Viking and Norse Heritage Project Diary - Week 6
Saturday August 16th & Sunday August 17th, 2008
by Paul Humphreys
The weekend started with a half day tutorial on ‘first aid for finds’ presented by Pieta Greaves, an AOC Archaeology Group Conservator. We learned that the rate of decay of buried objects slows down as they gradually approach a state of chemical equilibrium with their immediate environment. Excavating such objects breaks the equilibrium and the condition of finds can rapidly deteriorate.
Pieta explained how best to handle objects made from different materials in order to minimise their deterioration. Pieta also talked about the special techniques used to treat objects in the conservation laboratory, and showed us examples of some of the more commonly used conservation materials.
Saturday afternoon and Sunday saw us return to the excavation of a possible turf built building. This has proved to be fascinating, challenging and confusing to the point of redefining the word ephemeral. Although the feature has the form of a building, all that remains of the supposed walls show no visible vestiges of a turf core. There are cogent arguments why that might be the case and it is hoped subsequent micro-morphological analysis of section sample may provide an explanation.
Pieta was able to demonstrate her skills by encasing and lifting intact an isolated slab of dark organic soil for future analysis.
So; much head scratching, two very large piles of sand and still no answer; well that’s archaeology folks!
Tuesday August 19th, 2008
by Andy Heald
Following consent from the landowner and Scottish Natural Heritage we began a new trench in Dunnet Bay. The area is across the road from the Norse activity found a few years ago (walls, bone combs etc). The general area is one of sand dunes; fieldwalking over the years has revealed walls poking through the surfaces and a variety of bone and pottery. This area has been walked extensively by Paul Humphreys and in recent years a new wall has appeared eroding through the surface of one of the dunes. The wall appears as a couple of courses high. In tune with the general research design where we target areas where fieldwalking, survey and coring suggest human activity, we decided to open a five metres by five metres trench. Unsurprisingly, we spent many hours removing sand but towards the end of the day we found a series of archaeological contexts and further walling that gives us hope for tomorrow.
As throughout the project the turn out was very good and the enthusiasm of the team is breathtaking. One pleasing thing is that many individuals are telling us how much they have learnt throughout the project and how it was wetted their appetite for further work. Indeed, there were shrieks of excitement (no, literally!) from certain individuals when they found walling and new contexts under the sand. I wonder if there will be more shrieks tomorrow….?
Wednesday August 20th, 2008
by Juha Martilla
Today we continued our new trench. Another warm and sunny day and another good turnout. We spent the morning trowelling back more sand in the hope of uncovering more walling and anthropogenic soils. After tea break we were rewarded by both – a wall is now appearing at the western edge of the trench and may be related to the exposed eastern one. Inside the space defined by the walls was a very black soil which ran across most of the trench, containing small amounts of bone and shell. It is unclear at present what this soil is but it does not appear to be midden – it may be the remnants of animal manure. No dating material yet.
We also continued work on our other site – the area which appeared on survey and fieldwalking to be a structure. Excavation revealed very little although we are hopeful that soil analysis may provide some answers. To this end we cleaned all of the sections in preparation for sampling and recording.
Thursday August 21st, 2008
by Andy Heald
What is going on….rain? Heavy rain overnight and drizzle for parts of the day – but at least it made the contexts clearer. Work continued in the site with the dark soil and the walling. It is clear that the dark soil is but one of a series of deposits associated with these layers. Excavation continued to reveal that the dune has been very badly damaged by rabbits, the burrowing removing and blurring contexts. That said, we came across more dark soils with some bone, intermixed with wind blown sand. The team spent a great deal of time discussing what the walling represented and consensus was that this may have been an outbuilding or, more likely, some sort of outfield, given over, perhaps, to cattle and sheep. Given the location of the area – right on the edge of a substantial dune- this may be correct – perhaps the associated houses lie further north. We have no dateable material but the team do feel that the location, the proximity to finds of Late Norse activity, and the lack of post-medieval finds may suggest that the site dates to around the medieval , Late Norse era. This is obviously purely conjectural, and we will have to await post-excavation analysis.
Most of the day was also given over to the continued training and teaching of the team. We spent part of the day checking the field records (context sheets, Harris matrices etc) and others were trained in the art of section drawing. It was heartening to hear that everyone felt they had learnt a great deal during the project from soil descriptions through to section drawing.
The best part of the day was the visit of over twenty primary 6 pupils from Castletown Primary School in the afternoon. When they arrived on site they were given a quick chat about what they believed the Vikings to be, where they came from and what date they were. They were also asked if they knew what an archaeologist was. After a tour of the trenches they then helped us look for finds from our excavation soil. Despite the rain they all seemed to have really enjoyed the experience. It was great to see the children on site and they genuinely seemed enthused about being archaeologists. Hopefully this enthusiasm can be carried forward in future years. Primary 7 are visiting the site tomorrow.
...we ended the afternoon by beginning backfilling (in the rain)!
Thursday August 21st and Friday August 22nd, 2008
by Paul Humphreys
What the Children Thought
The children from P6 & P7 at Castletown Primary School visited the site on Thursday and Friday last and learned about how archaeologists find out about the lives of people who lived many years ago. Here we see then sieving excavated soil for artefacts and ecofacts; learning about site plans and seeing how excavation is carried out.
Perhaps some of them will become archaeologists when they are older either as a hobby or as a career.
"Castletown School, Primary 6, went for a trip to the archaeology at Dunnet on Thursday. I really enjoyed our visit and I learnt a lot about the Vikings. I loved getting to find all of the different objects in the sand. I am glad we went to visit the archaeology."
- By NG
"I really enjoyed our visit to see the archaeology at Dunnet. It was REALLY fun to find all the things that the archaeologists had missed. It was good fun finding out things about Vikings that I did not know."
- By C.S.F
"It was fun going to the archaeologist’s site because we sieved sand to find pieces of pottery, bones and teeth. I was excited when I found pieces of pottery and a tooth. Thank you Andy and all the others that helped us"
- By AF
"We went to Dunnet bay for a Viking hunt with Andy and his friends who are digging in the sand and are looking for a Viking house. I enjoyed our visit."
- By CF
"We went to Dunnet bay for an archaeology trip. Andy was the guide. Our group found a jar and a bone in the sand. We also found two teeth!"
- By CMF and NSW
"Thank you for showing us around the place. I liked it because I found a bone and two teeth. I hope can come back. I liked drawing the Viking man."
- By DM
"We really enjoyed going to the Archaeological dig. It was very interesting and lots of fun. We were very excited when we found something unusual especially when someone found an animal’s leg bone. Thank you for letting us visit."
- By EG and LD
"Our class went to visit the archaeologists in Dunnet Bay to see if we could find a Viking house. We liked digging up all the things that were in the wheelbarrows. We all had different team names they were Disney land, Paris and Castletown. We found a horse bone and rabbit bones, bits of pottery and some other things. We really enjoyed it. Thank you to Andy for showing us around."
- By G McL and R.K
"Primary 6 really enjoyed going to visit the Archaeologist to look for a Viking house. We found a tooth in the sand. The archaeologists were annoyed that the rabbits had been digging holes in their site!"
- By JA and SA
"We enjoyed going to Dunnet to be archaeologists. To start with Andy played a game with us. It was called Viking people. We had to draw a Viking man and a Viking woman. People think Vikings wore horned helmets, but Andy says they did not! They wore helmets without horns."
- By G.McW and J.G.
"Thank you for asking us to come to your archaeology project .We enjoyed finding things out of the wheelbarrow. It was very good fun."
- By LS and GS
"Primary 6 went to visit the archaeologists at Dunnet bay. It was very interesting. They are looking for a Viking long house. So far they have found things like broken bits of pottery, bone, rope and even shells. They hid things for us to find in a wheel barrow with sand. We had to take scoops of sand and sieve it though. That was my favourite bit. Thank-you to Andy for showing it around!"
- By P.J
"We had a great time at Dunnet. It was lots of fun finding all the things in the wheelbarrow. I liked speaking to George and Paul. I hope you find the Viking house soon!"
- By SS and JM
by Paul Humphreys
Well folks that’s it for the time being; all the trenches have been backfilled and the archaeology has been handed back to the not-so-safe keeping of the bunnies. Did we find the Vikings? Well perhaps we did and perhaps we didn’t; only time and soil micromorphology will tell.
Perhaps this area of blue clay deposit in trench 3 may prove to be a good omen.
Can you see what it is yet – could it be our first evidence of Vikings?
Finally I would just like to offer my sincere thanks to all the AOC team and all the volunteers for making such a great start to the project; hope to see you all soon as the coring programme continues.
by Katrina Gordon
We really enjoyed Andy's final lecture and the party atmosphere of the gathering on Saturday night - for those who missed it here are some pictures of Belinda's incredible Viking "context cake" just to make you drool!
And if you missed the cake, then I guess you missed Celia's rather special AOC Viking Song, too - perhaps we'll have to ask her to video it and have a YouTube link?
Thanks to the experts from AOC for a really enjoyable summer project - looking forward to seeing you all again soon.
