SAIR 3::Bronze Age farms and Iron Age farm mounds of the Outer Hebrides

by John Barber

with contributions by Geoff Collins, Lisbeth Crone, Alan Duffy, Andrew Dugmore, Nyree Finlay, Will Forbes, Ann-Marie Gibson, Paul Halstead, Ken Hirons, Heather F James, Andrew Jones, Glynis Jones, Frances Lee, Darag Lehane, Ann MacSween, Antoinette Mannion, Ian D Mate, Rod McCullagh, Simon Moseley, Andrew Newton, Chris Pain, Alix Powers, Jim Rideout, William Ritchie, Marian Scott, Dale Serjeantson, Andrea Smith & Nigel Thew

ISBN 0-903903-72-5

Published in March 2003 by The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, in association with The Council for British Archaeology and Historic Scotland, in Adobe Acrobat format. Available free of charge (see Terms & Conditions of Use)

Report Summary

Hebridean sites of the coastal sand cliffs and associated machair, or sandy plain have been known for many years. Artefacts and ecofacts of various types have long been collected from archaeological sites in the eroding sand-cliffs of the machairs of the Outer Hebrides. Early in 1983, personnel of the then Central Excavation Unit of Historic Scotland's predecessor revisited very nearly all of the coastal archaeological sites then known in the Long Isle, with the specific task of identifying those at immediate threat from coastal erosion and of assessing the feasibility of their excavation or preservation. Some 32 sites were seen to be undergoing active erosion; at nine of them preservation was not being pursued and excavation was feasible. These sites were of two morphotypes: sites exposed in roughly vertical sand-cliffs and sites exposed over relatively large horzontal areas of sand deflation. It was decided to examine one sand-cliff site along its exposed face. The site selected was Balelone in North Uist, its excavation designed to explore both the problems associated with the excavation of deep midden sites with complex stratigraphy and the not-inconsiderable problems of excavation in sand. In the light of the Balelone trial excavation, a new approach was called for. A structured approach aimed firstly at establishing the three-dimensional extent of the sites to be examined (by coring at the intersections of a 10m grid laid out over an area of 100 x 100m). Four sites were then sampled (the sand-cliff sites of Baleshare, on the island of the same name off the west coast of North Uist and Hornish Point, South Uist and the deflation sites of South Glendale, South Uist and Newtonferry, North Uist) within a rigorously-defined research framework. Tapestry excavation, that is the excavation and recording of a strip of deposits along an exposed face, was the preferred method of investigation because it did not expose any more of the site to erosion than had previously been exposed. The authors conclude that tapestry excavations are appropriate for deeply-stratified sites with complex stratigraphies, where the conservation of the unexcavated remains is a high priority. Thus, they provide an ideal mechanism for sampling on such sites, e.g. coastal erosion sites, urban assessments etc.

The volume of information returned from these tapestry excavations has necessitated the use of a number of information-synthesising techniques. It has also required an approach to the presentation of the data and their interpretation which differs slightly from normal practice. In Chapters 1 to 3 the background to the project is presented together with a general introduction to the physical environment, the natural history and archaeology of the Western isles of Scotland. The results of the excavations are presented in Chapters 4 to 8 in a highly synthesised form, with field interpretation, post-excavation analyses and final archaeological interpretation summarised by Block (units of the depositional sequence, made up of context & feature groups, cf. the 1992 Interpreting Stratigraphy conference). Chapters 9 to 18 contain the detailed results of the post-excavation analyses together with the conclusions of the project (in the form of a project review and discussions of site formation processes, dating, individual site interpretations, the structures, site economy and the term ‘marginality’ in the context of the Atlantic Iron Age: chapter 18).

The machair sites were formed by sand accretion, facilitated by human activities ranging from construction to refuse disposal and cultivation. Their formation was intermittent and they underwent episodes of major erosion, isolating the sites from the landscape mass of the machair sands. Despite their apparent wealth of suitable material, the dating of Hebridean coastal sites presents special problems. The strategy here was to provide a dating framework for the sequences on each site, from which the dates of archaeological significant structures and events could then be arrived at by extrapolation. Preliminary dates from the earliest and latest strata at Balelone spanned such a small period that a First Millennium BC date-range could be assigned. At Baleshare, the deposits investigated were chiefly later Bronze Age; following abandonment (roughly 200 radiocarbon years) of the Period I cultivated soil Period II represented extensive, manured, cultivated fields in the vicinity of a settlement now lost to the sea. As Period II went on. the settlement seems to have moved closer to the excavated area. After another hiatus of a minimum of 350 radiocarbon years, there were further cultivated plots and associated settlement of Iron Age date (Period III). By contrast, the site at Hornish Point (including successive wheelhouses and associated cultivation areas) is considered to be all of one - dynamic, Iron Age - period, lasting some 300 radiocarbon years (with potentially earlier structures unexcavated). A post-medieval blackhouse of characteristic Lewisian form had been cut into the settlement mound. The three dates from Newtonferry suggest that some Early Medieval activity took place at the site, while the bulk of the deposits date from the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries AD. At South Glendale, the radiocarbon dates indicate occupation sometime between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries AD; stratigraphically lower, fragmented and truncated remains were prehistoric, probably early Bronze Age. 

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Report contents

(each section can be downloaded as a separate PDF file by clicking on the section title)

	Title Page
	Organization of Volume
	Table of Contents
	List of Illustrations
	List of Plates
	List of Tables
	Acknowledgements
1	Background to the Western Isles Project
2	The physical background
3	The natural history and archaeology
4	Excavations at Balelone	H James & P Strong
5	Excavations at Baleshare	H James & A Duffy
6	Excavations at Hornish Point	H James & R McCullagh
7	Excavations at South Glendale	H James & W Forbes
8	Excavations at Newtonferry	H James & J Rideout
9	Research questions and methodology
10	The artefact assemblages
11	The human, animal, bird and fish bones assemblages
12	The charred plant remains from Baleshare and Hornish Point	G Jones
13	Pollen analyses of organic horizons from the Balelone midden	A Mannion
14	The molluscan assemblage	N Thew
15	The phytolith assemblage	A Powers
16	Pollen and diatom diagrams from Loch Scolpaig and Balelone Farm, North Uist	A Mannion & S Moseley
17	Preliminary investigation of lake sediments from the machairs of the Outer Hebrides	K Hirons
18	Interpretation and discussion
	Bibliography
	Index
	Tables