaeological fieldwalking, the processes that occur after fieldwork, the finds and mapping, and telling the story of the project in a museum exhibition.
Throughout, the main aim of the project was to involve members of the local community and generate internationally significant research in the World Heritage Area, and thereby contribute to the wider understanding of these sites and landscapes.
Prize find! (Photo Rod Richmond)
Thanks to Orkney Archaeology Society (OAS) who were awarded grant aid funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund Sharing Heritage scheme to undertake the fieldwalking project within the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site Buffer Zone (HONO WHS), West Mainland, Orkney. Thanks also to Orkney Museum for supporting and hosting the exhibition.
Taken by Gill Tennant, who is taking part in the archaeology fieldwalking project in West Mainland Orkney, these photographs show archaeology in action and working in the local community….providing training and discovering new finds.
Near Loch Harray Orkney
Loch Stenness Orkney
Loch Stenness from the fieldwalk
Placing the GPS in position
Using the GPS
You never know what may turn up….
Oyster Catcher eggs in field 1
Worked Flint from near Deepdale
And some video showing the conditions on a good day in April in Orkney….”Dress for the weather not the occasion”.
Map Orkney Month: Imagining archaeological mappings has just been published in a new open access online journal Livingmaps Review (Vol. 1, No. 1).
The paper is based on Dan Lee’s (Lifelong Learning and Outreach Archaeologist) contribution to the wider Public Archaeology 2015 project, in which 6 archaeologists and 6 non-archaeologists each had a month long project throughout the year.
Participant mapping of Stromness
Map Orkney Month proposed new forms of creative mapping for archaeology. When volunteers were asked to map their world for a day, the idea was to create a new collaborative map of the Orkney archipelago based on everyday journeys and places; a kind of countywide archaeological walkover survey with a twist. In the process, the project challenged traditional archaeological power structures, destabilised the way archaeological knowledge is produced by using non-specialists, and experimented with new modes of archaeological mapping. In the end, each contribution became its own map without the need for traditional archaeological cartography. In particular, the role of imagination in both traditional and experimental mappings became an important theme. Above all, mappers were challenged to think about archaeology in a new way, and in the process contributed something new to the discipline.
After a month of collaborative mapping a new map of Orkney has been created. By thinking big, Map Orkney Month seems to have captured people’s imagination. Our map looks like Orkney, however it is far removed from the Ordnance Survey and the tourist trail of Neolithic World Heritage Sites, brochs and bird watching. Our map is an unfamiliar Orkney, revealed through the experience and creativity of its inhabitants.
The emphasis was on everyday journeys, less familiar places, and recording individual stories and memories of place. The only loose instructions were to record journeys for a single day within March using a handheld GPS or smart phone, and record one site of significance.
Despite some seasonal weather, the first week of fieldwalking in the Orkney World Heritage Site buffer zone has finished and six fields have been walked to the east of the Loch of Harray.
23 intrepid volunteers have been out over three days in mixed weather, thankfully Wednesday was sunny and dry! We’ve walked fields around Maesquoy and Ness Farm (many thanks to the landowners). Views across the loch to Brodgar are spectacular from this part of the parish.
We’ve had some scatters of flint (including a knife and scrapper), an area of cramp (burnt material usually associated with pyres or burials) and some interesting post-medieval and modern pottery, clay pipes and a glass bead.
Due to the wet conditions over the winter few new fields have been ploughed this year, so we have been focusing on fields that were ploughed before Christmas. These are nicely weathered and finds are easily visible on the surface. We are collecting finds in 10m transects and logging the position with an centimetre accurate GPS (Global Navigation Satellite System – currently using US GPS Navstar and Russian Glonass constellations for the techi amongst you !) . Let’s hope the weather improves and the farmers can get ploughing soon.
The walk meets at 2pm at the Stones of Stenness car park on Sunday 6 March. Transport between the two sites will be provided – so no need to walk both ways. For more information please contact the Orkney Rangers on 01856 841 732 or email sandra.miller@hes.scot
Orkney locals are being invited to take part in a fun, organised walk through the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage site, as part of a project to create a ‘Community Map’ – which will record memories, sounds, stories and smells, rather than just the conventional roads and directions.
The finished map will be available online as a free download so that people can learn what matters to Orcadians about their World Heritage Site, and the hope is to produce a print leaflet version in future.
The walk takes place on Sunday 6 March, and is being organised by Historic Environment Scotland and Dan Lee of the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute, based at Orkney College. The stroll is aimed at people of all ages, who will be led by the World Heritage Site Rangers through the landscape between the stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.
Alice Lyall, World Heritage Site coordinator for Historic Environment Scotland said: “We know that the World Heritage Site means a lot to the Orkney Community, so I would encourage them to come and tell us specifically what aspects are important to them, and why. The community map concept is a great way to do this, as it is a medium which allows feelings and ideas to be expressed and recorded in an accessible and engaging way.”
“As well as being a worthwhile project, the walk will be led by our expert guides, and promises to be a lot of fun, so why not come along and share your favourite memories?”
As well as Sunday’s walk, Stenness Primary School at the West Mainland Day Centre will be contributing their memories and experiences to the map.
Orkney Archaeology Society has received a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) Sharing Heritage grant, it was announced today. This exciting project, Orkney World Heritage Site Fieldwalking Project: Learning About Archaeology Amongst Orkney’s World Famous Monuments, in the West Mainland of Orkney and led by Orkney Archaeology Society with partners at the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute, has been given £9900 to undertake archaeological fieldwalking in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site Buffer Zone.
The project, due to start this week, aims to follow the process of a fieldwalking project from discovery in the field, through a series of archaeology workshops, culminating in a temporary exhibition at Tankerness House Museum in Kirkwall in the autumn. The project is open to local volunteers who will be trained in field practice, lithics, finds processing, map making, presenting results, report writing and the final museum exhibition, which will be run as a series of workshops throughout the year. There will also be a fieldwalking workshop run in collaboration with the Historic Environment Scotland Rangers at Stenness Primary School.
Axe butt found in a field in the Stenness area
Fieldwalking involves the surface collection of artefacts in ploughed fields on a grid so that distribution patterns over larger areas can be observed. Fieldwalking around Maes Howe and along the Ness of Brodgar peninsula has the potential to add a significant layer of landscape interpretations to the area. This will enhance the results from the recent World Heritage Area geophysical survey undertaken by the University’s Archaeology Institute. This revealed a multi-period landscape of enclosures, settlements, rig and furrow cultivation and prehistoric sites beneath the ground surface. Fieldwalking has already proved fruitful in the area with the discovery of Barnhouse Neolithic settlement by Professor Colin Richards in the 1980s using this technique. The current fieldwalking project will recover artefacts from every period – for example material from the WWII camps around Maes Howe- not just prehistoric finds, bringing the story of the landscape up to the present day.
There are a number of trainee places available for the fieldwalking and various follow up workshops. Contact Dan Lee at the Archaeology Institute if you wish take part. Volunteers are also needed to help with all aspects of the project.
The project is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and supported in kind by Historic Environment Scotland, Orkney Museums, and Professor Mark Edmonds. Orkney Archaeology Society would like to thanks local landowners for supporting the project and allowing access to fields.
Martin Carruthers, OAS Chair said:
‘Orkney Archaeology Society are excited by this fantastic opportunity to support the local community in discovering the wealth of heritage below their feet in the Orkney World Heritage Area. We are looking forward to the excitement, enjoyment and learning that such projects can bring.’
Dan Lee, Archaeology Institute Lifelong Learning and Outreach Archaeologist said:
‘We are thrilled to be working with Orkney Archaeology Society in such an iconic landscape to provide learning experiences in archaeology for the local community. We hope that local volunteers and trainees will enjoy bringing new stories to this important landscape’
Lucy Casot, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund Scotland, said: “Sharing Heritage is a wonderful opportunity for communities to delve into their local heritage and we are delighted to be able to offer this grant so that the Orkney World Heritage Site Fieldwalking Project can embark on a real journey of discovery. Heritage means such different things to different people, and HLF’s funding offers a wealth of opportunities for groups to explore and celebrate what’s important to them in their area.”
Contact Dan Lee (University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute) for more details and to register as a volunteer 01856 569214 Daniel.Lee@uhi.ac.uk
The project will commence in the next few weeks (dependant on the weather) and will concentrate on fields in the Ring of Brodgar and Maes Howe area, and wider buffer zone which extends either side of the lochs.
There is also a talk being held on Wednesday 8th March by members of the 2016 fieldwalking team at 7.30pm in Stenness Hall. All are welcome and it is free to enter.
We’ve had some scatters of flint (including a knife and scrapper), an area of cramp (burnt material usually associated with pyres or burials) and some interesting post-medieval and modern pottery, clay pipes and a glass bead. 
