Archaeologists have found evidence of early human activity at a submerged prehistoric forest in the Western Isles.
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Sites in North Uist, Benbecula and South Uist
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From the BBC...
“An artefact thought to be 3,500 years old that was uncovered by the tide on a Western Isles beach has been excavated before being washed away.
The prehistoric basket was discovered in an area of shoreline where the sea has been eroding the land at Baleshare in North Uist.
Archaeologists have managed to remove the object with help from the local community.
It will be examined by AOC Archaeology Group.
The basket appears to contain animal bones covered in a layer of quartz pebbles.”
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Uist volunteers clear up former archaelogy site.
With the offering thread in full swing, archeaologists sometimes leave things lying about as well.
pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1760165
Published 1/06/2010.
Archaeologists are excavating the remains of houses believed to date back 2,000 years after they were uncovered by a ferocious storm.
Fife-based charity Scottish Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion (Scape) is leading a community project at the site on North Uist.
Scape is investigating the suspected Iron Age round houses before they vanish in another powerful storm.
The organisation is also carrying out work at another historic site in Brora.
Violent weather exposed the ruined houses at Baile Sear, North Uist, in January 2005.
Tragically, a family of five died on Benbecula in the same storm.
Scape has helped Historic Scotland survey 30% of the Scottish coast, which runs to thousands of miles.
Three thousand sites of historic interest have been located so far.
The sites include ancient Norse houses, burial sites, brochs and World War II observation posts.
Scape co-ordinator Tom Dawson, a research fellow at the University of St Andrews, said Historic Scotland was helping to fund the project at Baile Sear.
He said: “People had seen bits and pieces of the remains before, but as the cobbles and sand washed way the structures are just sitting there on the beach.
“There are thought to be two roundhouses. We believe they are Iron Age making them 2,000 years old.”
Scape has started investigating the remains of salt pans on sand dunes at Brora in Sutherland.
The large metal trays were filled with sea water and heated below by fires fuelled by coal from a nearby pit to produce salt.
Brora is the location of the most northerly deep mine in the British Isles and coal was dug from it from 1598 until 1974.
A total of 15 miners died in a coal mine roof fall in the 18th Century.
Set up in 2001, Scape has helped Historic Scotland survey the Scottish coastline for archaeological sites.
Mr Dawson said climate change posed a serious threat to many of the relics record so far.
He said: “Erosion has always happened, but it is said that climate change and global warming will leave Scotland one of the places worst affected by storms.”
The charity has been targeting its resources at sites where the local communities have shown a willingness to excavate or try and protect them.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/6238302.stm
An underground chamber undisturbed since the Iron Age was revealed on North Uist when a 10ft hole opened beneath the wheel of a tractor.
Full article can be seen at The Herald‘s website.
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday March 16, 2003
The Observer
Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of two embalmed humans, providing the first proof that ancient Britons made mummies of their kings and queens. The bodies – a man and a woman – predate the pharaoh Tutankhamen, who was mummified and buried 3,200 years ago.
The discovery at Cladh Hallan, a remote Bronze Age site in South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, makes the couple – a man and a woman – the oldest mummies found anywhere in Europe. It is believed the male is around 3,500 years old, the female a couple of centuries younger.
‘These are the only prehistoric mummies found in this country,’ said project leader Dr Mike Parker Pearson, of Sheffield University. ‘We have some from historic times – the body of Edward I was wrapped in cloth. But we have never found an example of the kind of thing that went on in ancient Egypt till now.‘
Unlike their Egyptian counterparts, however, the Cladh Hallan mummies had to survive, after embalming, in extremely wet conditions. Hebridean weather in the Bronze Age was as grim as it is today. As a result, the couple’s wrappings long ago disintegrated. Yet Dr Pearson and his team are convinced the pair must have been swathed in bandages.
‘We found them with their knees around the chests and their thighs and calves absolutely parallel. There is no way that could have been done unless they had been very tightly bandaged or tied up with cords or straps of leather,’ added Pearson. ‘Over the millennia, the cloth disintegrated.‘
The team found evidence that the people of South Uist went to extraordinary pains to preserve the bodies of the Cladh Hallan couple. Although the pair were found buried in the foundations of two Bronze Age dwellings called roundhouses, they had not been put in the earth immediately after death.
The state of their bodies indicates they had been kept above ground for several hundred years – at least 500 years, in the case of the male mummy. ‘Something must have been done to preserve their flesh before it was wrapped up,’ said Pearson.
‘We narrowed this down to four options: the pair were left out to dry in the wind; they were slowly dried over a peat fire; they were pickled in salt, or they were dipped in a peat bog for a while.
‘To find out which, we studied mineral deposits on their bones which showed that both bodies had been immersed in peaty water for a considerable time – possibly a year before they were bandaged up.‘
After that, it appears the couple were put on display or kept in a sacred, warm, dry place – otherwise they would have disintegrated. Just why this couple, who had lived a couple of centuries apart, were venerated in this rather grisly way is still a mystery, however.
‘It could be a form of ancestor worship, or the local people could have preserved them because they were great leaders or shamans whose powers they hoped to tap into after death,’ said Pearson.
Bronze Age funereal customs in South Uist changed for some reason around 3,000 years ago. The couple were taken from their place of display and buried in the foundations of one of the roundhouses.
‘There is something touching about still taking such care about people who had died centuries earlier, said Pearson. ‘It indicates a considerable continuity to the local culture.‘
· The Mummies of Cladh Hallan will be shown on BBC2 at 9pm on Tuesday.
There are several big Kairnes of Stone on the East-side this Island [ South Uist ], and the Vulgar retain the antient Custom of making a Religious Tour round them on Sundays and Holidays.
From
‘A description of the Western Islands of Scotland‘ by M. Martin, 2nd edition, 1716.
Folklore connecting the stones with the Fianna: I’m not sure which particular sites might be referred to but you may know specifically?
Here in S. Uist are places which we call ‘Sorrachd Choire Fhinn.‘ Up yonder on the hillside are four great stones upon which they set their great kettle, and there are plenty of other places of the same kind. (The square is made with four large flat stones on edge, the sides being set N.S.E.W., five feet by three, inside the oblong. Near this monument are several fallen menhir, tall standing stones.)
The standing stones which you may see in these islands we call Ord Mhaoraich or Ord Bharnaich, bait hammers or limpet hammers. People say that they used these to knock off limpets and pound shells, as we use stones now; but that I do not believe. They say that one of them threw one from the shore up to the hillside near the north end of South Uist, but that cannot be true.
From ‘The Fionn Saga’ by George Henderson, in ‘The Celtic Review’ July 15th 1905.
This folklore refers to South Uist, and is from Martin’s ‘Description of the Western Isles of Scotland’ (a tour which he undertook in 1695). It’s a shame but I cannot work out where Gleann ‘Slyte’ must be.
There are several big cairns of stone on the east side this island, and the vulgar retain the ancient custom of making a religious tour round them on Sundays and holidays.
There is a valley between two mountains on the east side called Glenslyte, which affords good pasturage. The natives who farm it come thither with their cattle in the summer time, and are possessed with a firm belief that this valley is haunted by spirits, who by the inhabitants are called the great men; and that whatsoever man or woman enters the valley without making first an entire resignation of themselves to the conduct of the great men will infallibly grow mad. The words by which he or she gives up himself to these men’s conduct are comprehended in three sentences, wherein the glen is twice named, to which they add that it is inhabited by these great men, and that such as enter depend on their protection.
I told the natives that this was a piece of silly credulity as ever was imposed upon the most ignorant ages, and that their imaginary protectors deserved no such invocation. They answered that there had happened a late instance of a woman who went into that glen without resigning herself to the conduct of these men, and immediately after she became mad, which confirmed them in their unreasonable fancy.
The book is on line at the Appin Regiment site, here:
appins.org/martin.htm