|
Friday 8th November |
|
Tidemills
Many archaeologists think
that there is little to learn from the excavation of late
post-medieval sites due to the wealth of existing cartographic,
photographic and documentary sources. We will look at some of the
results of the excavations at Tidemills to see what the archaeology
has taught us and how it integrates, or not, with the historical sources.
|
|
Luke Barber |
|
Friday 10th January |
|
The Broch at The Cairns:
Excavating an Iron Age Household (Via Zoom)
There are few Scottish
archaeological phenomena more iconic and evocative than the
remarkable towering brochs, the tallest and best-preserved
prehistoric drystone domestic buildings in Temperate and Northern
Europe. Yet, despite over 150 years of antiquarian and archaeological
investigation, few brochs have been fully excavated. In the modern
era, excavations have rarely reached the earliest occupation deposits
thus limiting what can be learned.
Situated on the Isle of South
Ronaldsay in Orkney, The Cairns is a large, well-preserved, deeply
stratified, multi-phase prehistoric and early historic site spanning
the Neolithic to Viking/Norse eras. A substantial broch or Complex
Atlantic Roundhouse of the Iron Age period, some 22 metres in
external diameter is one of the main research foci of the project.
The broch's 5-metre-thick walls contain six 'intramural' chambers,
and the remains of a staircase, demonstrating that this was a
complex, monumental, and multi-storied building.
Excavations have shown that
the 11-metre diameter broch interior contains one of the most
complete and coherent layouts recovered from the inside of a major
roundhouse. Work on the interior has permitted unrivalled access to well-preserved,
stratified occupation deposits, rich in artefacts and detailed
environmental information for the broch household. The archaeology of
the Cairns broch presents us with both the formal monumental
architecture and the more intimate details of human life during its
lengthy inhabitation. In addition, several sets of human remains have
been found in associated with the broch and mean that, with unusually
high precision, we can literally peer into the intimate lives of the
Iron Age household from 2000 years ago.
|
|
Martin Carruthurs,
University of the Highlands
and Islands Archaeology Institute |
