We are pleased to publish here a major review of a subject which has been accepted as known about, basically, for so long. The hypotheses advanced are challenging. John Hedges is Director of the North of Scottand Archaeological Services, centred on Binscarth House, Orkney. This organization grew out of the work of MY Hedges and Professor Rmfrew at Quanterness in I972. It is largely funded through the Scottish Development Department and consists of a number of full-time freelance archaeologists, including Bernard Bell, whose Edinburgh M.A. dissertation involved a discussion of iron age studies in Scottish archaeology.
Summary Chance discovery of human bones by contractors at Sumburgh Airport, Shetland, was followed by belated and hasty archaeological investigation of what remained. This and subsequent work shows the site to have consisted of the remains of at least 18 individuals interred in a cist together with various grave goods during a very early part of the Neolithic. The discovery is of major importance; not only are the dated finds and skeletal remains without precedent for Shetland but the funerary rite represented is, on present evidence, unique.
SUMMARY This mound was excavated by James Farrer in 1862 and 1867 and, although many finds were recovered, the primitive methods employed did not allow a satisfactory interpretation of the site to be formed. A long cist cemetery was discovered, and an iron bell recovered from it. Fresh excavations took place in 1977 and, although not completed, showed, with the help of stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates, that a Viking settlement overlay a Pictish one. The cemetery found in the 19th century is assigned to the Viking period. The finds from all the excavations are catalogued and described, and analyses of the faunal, floral and mineral remains presented.
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