Trial excavations on Pictish and Viking settlements at Saevar Howe, Birsay, Orkney

Hedges, John W.

doi:10.3366/gas.1983.10.10.73

Cited by 17 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The total amount of sediment excavated will clearly affect the fish NISP and there are insufficient data available to stand-ardize the measure by unit volume. Large-and small-scale excavations are represented in both periods (Hedges 1983;Morris 1989;Pollard 1992; Hunter e f a]. B.B.…”

Section: Zooarchaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet and ethnicity during the Viking colonization of northern Scotland: evidence from fish bones and stable carbon isotopes

2001

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Section: Zooarchaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet and ethnicity during the Viking colonization of northern Scotland: evidence from fish bones and stable carbon isotopes

2001

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“…At Crosskirk, the seated burial is associated with the main period of occupation of the broch, while the two other cists appear to post-date this main phase of use (Fairhurst 1984, 101-3). These, along with more well-known complexes at Buckquoy and Saevar Howe in Orkney (Ritchie 1977;Hedges 1983), suggests that the transformation of settlement sites into burial places, and apparently vice versa, was a feature of the later first millennium A.D. in Caithness as elsewhere.…”

Section: Lambsdale Leans As a Burial Sitementioning

confidence: 91%

A Later prehistoric house and Early Medieval buildings in Northern Scotland: excavations at Loch Shurrery and Lambsdale Leans, Caithness, 1955, with a note on Lower Dounreay

MacLaren¹,

Campbell²,

Hooper³

et al. 2003

sair

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Two rescue excavations at the northern edge of a rather sparsely occupied part of the interior of Caithness are reported here, lying near to one of the largest clusters of archaeological sites in the modern county. In the event, the monuments were not threatened, and survive.Because of the limited nature of the excavation at Loch Shurrery (NGR ND 043568),the main value of the evidence about the hut circle relates to its structure and dating. The excavated remains represented a medium-sized oval house with a west-facing entrance. It had an off-centre hearth of rectangular construction. It was rather different in structure to the majority of the small group of such sites which have been excavated in the northern part of the Scottish mainland, as it did not appear to have an internal ring of post holes. In addition, its western entrance is not matched at the other sites, where entrance orientations are to the south, east or south-east. The wall of the Loch Shurrery house was fairly thick and the excavation suggested that it was complex, while the entrance passageway was quite long. The existence of door checks is also an unusual feature and may relate to the entrance structures of brochs and other substantial roundhouses. Two samples of charcoal from the hearth inside the hut circle were submitted for radiocarbon dating: the determinations produce calibrated ranges (at 2-sigma) of 346-4 cal BC and 341 cal BC-1 cal AD. It is likely that most of the excavated, undecorated pottery is also Iron Age, part of a broad tradition of very coarsely tempered pottery. Not-withstanding evidence of extended occupation, the whole period of construction and occupation may have occurred within the Iron Age.The mound of Lambsdale Leans (NGR ND 051548)lies in Reay parish, situated on low-lying ground at the head of Loch Shurrery and close to where its main tributary (the Torran Water) enters the loch from the south. The main characteristics of the this partially-excavated site are the presence of what appeared to be two extended inhumations and the remnants of possible structures associated with several layers of burnt material. Lambsdale Leans itself was a natural mound, of elongated shape and composed largely of sand, into which were set the burials and structural remains. The burials (one certainly female, the other probably so) were not in cists. The structural remains, while not fully excavated, accord well with the general tenor of the available evidence of later first millennium AD buildings in the north of Scotland. Both structures at Lambsdale Leans had floors comprising roughly laid paving, edged with upright slabs, and with an outer kerb of stones. The earliest-dated pottery sherds, unstratified, are from a single grass- tempered handmade vessel whose form cannot be determined. Overall,on one interpretation the Lambsdale Leans evidence favours a context within the Early Medieval period in Caithness. The pottery however, being mostly C12-C13 oxidised wheel-thrown vessels, can be seen to support the suggestion that occupation on the site may have begun in the Medieval period.

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“…Here limpets were the most commonly gathered types, followed by periwinkle, but the contexts were such that it was difficult to tell if the shellfish was for human consumption or for bait (Rackham 1989: 260). Thick deposits of limpet and whelk shells were also found during 19th-and 20th-century excavations at Saevar Howe, with settlement here dating to both the Pictish and Viking period (Hedges 1983). Again there was little evidence on whether the shellfish were a primary food source or were used as fish bait (Hedges 1983: 113).…”

Section: Wider Parallelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early medieval shellfish gathering at the Sands of Forvie, Aberdeenshire: feast or famine?

Noble¹,

Turner²,

Hamilton³

et al. 2017

PSAS

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From 2010 to 2014, extensive shell middens were excavated at the Sands of Forvie, Aberdeenshire, and the wider landscape explored through a programme of soil and geophysical survey. The middens were dated to the 1st millennium ad and appear to represent intensive gathering and cooking of shellfish, particularly mussels. To date, few middens of the scale of the Forvie examples have been identified in Scotland, but the middens share some parallels with similar examples found in a broader North Sea context. This article reports on the findings of the excavations, provides an outline of the chronology of the middens, including Bayesian modelling of dates, and a brief review of the growing evidence for shellfish gathering in 1st-millennium ad Scotland and the wider northwest European context.

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Trial excavations on Pictish and Viking settlements at Saevar Howe, Birsay, Orkney

Cited by 17 publications

References 22 publications

Diet and ethnicity during the Viking colonization of northern Scotland: evidence from fish bones and stable carbon isotopes

Diet and ethnicity during the Viking colonization of northern Scotland: evidence from fish bones and stable carbon isotopes

A Later prehistoric house and Early Medieval buildings in Northern Scotland: excavations at Loch Shurrery and Lambsdale Leans, Caithness, 1955, with a note on Lower Dounreay

Early medieval shellfish gathering at the Sands of Forvie, Aberdeenshire: feast or famine?

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