| Title: |
Brotchie's Steading, Dunnet, Caithness: a 19th-century croft house and earlier settlement mound
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| Issue: |
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 138 |
| Series: |
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
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| Volume: |
138
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| Number of Pages: |
367 |
| Page Start/End: |
267 - 292 |
| Downloads: |
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| Licence Type: |
ADS Terms of Use and Access
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| Publication Type: |
Journal
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| Abstract: |
Brotchie's steading is a ruined croft house from which several large fragments of worked whale mandible were recently recovered. These were identified as having supported the roof of the building as a pair of cruck blades (a Highland couple).\r\n\r\nThe excavation programme was initially designed to further examine the role of whale bones as a construction material within the context of the Caithness croft house. Excavations in 2001 revealed a further element of in situ whale bone that enabled an informed reconstruction of the original structure. The investigations on site also identified at least 1.5m of stratigraphy exposed in the bank to the west of the site, indicating at least four phases of building beneath the ruined croft house. \r\n\r\nSubsequent trial trenching determined that the bank upon which Brotchie's steading now sits is largely man-made and part of an extensive settlement mound. The base of the sequence, in the southern part of the site, revealed what appears to have been an occupation surface, and material from this provided a date in the range 390-170BC. At the north end of the site a thick layer of stone rubble associated with a clay- and stone-lined pit and two red deer antler picks was identified. Radiocarbon determination of samples of antler and cow bone indicate further occupation of the site in the first-third centuries AD. The overlying strata supported by a sequence of radiocarbon dates and finds indicate that the site was also a focus of human activity in the fifth, thirteenth and fifteenth centuries AD up until the early twentieth century. While the full extent of the site is currently unknown, the possibility presents itself that the adjacent knoll, upon which Dunnet Kirk now sits, forms a part of a major archaeological site that has seen almost continuous, or at least regular, occupation for over two millennia. Includes sections on: The whale bone cruck couple; The pottery; The carbonised plant remains; A short note on the faunal remains. |
| Year of Publication: |
2008
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| Subjects / Periods: |
| Fifteenth Centuries Ad (Auto Detected Temporal) |
| Fifth Thirteenth (Auto Detected Temporal) |
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| Radiocarbon Dates (Auto Detected Subject) |
| Millennia (Auto Detected Subject) |
| Cruck Blades (Auto Detected Subject) |
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PIT
(Monument Type England)
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| Settlement Mound (Auto Detected Subject) |
| Bone (Auto Detected Subject) |
| Croft House (Auto Detected Subject) |
| Stone Rubble (Auto Detected Subject) |
| Whale Bones (Auto Detected Subject) |
| Worked Whale Mandible (Auto Detected Subject) |
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| Source: |
ADS Archive
(ADS Archive)
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| Relations: |
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| Created Date: |
11 Aug 2010 |
