Dun Mor Vaul: DES 1963
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From Euan W. MacKie
DUN MOR VAUL
NM04204925. A second season of 5 1/2 weeks of excavation was carried out on the Vaul broch in August and September under the auspices of the Hunterian Museum, with the aid of a generous grant from Glasgow University and with the assistance of a large number of volunteers. A large quantity of finds was recovered.
Work this year was concentrated on the broch interior, on the mural gallery and on the outer court and rampart on the seaward side. A major achievement was the isolation of a broch- builders’ level in the deepest sections of the mural gallery. These layers contained many useful finds. The stratification in the gallery suggested that the broch had been pulled down at one stage.
The interior was cleared to below floor level and a large, rectangular, kerbed and paved hearth was found with three whale vertebra post-sockets next to it. An extensive ash spread over the interior was associated with-the hearth. A massive lintelled drain underlies the hearth but another short season of work will be necessary finally to disentangle the relationships of these structures.
The hearth is undoubtedly secondary: the pottery associated with its ash is quite distinct from that in the basal levels of the mural gallery.
A careful search revealed no trace of the radial piers of a wheelhouse in -the interior so the function of the secondary wall there remains obscure. It post-dated the ash spread and little occupation debris was clearly associated with it.
Extensive deposits of earth, full of Iron Age debris, had accumulated in the outer court, but no clear stone structures were found. The outer rampart was sectioned and found to overlie an older midden. Stone debris seems to have been piled on this rampart at a late stage in the occupation of the site.
An article on the excavation will appear in The Illustrated London News during 1964. A picture of the composite bone comb found appeared in the Glasgow Herald of 30/8/63 and of the mural stair in that of 20/9/63, p. 10.
Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1963, pp. 20–21.
DUN MOR VAUL
NM04204925. A second season of 5 1/2 weeks of excavation was carried out on the Vaul broch in August and September under the auspices of the Hunterian Museum, with the aid of a generous grant from Glasgow University and with the assistance of a large number of volunteers. A large quantity of finds was recovered.
Work this year was concentrated on the broch interior, on the mural gallery and on the outer court and rampart on the seaward side. A major achievement was the isolation of a broch- builders’ level in the deepest sections of the mural gallery. These layers contained many useful finds. The stratification in the gallery suggested that the broch had been pulled down at one stage.
The interior was cleared to below floor level and a large, rectangular, kerbed and paved hearth was found with three whale vertebra post-sockets next to it. An extensive ash spread over the interior was associated with-the hearth. A massive lintelled drain underlies the hearth but another short season of work will be necessary finally to disentangle the relationships of these structures.
The hearth is undoubtedly secondary: the pottery associated with its ash is quite distinct from that in the basal levels of the mural gallery.
A careful search revealed no trace of the radial piers of a wheelhouse in -the interior so the function of the secondary wall there remains obscure. It post-dated the ash spread and little occupation debris was clearly associated with it.
Extensive deposits of earth, full of Iron Age debris, had accumulated in the outer court, but no clear stone structures were found. The outer rampart was sectioned and found to overlie an older midden. Stone debris seems to have been piled on this rampart at a late stage in the occupation of the site.
An article on the excavation will appear in The Illustrated London News during 1964. A picture of the composite bone comb found appeared in the Glasgow Herald of 30/8/63 and of the mural stair in that of 20/9/63, p. 10.
Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1963, pp. 20–21.
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