Results from the Field
Our investigation into the Bronze Age in Caithness is drawing to a close, but there is still lots to look forward to! Come along to the closing talk on Thursday night at Castlehill Heritage Centre, when we’ll look back at everything we’ve achieved over the last year, and look at what we found during our […]
Soil samples: processed!
Jack would like to extend a big thank you to everyone who came along to help out with processing the soil samples at Castlehill Heritage Centre last month. We discovered that many of the samples are relatively rich in charcoal, and there are a small number of grains of barley as well. The charcoal and cereal will provide […]
Hut-circle/burnt mound…?
We’re drawing to a close with our week-long excavations at the Baillie Hill excavations. It’s been an interesting week, and really instructive, full of unexpected results! Our hut-circle has turned out to be more than meets the eye. We’re now pretty confident that the building has re-used the site of an earlier burnt mound, digging […]
Excavations underway!
The fourth and final week of fieldwork as part of AWindow on the Hidden Bronze Age Landscape of Caithness is well underway now! We’ve chosen as the subject of our investigations into Bronze Age settlement an interesting hut circle at Skaill, close to Baillie Hill and the chambered cairns on Cnoc Freiceadain. The site was not known before […]
Finally we look under the ground!
Summer School Week 3 has been really successful with the training of volunteers in geophysics and excavation. We returned to the Baillie area that we first visited on the very first day of fieldwork back in June. We had already discovered 2 hut circles and a possible burnt mound using the LiDAR data and walkover […]
Foodie fun, 15th & 16th August 2015
This weekend, Castlehill Heritage Centre will become a haven for foodie fun! Join Melissa and Romain of the School of Ancient Crafts and find out what our Bronze Age ancestors were eating and drinking, how they were cooking their meals, and what other uses they had for the herbs and plants that grew (and still […]
Potty for pottery: participant opinion
While our blog focusses mostly on the Summer School activities, there is lots more going on – including the recent Prehistoric Pottery Workshop. Here’s what Clive and Laurence Sheppard had to say about their day: “Castlehill Heritage Centre was the venue for the Bronze Age pottery workshop run by expert Graham Taylor of Potted History. […]
Another week comes to a close
After a day inside the Castlehill Heritage Centre on Friday the volunteers were itching to get back out on site today (sort of…). Due to lots of weekend commitments only volunteers Alan and Paul joined AOC’s Gemma and Jamie to record two hut circles, a possible burnt mound and a few field walls in the […]
Fair-weather archaeologists?
Due to torrential rain and wind in Caithness (and seemingly the whole of Britain) today started off indoors. Volunteer Alan from the Heritage Centre kindly scanned some of the drawings the team had been doing in the field into the computer. AOC’s Gemma then showed volunteers Susan, George, Winnie and Paul how to use the […]
Another Bronze Age hut circle? Surely not!
What a tremendous day we had on site on site today in the sun and wind! (What a beautiful day and landscape. Oh, to be an archaeological surveyor…) The team went back to Broubster to finish off the sites they didn’t get around to on Wednesday. Unsurprisingly they recorded more hut circles, but they also surveyed […]
