Objects
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‘Plan of possible Manx Norse house, Fiskary, Coll’
NM20437 54320
Drawn by ‘JH’ in 2010
Photographs by Roland Spencer-Jones -
Bait holes of the east coast of Coll
Survey of 31 ‘rock cut basins’ sites by Coll Archaeology Association: Discovery and Excavation in Scotland, 2003, vol. 4, p. 29. -
Sherd from Kirkapol graveyard
Pottey shard found 4 foot down in Kirkapol graveyard, exterior surface orange-brown, interior surface brown. -
Midden material from Gunna
Sample of objects found in a prehistoric midden in Gunna.
Four small pottery shards, a vertebra from a small animal and a limpet shell taken from a prehistoric midden in Gunna. -
Letter about bronze pins (1905)
Photocopied letter to the Duke of Argyll dated 20/8/1905 from his brother (Bundle 924).
Letter to the Duke of Argyll dated 20/8/1905 from his brother about the find of two bronze pins found in the sand dunes at Balevullin, with photocopied rubbing. -
Two possible orthostats in Balephetrish
Two colour photographs of standing stones on Archie John MacLean`s apportionment of the Balephetrish Common Grazing taken by Mary MacKinnon, Parkhouse in 2010. (Originals stored with four additional similar photographs in filing cabinet 9 drawer 3) -
Sherds, flints, stones from Fang an t-Sithein
Small cardboard box containing a collection of pottery shards, flints, cobbles and other stones found on the surface of the walled mound at Ruaig/Salum in August 2018. -
Vaul enclosure
A roughly square enclosure containing a number of compartments. Oral tradition says that these were potato pits, but this is likely to have been an older structure. The date and function is unknown.
‘Mr and Mrs E R Cregeen
NM/046493. Inland less than 100 yds. from Dun Vaul Beg is an area approximately 23 yds. square, surrounded by a V- shaped ditch, 6 ft. across at the top. The inner face of the ditch is built up with small stones in places. The area within the ditch is elevated slightly, and contains a large number of round and oval depressions. The purpose and nature of these, and of the whole complex, is quite obscure.’ (Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1958, pp. 10–12).
See ‘Vaul Mound’ -
Baca Charachain, Balevullin
1. Discovery and Excavation in Scotland (2017) 18, p. 61.
Balevullin machair, Tiree
Fieldwalking
John Holliday
NL 96079 47145 Baca Charachain A dune blowout has revealed a deflation surface 20 x 10m on which is a large quantity of small undecorated pottery sherds and blacksmithing slag. There is also a small quantity of flints. The area is 0.5km from a documented post-medieval settlement.
Archive: An Iodhlann
2. An Iodhlann catalogue entry 2013.109.1:
‘Cardboard box of 17 artefact bags containing a collection of around 600 pieces of pottery sherds, flints, iron slag, bog iron and iron scrap from a blown-out dune on Balevullin machair, 100m north of the road cattlegrid between Kilmoluaig and Balevullin (Baca Charachain). Returned to donor from the Treasure Trove department at the National Museum in Edinburgh.
Material gathered by Dr John Holliday from June 2011 to January 2012 from a blown out sand dune, Baca Charachain, on the Balevullin machair, 200m north of the house of Flora MacKinnon, Sgeir an Rathaidin. An equivalent quantity has been given to the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh under Treasure Trove. It was examined by Dr Fraser Hunter, Principal Curator, Iron Age and Roman Collections, Department of Archaeology, National Museums Scotland: ‘The diagnostic bits of iron are quite recent – they come from a cast iron cooking pot, most likely 17th-19th century in date. The slag comes from blacksmithing – there’s a nice base of a blacksmith’s hearth – but can’t be closely dated … Seems to be iron-working rather than iron manufacture.’
3. Report from DR Fraser Hunter at NMS:
‘Finds from sand dunes are notoriously difficult to work with because of the workings of the dune. Within this dune will be more stable old ground surfaces – this will be the darker crescent you mention, which represents a period of stability in the dune system when soil formed – and which has survived later destruction from erosion. However, within the sand are the remnants of other similar surfaces which have not survived erosion, and whose contents have become jumbled up in the sand. As the sand then erodes again, the heavier objects collapse onto the more solid surface, which thus comes to harbour a motley assemblage. Only finds certainly from within the brown soil are likely to be of the same date as it.
‘There’s clearly a little early prehistoric (Neolithic / Bronze Age) material, in the form of the flint-working debris. The stones are all definitely or most likely naturally-broken cobbles.
‘The pottery is frustratingly hard to date. I don’t know the Inner Hebrides sequence that well; the problem is that this style of hand-made pottery started in the Iron Age but ran until the 19th century, with craggan ware in the Hebrides.
‘The diagnostic bits of iron are quite recent—they come from a cast iron cooking pot, most likely 17th-19th century in date. The slag comes from blacksmithing [rather than iron manufacture] – there’s a nice base of a blacksmith’s hearth—but can’t be closely dated..’
‘Interesting there’s no post-medieval settlement shown on the maps, though some of this material could be temporary / transient activity in the dunes. It does suggest the pottery [could be] Iron Age.’