Dig Diary – why won’t Structure Twelve just play the game?

Friday, July 5, 2024 (9:33 PM)

Site director Nick (right) with Emma Jones and Dr James Dilley on site today. (📷 Jo Bourne)

Day Ten
Friday, July 5, 2024

Well that’s been a very busy day, with excavation now in full swing across the site. While the dig team laboured in the trenches we also saw a steady stream of interested visitors all day.

Among these were Dr James Dilley and Emma Jones, who run AncientCraft – a heritage service providing replica prehistoric artefacts, living history demonstrations, workshops and consultation for museums and media.

Back in 2020, in the depths of lockdown, Sigurd chanced upon James on Instagram, where he was running weekly demonstrations and tutorials on flint (and glass) knapping. It soon became clear that AncientCraft and the Ness project shared the same goals – to make prehistoric archaeology accessible to all. So imagine our delight when we were able to welcome both James and Emma to site today.

Mark, Jim and Nick view some of James' remarkable replica artefacts. (📷 Jo Bourne)

After participating in the 11am tour, they met with Nick and Mark to discuss matters archeological. And to everyone’s glee James had brought some of his stunning replica artefacts, which had Mark and Nick positively drooling! And no wonder, they really are stunning pieces of work. Take a look at the AncientCraft website to see for yourself.

We’ll begin today’s round-up in Trench J, where we welcomed back Aaron, who has been a member of the dig team for many years. He slotted back into place effortlessly and we can report that steady progress has been made in Structure Five – its floors and hearth.

We mentioned that hearth yesterday, particularly that it had a fine stone base. It is now clear that the slabs used for this had been carefully worked and shaped to fit neatly into the bottom of the fireplace!

Excavation under way in Structure One. (📷 Jo Bourne)

Over in Structure One, the midden under the north end of building continued to produce some lovely little sherds of pottery. In the south end, the diggers also revealed the remains of some more furniture features relating the One’s primary phase.

These appear to have been deliberated dismantled at some point in the building’s life.

They have also encountered deposits of grey clay lying over the remains of a suspected earlier building under Structure One. How this relates to that building and/or Structure One remains to be seen, so watch this space.

In Structure Eight, now that sampling is complete, the contents of all the building’s multiple hearth have now been fully excavated.

The hearth in Structure Seventeen, one of Eight’s two predecessors, was also excavated, revealing it, like Structure Five’s, has a stone base. This example, however, is nowhere near as lovely as Five’s.

You’ll know by now that Structure Thirty-Four is a strange little building to the south of Structure Eight. Earlier this week Gary recovered a pot section and a selection of animal bones from its hearth. These have now been examined by zooarchaeologist Professor Ingrid Mainland, from the UHI Archaeology Institute, and have proved to be quite interesting.

The cattle remains, it seems, were from a very young animal – either newborn or perhaps stillborn.

Cathy sampling the Structure Thirty-Four hearth. (📷 Jo Bourne)

Yesterday we explained that archaeomagnetic dating of the hearth had been ruled out. However, there was a rethink today so Dr Cathy Batt, from the University of Bradford, moved in with her equipment.

Although she is not convinced the analysis will produce results, Cathy was firmly of the opinion that it’s better to have the samples and try than not. So fingers crossed.

Ray, Tom and Chris continued the heavy work today, removing vast quantities of midden from the baulk overlying the northern end of Structure Twenty-Seven in Trench T. It’s hard, dirty work but the trio made great inroads, ready for excavation to resume on the building.

That will kick-off next week, when Rick Barton, fresh from The Cairns dig in South Ronaldsay, arrives on site on Monday.

The return of Rick, who has supervised work in Trench T for a number of years, will see Twenty-Seven’s floor covers removed for the first time this season and work to excavate down to the occupation deposits get under way.

Jill excavating the Structure Ten animal bone deposit. (📷 Jo Bourne)

Another deposit of animal bone turned up in Structure Ten today, specifically in the north-eastern sondage over Structure Twenty. Fresh from the success of his Masters by Research (MRes) viva yesterday, Jackson took a look at the bone and concluded they belonged to sheep and cattle.

Now to Structure Twelve. What can we say about Twelve? Once again, just when you think you’re getting a handle on this most infuriating of buildings, it launches yet another curveball!

Yesterday, Jan revealed the lower courses of Twelve’s original east central pier. Today, she continued excavating and the results had supervisor Jim and site director Nick throwing their hands skyward.

Why?

Because Twelve’s eastern pier flaunts all we thought we knew about the Neolithic fondness of symmetry. It should, you see, project inwards at a nice 90-degree angle from the wall face to line up beautifully with its opposite number on the western wall.

Off at an angle! Structure Eight's east-central pier (white dashed line) heading off in the wrong direction! The building's east-west entrance passage is highlighted in yellow. (📷 Sigurd Towrie) — Off at an angle! Structure Eight’s east-central pier (white dashed line) heading off in the wrong direction! The building’s east-west entrance passage is highlighted in yellow. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

But of course it doesn’t. Instead, the pier shoots off across the interior, at a jaunty angle, towards the north-west! And the entrance passageway we once thought followed the line of the east pier? It behaves itself and travels in a beautiful straight line east-west, pretty much ignoring the orientation of the skewed pier! What’s going on? Absolutely no idea. Yet.

Structure Twelve in its primary phase. It now seems, however, that the east-central pier (highlighted) is not as straight as once thought! — Structure Twelve in its primary phase. It now seems, however, that the east-central pier (highlighted) is not as straight as originally thought!

The path of Structure Twenty-Eight's inner wall face. (📷 Sigurd Towrie) — The path of Structure Twenty-Eight’s inner wall face (highlighted in yellow). (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Frustrations aside, more of the inner wall face of Structure Twenty-Eight – one of Twelve’s predecessors – was revealed today.

But, surprise surprise, it casts doubts on the idea (also mentioned yesterday) that the puzzling curved wall across Twelve’s northern end was a later addition to Twenty-Eight.

So it’s back to the drawing board!

Trying to wrap my head around these conundrums is hard enough, let alone trying to explain them in writing. So we’ll leave it there for now and hopefully some of the answers will emerge in the coming days…

We’ve now reached the end of week two, which meant we bade farewell to some of our Meet-and-Greeters this afternoon.

Nothing new in that – it happens every year. But today, their departure brought home the fact that this is the final season of fieldwork.

Instead of “see you next year” it was “bye”!

Our thanks to them all for all the help over the years and we now look forward to welcoming a new batch on Monday.

Monday will also see a new intake of diggers, including students from the UHI Archaeology Institute, who will take part in the excavation field school required as part of their degrees.

They will get to work in Trench Z – the extension to 2005’s Trench I – and reveal, once again, Structure Two. How does this early building relate to Structure Five? You’ll have to wait to find out.