Dig Diary – bone pin in Structure Thirty-Four a rare find for the Ness

Thursday, July 25, 2024 (7:44 PM)

McKenna at work in Structure Thirty-Four. (📷 Sigurd Towrie) — McKenna at work in Structure Thirty-Four this afternoon. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Day Twenty-Five
Thursday, July 25, 2024

The stone-lined pit in Structure Twelve's north end. (📷 Sigurd Towrie) — The stone-lined pit in Structure Twelve’s north end. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

The end of another busy day on site, and as we approach the end of week five, it really is a case of heads down as we all aim to achieve the goals for the final season of fieldwork.

In Structure Twelve, Sigurd has finished his work around the stone-lined pit in the northern end.

It has been the subject of much head-scratching as, quite simply, it just doesn’t make sense. It’s beautifully built but doesn’t seem to have served any purpose that we can think of.

It’s definitely not a post-hole – there’s no evidence of the compaction you would expect had it once held a substantial timber post. And the thick deposit of clay within had been covered with multiple layers of flat stones.

With tongue firmly in cheek, supervisor Jim has proposed that we’re looking at a Neolithic burglar alarm – a pitfall trap cunningly place just inside the northern entrance to entrap any prehistoric felon with an eye on your polished stone axe!

Unperturbed, Sigurd has now moved on to another suspected “hole in the floor”, a metre to the north-west.

Jan and her plan. Recording the inner wall face of Structure Twenty-Eight in the south end of Structure Twelve. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

In the south end of the building Jan has finished excavating and planning the inner wall face of Structure Twenty-Eight, while in Twelve’s northern annexe Chris has started excavating around the remains of Twenty-Eight’s original north wall, which was incorporated into its successor’s fabric.

Structure Twelve's northern annexe, with the remains of Structure Twenty-Eight visible at the bottom of the wall. (📷 Sigurd Towrie) — Structure Twelve’s northern annexe, with the remains of Structure Twenty-Eight visible at the bottom of the wall. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Meanwhile, in the north-western corner alcove, Becca has started excavating the contents of the drain she revealed yesterday. And, as expected it contains animal remains, including the rib bone of a small mammal.

That’s about all that can be said about it but it is tempting to wonder whether we might be looking at another young dog, as was found in the later, secondary drain above it.

Structure Thirty-Four this afternoon, with the wall of Structure Seventeen to the left and Twelve to the right. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Outside Twelve, Ray, Ceiridwen and McKenna have given the area north of Structure Thirty-Four a good spruce up, removing the rubble and midden that lay between Eight and Twelve.

In the process, Ray found a bone pin, adding to the few worked bone artefacts we’ve recovered over the years. The reason for this is that the soil is simply too acidic for their preservation.

We can only dream of the range and number of bone artefacts that no doubt once graced the Ness…

Bone pin from Structure Thirty-Four. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Let’s jump over now to Trench J, and the enigmatic channel that runs beneath Structure Five’s hearth.

Supervisor Paul had suspected the channel turned sharply towards the building’s door after exiting the hearth. And, today, Claire confirmed that was indeed the case.

Today's hammerstone from Structure Five. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

The heavily worn business end of the hammerstone. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Meanwhile, working beside the remains of the furniture feature mentioned yesterday, the Trench J team also recovered the beautiful hammerstone that was peeking above the surface. This is one of a number of stone tools that appear to have been deposited around, or inside, these suspected stone “dressers”.

Animal bone deposit outside Structure Twenty-Seven's north-western corner. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Outside Structure Twenty-Seven, Tom has done a sterling job excavating the fairly extensive deposit of animal remains around the north-western corner.

Elsewhere, work continues around the building’s north-eastern and south-eastern corners.

Sarah and Hiwa examine an artefact outside Trench T. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

View from the north-western corner of Structure Twenty-Seven. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

The south-eastern corner. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Ness pottery sherd with impressed basket marks. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

We were delighted to welcome Emma Smith back on site today.

Emma was a member of the Ness dig team for a number of years and has returned to study the basketry impressions on some of our many pottery sherds.

We think these ceramic vessels must have been placed on a mat, before firing, when in the leather-hard or semi-plastic stage.

Why? Perhaps so the pots could be turned easily for the application of decoration. Or maybe the larger pots were a touch wobbly, so placed in baskets to stop them collapsing.

Working with site director Nick and our ceramics specialist Jan, Emma is producing a paper on the subject of basketry marks with Susanna Harris, of Glasgow University.

And I think, dear reader, we’ll leave it at that for today. But rest assured we’ll be back tomorrow.