Cults Loch Crannog Excavation 2008 - Web Diary
Wednesday 3rd September 2008
We have had 2 days of bright dry weather followed by a day of occasionally torrential rain in the initial stages of our excavation, which has reduced the site to a mudbath in places. Nevertheless we are making progress. The first day was hard work picking and shovelling the remains of the stony layer that covers the site. The bulk of this had been stripped off on Saturday by a minidigger - Graeme found the only find of the dig so far while watching the minidigger - a fragment of shale bracelet. We are now trowelling back across what could be the remnants of an occupation surface - it is very organic with flecks of charcoal and burnt bone throughout. Stakes are appearing - in particular there is a crescent of stakes which look like they could be a continuation of the line of stakes we found last year and which we thought might be the perimeter palisade. The new stakes are quite widely spaced, though and would not have kept the hordes at bay. Behind these stakes, ie 'within' the crannog, are a scatter of other stakes but they are not making any sense yet. Horizontal timbers are appearing - there is a large log which could be a collapsed post.
Our volunteers, Paul, Diane and Vivian, started yesterday in the worst possible conditions and despite trowelling through mud appeared to be enjoying the experience!
Thursday 4th September 2008
Today we really started to make a breakthrough with the site. The weather was great, and we were able to excavate a lot more of the organic peaty deposits away from around the structural piles that form the site. We are digging through layers of what we believe to be occupation deposit, and in some areas the deposits contain layers of reeds laid down as flooring. It's fantastic to be excavating such rich archaeology, that doesn't survive on most dryland sites.
Today we were joined by archaeologists Tony Brown and Laura Basell, who have been coring the deposits in and around the loch, aiming to reconstruct the history of the loch and activity around it.
An Excavation Open Day will be taking place on Saturday 6th September, 2pm to 5pm. We look forward to seeing you there!
Monday 8th September 2008
You will have noticed that there was no entry for Friday - this is because we wish to wipe it from our memories! It rained for most of the day, turning the site into something resembling the Somme and progress was very slow. There were parts of the site which soon became unworkable. Tony and Laura continued their coring programme and made some important contributions to our general understanding of the site, including confirming that the site is indeed entirely man-made. It may have been constructed by building a shallow coffer dam of large stones around a natural ridge of peat protruding out from the shore and then infilling in the centre with brash.
In contrast, today has been a bright, dry day and although we had to spend some time cleaning areas which we had already cleaned on Thursday, we did expose some new features, including an area of stones which cuts throught the piling around the crannog and may be an access route from the site out onto the loch. We also had our 2nd major find of the excavation so far - Diana, one of the local volunteers found a very fine whetstone in amongst the occupation deposits.
Tuesday 9th September 2008
Another day of blistering winds and torrential rain - what fun! We had to abandon the site at 3 pm because it was becoming unworkable but not before we had managed to complete a full plan of all of the significant features on site. We now have what appears to be a swathe of stakes up to 4 m wide around the NE quadrant of the site. We started half-sectioning the stone features - they are beginning to appear as though they are simply dumps of material rather than deliberately constructed features. In fact, a lot of the deposits on the site appear to be dumps, their edges not clearly defined but morphing into the other deposits around them. This, together with the lack of any clear evidence for a superstructure, is beginning to make us think that what we have is the degraded remnants of the core of the crannog - 3 more days to figure it out!
Wednesday 10th September 2008
Well, it rained so much overnight that our trench was flooded this morning! With some hard work by Tessa and Alan with the pump we were able to drain the water though... so much so that Tessa was excavating 30cm below the loch water level! We continued today by excavating sondages to give us sections through the organic deposit. This has been revealing since we encountered lots of timbers deeper into the organic silts, including lots of piles that hadn't been seen before. The preservation of the wood is much better the further into the site we dig, and some of the piles that we extracted as samples today had well preserved tool facets on their points.
Anne has been taking wood samples from horizontal timbers and piles for species identification and, hopefully, for dendrochronological analysis. Hopefully this will help us to phase periods of construction on the site.
Thursday 11th September 2008
Arrived on site this morning to find the site entirely underwater! The pump is now on constantly to keep the site drained but we are now working below the water level in the loch! Graeme and Anne continued sampling the horizontal timbers and stakes - some of the stakes are very shallow and in poor condition as a result but one stake was deeply embedded and Graeme ended up digging up to 1 m down around it. At this level we encountered well preserved horizontal timbers, small sharpened stakes and bundles of rods with chopped ends - toolmarks were very clear.
Elsewhere on the site sections were being drawn and recorded. Local archaeologist, Jane Murray visited the site and brought with her a rubbing stone which she had found on the surface of the promontory many years ago - our 3rd significant find!
Friday 12th September 2008
The last day was thankfully dry, the sun finally making an appearance in the afternoon. The day was taken up with recording, drawing sections and finishing plans of the site. Graeme continued sampling the stakes, going to some depths to retrieve them! Some of the stakes were inserted up to 1.5 m below the excavated surface, while others were very shallow, some surviving only 40-50 cm below the surface. The toolmarks on the sharpened tips of the stakes which were inserted deepest have survived very well while those at the surface are very decayed. This will provide information on the history of the water levels in the loch.
Alan cored two transects across the site to determine the depths of deposits surviving below the excavated surface. He encountered the loch bed at about 1.20 m below the surface. Over this was a natural deposit of peat 20-30 cm thick – it is onto this surface that a mound of brushwood and logs was built up to create the crannog.
All the timber and samples will now be studied back in the laboratory and we hope that their analysis will answer many of the questions raised by the excavation. Thanks to our volunteers, particularly Diane, who was there to the last, providing up-to-date advice on the weather!
