Dig Diary – a missing pier, early pottery, a stone ‘dish’ and more of Twenty-Seven’s beautiful wall

Day Nine
Thursday, July 4, 2024

Guess what? A full day’s work today!

Despite anxious glances skyward whenever squally showers blew in across the Stenness loch, excavation continued in all structures and trenches.

We’ll begin in Trench T, where Ben and Ray continued removing the overlying midden from the north-western corner of Structure Twenty-Seven. And we’re delighted to report that another section of that sublime walling has survived and now been revealed, awaiting further excavation.

Not only that but we’re hoping the new wall section might even be a course or two higher! We’ll keep you posted.

Within the midden material removed from the top of the structure were some lovely finds, including pottery, flint and burnt animal bone. But Ray really hit the jackpot when he spotted, and recovered, a small, stone vessel with a deep inner “bowl”.

The artefact is strikingly similar to the “small, stone dish” found at Skara Brae in 1927 – one of a number of stone vessels found at the Sandwick Neolithic settlement.

Also in the Trench T midden was another fragment from a possible “incense cup”, similar to the example found in Structure Twenty-Six in July 2017.

That vessel hinted at links between the Ness complex and the Wessex area of England. The pottery sherd not only had vertical cordons very similar to a pottery type from Durrington Walls, but also distinctly Orcadian features – suggesting the vessel blended elements from both sites – but which are hundreds of miles apart.

At the time, only four other “incense cups” were known, all from the Stonehenge-Wessex area.

The tiny artefacts are often highly decorated and mostly found in Early Bronze Age contexts, often associated with burials. Their use has been the subject of debate over the years, but their name comes from the idea they were used for the burning of incense during burial ceremonies. Alternatively, it has been suggested that they were used to carry embers to a funeral pyre.

Back in 2017, Claire Copper, who had just finished her MPhil on The Early Bronze Age Funerary Cups of Southern England, went into more detail here.

The remarkable pottery kept coming today.

Not to be outdone, over in Structure One, Minna has been working in the midden beneath the building (and therefore pre-dating its construction). She has recovered a selection of beautiful ceramic sherds featuring fine, applied decoration.

These stunning sherds had our ceramics specialist Jan Blatchford waxing lyrical and made a delightful change to some of the, how shall we say, less-than-pretty examples we’ve found by the bucketload.

Meanwhile, Dr Cathy Batt, from the University of Bradford, has been with us for a few days and today – in considerably more clement conditions – continued collecting samples from hearths across the site for archaeomagnetic dating.

Fired archaeological materials and sediments can be dated by comparing their magnetic properties with known changes in the earth’s magnetic field, over time, compared with the fixed orientation in burnt samples to estimate dates.

This, in conjunction with radiocarbon dates, provides indications of the length of use of the hearths – and hence helps date the buildings themselves.

Yesterday she battled wind and rain to secure samples from Structure Five’s large, rectangular hearth (more on which in a moment) and today focused on the last unsampled hearth in Structure Eight and one of those in its predecessor, Structure Seventeen.

She also examined the ashy spread in Structure Twelve’s north-western recess – the “slow cooker” – to see whether we might be able to get dates for its use.

Unfortunately, because that ash was not burnt in situ, but scraped from one of the building’s two fireplaces and then deposited in the recess, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to secure a date.

Structure Thirty-Four’s hearth, which produced pottery and animal bone on Tuesday, was equally unsuitable. Like the buildings surrounding it, the hearth and its contents have slumped in a north-easterly direction over time, negating any meaningful analysis.

A pity, but you can’t have it all.

And on the subject of Thirty-Four, excavation of one of the box-like construction adjacent to the hearth revealed yet another cache of animal bone.

But back to archaeomagnetic dating. Because Cathy had retrieved her samples from Structure Five yesterday, today saw the ash deposits removed to reveal a rather fine stone base, earning it the title of “most nicely built hearth on site”. And, to be honest, it is.

Lovely though it is, our current thinking is that the basal flagstones are a secondary addition relating to the hearth’s enlargement/extension. Beneath, there should be evidence of its earlier use. Watch this space.

Over in Structure Ten, work continued on the floor deposits before the extension over Structure Twenty – one of the building’s lying underneath – can be extended to reveal more.

Lisa and Ellen have been untangling more of the deposits and potential structural features around the south-western buttress. They have revealed what might be another drain but site director Nick will need a little more convincing.

Jumping across to Structure Twelve, Nick and Jim were deep in thought this morning over the curving wall section that runs across the northern end of the building.

In typical Structure Twelve fashion, the wall doesn’t fit with previous thoughts on the building but they’ve come up with a working hypothesis.

They’re contemplating that it may represent a curving wall inserted into Structure Twenty-Eight, Twelve’s predecessor, to reduce its size in a secondary phase of use. This will sound familiar to regular readers as the same thing happened within Twelve’s neighbour, Structure One, in its second phase of use.

Around 2900BC, 200 years or so after it had been built, a substantial, curving wall was inserted across the middle of its northern half.

Work continues so we’ll let you know what turns up.

Elsewhere, Sara continued cleaning the “slow cooker” recess – which is now looking beautiful – and has now started planning. That done, excavation will continue.

At the south-eastern side, Jan has revealed the basal course of Twelve’s long-lost, east-central pier – as well as a small section of Structure Twenty-Eight’s floor surface.

After its abandonment, Twelve was targeted by stone robbers. Their cut through the overlying midden exposed only the eastern central pier and the facing stones from the sides of the entrance passage. Its precision suggests they were looking to retrieve dressed stone rather than just building material.

We’ll finish today with Giles, who has been working in a sondage opened in 2011 to clarify the relationship between Structures Fourteen and One.

Nick has never been entirely satisfied with the situation around Fourteen’s south-western end and is now pondering whether it was perhaps rebuilt. Giles’ work will hopefully help clarify the sequence.

Off site, the first of our guided tours of the Ness exhibition at the Orkney Museum took place this afternoon. Sarah Jane Haston, a UHI Archaeology Institute PhD student, who is looking at the charred plant remains from Structure Eight, thoroughly enjoyed the experience and our thanks to all who took part.

The next tour will be given by Jackson Clarke on July 11. Jackson has been analysing the burnt bone assemblage from Structure Eight for his UHIAI Masters by Research (MRes). Today he passed his viva examination. Congratulations from all at the Ness…

We’ll be back tomorrow. See you then.