Issue 113

July / Aug 2010

features

THE BIG DIG: Links of Noltland

Eroding sand dunes are revealing an ancient landscape on a windswept and remote Scottish island.

MAIN FEATURE: Digging for (Invisible) People

Eroding sand dunes are revealing an ancient landscape on a windswept and remote Scottish island.

Dig for Shakespeare

Literary critics may wonder if Shakespeare wrote all those plays, but archaeologists know where to find him.

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An occasional series specifically for the website, showcasing pop music inspired by archaeology or heritage. The first of the series features Air-Raid Shelter (Pillbox) by The Human Cabbages.

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Caroline Wickham-Jones investigates real and reconstructed worlds, and Andy Burnham highlights ancient sites viewable from the roadside, including extra content.

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ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

feature

THE BIG DIG: Links of Noltland

Eroding sand dunes are revealing an ancient landscape on a windswept and remote Scottish island. Hazel Moore and Graeme Wilson describe the startling new discoveries at one of the bleakest sites in the country.

We are rescuing archaeology at the Links of Noltland, on the island of Westray in Orkney, in the face of extreme conditions: but the results indicate a site of extraordinary importance to our understanding of life in the far north. Recent discoveries have included more than a dozen stone buildings, burials and middens (deposits of concentrated refuse), and extensive remains of the contemporary landscape. Dating from the neolithic and bronze age (around 3000–1500BC), this site represents one of the most complete early prehistoric landscapes yet found. Last year the discovery of a small stone figurine – the earliest human depiction from Scotland – made national headlines. As exceptional is a building with whole cattle skulls set into its foundations.

The prehistoric site was first identified eroding from the coast edge in the mid 19th century by local antiquarian, George Petrie. Finding skaill knives (split beach pebbles used for butchery) and Grooved Ware pottery, Petrie recognised the similarity of these artefacts to others recovered from the stone age "village" at Skara Brae, on the island of Mainland 40km to the south-west. He concluded that there was likely to be another early settlement in the area.

It was then largely forgotten, until David Clarke, National Museums of Scotland, returned in the late 1970s to carry out several seasons of excavation. The focus of this work was a large stone building eroding out of the sand dunes, named Grobust after the bay in which it stands. It was found to be surrounded by middens and a field system, but unlike the interlinked structures at Skara Brae, it stood on its own and was not part of a larger village. Indeed, its function remains open to question; excavation ceased before deposits associated with its use were reached. However, the quantities of high quality artefacts found in the deposits filling into the building are suggestive of structured deposition, and it may have been consciously decommissioned in a manner similar to that seen at some tombs in Orkney, where midden was dumped into the burial chambers. Following these investigations, the Grobust building was refilled and no new work has been undertaken there.

The Links of Noltland lie in an area which was, until very recently, extensive coastal machair and sand dunes. Since the 1978–81 excavations, the dunes have been almost totally depleted by natural forces, possibly linked to climate change. So how were people living in such a remote place thousands of years ago? How did the remains become entombed in sand – and why are they only now being exposed and destroyed?

Erosion

This landscape has always been dynamic: the Grobust house was built into a pit cut into a dune, and the prehistoric farmers had sand drifting over their cultivated fields. Yet until recently, periods of erosion were followed by accretion and regeneration in a cyclical pattern which had largely preserved the ancient ground surfaces from damage for over 4,000 years. By contrast, the past 30 years have witnessed a massive loss of sediment and vegetation cover, with no significant regeneration. As sand is stripped away, in places down to the underlying bedrock, traces of older landscapes are revealed, which are then themselves eroded.

The underlying causes of change, while not yet fully understood, may be associated with the loss of an offshore sandbar and linked to a recent deterioration in weather conditions, with more frequent storms and extreme weather events. These changes – whose effects are exacerbated by burrowing rabbits – are felt particularly severely along the soft and low-lying coastlines of the islands of Orkney. Unlike other parts of Scotland, the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland) are sinking relative to sea level. When coupled with the high density of remains on or near the coastline – Noltland is by no means the only site at great risk – this means that the greatest single threat to archaeology in Orkney today comes not from humans, but nature.

Noltland is a scheduled ancient monument managed by Historic Scotland as a property in care. Strategies include labour-intensive programmes of reburial, landscaping, barrier erection and planting marram grass. In the face of such extreme conditions these measures have been of only short-term benefit. After a 10-year programme of monitoring and recording on behalf of Historic Scotland, EASE Archaeology found that the threat to the archaeological remains has increased: for most of them preservation in situ is no longer feasible.

Accordingly a new campaign of intervention has been initiated. As the ground at Noltland has dropped by as much as 6m, extensive tracts of bronze age and neolithic surfaces are now laid bare, and a total of 14 buildings have been identified. Recognising that not all of these remains can be preserved, the work has concentrated on a programme of "managed retreat", comprising continual monitoring and assessment. Vulnerable sites are then either rescue excavated or reburied. Since 2007 three seasons of assessment and excavation have been completed, and a further field season is scheduled for this summer.

Buildings

The results of such excavation have surpassed all expectations. Despite the erosion, the quality of what remains is exceptional. The stone buildings retain upstanding walls and a wealth of architectural detail; floors and external surfaces survive, as do ancient cultivation soils, middens and burials. The shell sand which covered the site until recently was an ideal packing material, filling cavities and buttressing walls. Crucially, with its high calcium content, it also helped to preserve organic remains such as shell, carbonised plant matter and especially bone, of which over 25,000 pieces have been recovered.

The largest of the neolithic buildings found so far (structure 8) is set high on a ridge. It is rectilinear in form, measuring some 22m across, but has not been fully uncovered yet. It has thick enclosing walls, faced with stone and packed with midden. Tantalisingly we glimpsed part of a finely-built outer wall face in a test trench, standing at least 0.8m high; it awaits further investigation. The interior contains at least two chambers of unequal size. At the close of the 2009 season, we uncovered the tops of several upright slabs; these may represent internal partitions and built-in stone "furniture", possibly similar to the famous dressers at Skara Brae. We will fully explore the interior this summer.

We recovered the unique and enigmatic stone figurine, locally nicknamed the Westray Wife, in the infill of structure 8. The 4cm high figure has crude but clearly defined incised features: eyes and a nose, a long wavy line suggesting eyebrows or a hairline, circles on the chest which probably represent breasts, and linear markings depicting arms. Other patterning on the body may represent clothing.

This is the earliest representation of the human form yet found in Scotland, and one of very few known from the British Isles at this period. Limited examples of neolithic figurative or symbolically figurative art include the "eyebrow" motifs carved into the structure of the chambered cairn at nearby Holm of Papa Westray South and, from further afield, motifs from the Folkton chalk drums (Yorkshire) and on stone slabs in the Boyne valley tombs in Ireland. It might be added that the Pierowall stone, which came from a chambered cairn less than 2km from the Links of Noltland, is richly decorated in the Boyne valley art style.

A second neolithic structure lies close to structure 8. It is curved in shape, appears to have been substantially demolished in antiquity, and although some internal features survive, the enclosing walls have been razed to foundation level, leaving only traces of inner and outer stone faces. This building did not show up on geophysical survey, but was found accidentally during an assessment of the surrounding field system. It was covered by a thin layer of loose sand and was extremely vulnerable to destruction; it may not otherwise have survived the winter.

It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that this building has proved to be one of our most exciting discoveries. The excavator Sean Rice realised that there was an entire cow skull embedded within the wall core. Several days of painstaking work later, he had uncovered more than 14 further skulls, all set into the walls and arranged facing down in a continuous circuit, often with horns interlocking. There is no doubt that they were deliberately placed within the wall when it was built. With less than half of this wall examined, it is likely that more skulls await discovery. While their symbolic importance to these early farmers can be imagined, we know of no parallel for such activity from the British Isles. Like the figurine, this presents a novel insight into the late neolithic mindset.

We have obtained four radiocarbon dates from articulated animal bone from the midden that covers the neolithic settlement, ranging from 2890BC to 2470BC. This was not the end, however. Though bronze age settlements are rare in Orkney – none had been recorded at Noltland – we have now identified eight buildings of this later period, representing three separate domestic units. We have excavated two of these units, and in both cases we found a house – the larger measuring some 14m×8m – paired with an ancillary building and a further building, of less certain function, close by. The houses formed the largest structure in each group; oval in form, each contained a central hearth surrounded by a paved area, ith a raised platform next to the wall. Animals may have been tethered to notched stones set into the floor. The settlements were surrounded by mounds of organic midden and shell.

Random trenching close to one of the bronze age settlements in 2009 uncovered two inhumation burials, neither of which had been picked up by geophysical or topographical survey. The bodies lay in pits cut into the sand; in one case the grave was subsequently provided with a stone lining. Neither burial contained grave goods, but coral fragments close to the bodies may have been deliberately scattered as a marker. The burials have been radiocarbon dated to between around 1700 and 1500BC. Further exploration in this area is planned for 2010.

Community

While the full chronology is not yet known, the picture now emerging is of a thriving community with settlement dispersed around a farmed landscape from at least 3000BC until around 1500BC. Preliminary specialist analyses indicate that domesticated sheep and cattle were in plentiful supply, with pig and dog also present. Wild species such as otter, rodent, bird, fish and cetaceans (whales, dolphins or porpoises) were available to supplement the diet and, in the case of deer and cetaceans, to provide bone for working. Barley was grown in the fields, with soils enriched firstly with domestic midden and, later, with animal dung. Crowberries were collected in the autumn, while peat or heathy turfs provided fuel.

Evidence of manufacture is plentiful. Bone working produced points, beads and bead-making debris, mattocks, bevel-ended tools and shovels, while pottery was also probably made on site. Over 5,000 sherds have been recovered, mainly from neolithic contexts; these include some highly decorated Grooved Ware. While pottery was less well preserved in bronze age contexts, sherds from steatite (soapstone) vessels were present. This is an exciting discovery because steatite is not local to Orkney and would most likely have been imported from Shetland – and even here, its use in this period is poorly attested.

Objects made from local stone are well represented and include many everyday tools used for food processing, butchery and agriculture. There is a notable change in the types used over time, with skaill knives more common in the earlier period and digging implements and ard tips more frequent later on. Amongst the flint tools small scrapers predominate, although some more unusual items, such as an arrowhead, a chisel and fragments of probable polished stone axes, were also recovered. Small amounts of ochre, worked and pierced shells, polished hematite and stone and clay balls have been recovered from the middens. Other exciting discoveries include several carved stones, including cupmarked slabs built into walling and others which display chevron-type motifs.

We have found no traces of iron age activity within the Links area, although a fairly substantial settlement (with a probable stone tower or broch at its centre) lies nearby on firmer ground. Later use of the area for burial in the Viking/Norse periods is well documented. The suggestion is that the bay was abandoned by 1000BC, although it would probably have continued to provide rough grazing. The early farmers tried hard to manage the area – this is one of the oldest known examples of the use of dung – but largely to no avail, as the fields were swamped by blowing sand. There is much yet to learn about the ancient environment, its challenges and the response of the neolithic and bronze age farmers.

Coastal survey in Orkney funded by Historic Scotland and undertaken by the authors in the 1990s, identified several hundred sites of all dates and types as actively eroding or at imminent risk, including many rare and important remains (see the Scape website). The scale of the threat, therefore, is already huge and set to increase as coastlines crumble away. The exceptional nature of Orkney's archaeological heritage is tightly bound into its modern culture and economy, supporting a flourishing tourist industry and defining, for many, a key part of the islands' identity. By contrast the extremely perilous state of its "undeveloped" sites is much less well known. It is hoped that work at Noltland may serve to highlight the wider problem of coastal erosion in Orkney and, moreover, to demonstrate the potential which such "damaged" sites hold.

With a long season of excavation in the offing, it is likely that the Links of Noltland may yet hold more surprises. What sets this site out as truly important, however, is not the exotic, unusual or monumental, but rather the breadth and integrity of the insights afforded into this early farming community. The challenge now is to make the most of this rare opportunity before natural forces intervene and the site is lost forever.

Excavation visitors are welcomed: follow progress on our dig blog. Further information can be found via the SCARF link at the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The figurine is touring Scotland as part of a specially designed exhibition: see the Historic Scotland website for details. Hazel Moore and Graeme Wilson are founding directors in EASE Archaeology.

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