Hey, Natalia here again. A small note before i update you on the site: there has been very little feedback from the bllog so far and as this is for my dissertation, any comments would be greatly apreciated. Even information on who may be reading would be very useful.
Today was windy (the first day so far I’ve had to wear a jumper in fact). We went further down in removing the rubble from structure A, uncovering occupation layers where we may be stopping for the year to avoid losing information in plan.
After a short while of removing rubble Michael and I returned to the structure E hearth where we reached the bottom of our cross section, finally moving past the colourful ash deposits to the clay below and discovering the bottom of the side stone creating the structure of the feature. This is now ready for drawing and recording tomorrow before we begin to remove the soil from the other side down to the peat ash deposits from which a specialist will remove samples for archaeo-magnetic dating. All very exciting!!
Its great to have a daily blog on what’s happening at the Cairns and photos also to see the area and conditions that you are working in. It sounds like very hard work and at times must be a bit frustrating with all the rubble you have had to move! Well done all and keep up the good work!
8th July 2010 – the substitute Open Day: Jill and I drove down to the site after hearing on Radio Orkney this morning about the Open Day today. During showers and sunny periods we were given an extremely interesting guided tour by Amanda, and were shown some of the finds, including the superb cast copper pin, a delicate sewing needle, a cobble grinding stone and an axe head. The site looks to be most promising, and who knows now how much more there is as yet uncovered to be revealed in due course? Our thanks to the team for taking time out from their work to show the site to the public. This site deserves to receive lavish funding: it seems to have several consecutive periods of occupation, and there is obviously the promise of interesting artefacts yet to to be found.
10/7/2010
We were unsure on Saturday whether the Cairns was still open to the public but thought we would take a chance anyway. Lucky for us Natalia was prepared to take us around even though the site was officially closed to the public. She gave us an interesting, informative and entertaining tour. Although the staircase was covered over and the artefacts had been removed there was still plenty to interest us.
Heard about the replacement open day on Radio Orkney and hot footed 30 miles to Windwick. A journey very well spent with a splendid tour from Martin and a fabulous site with an enormous amount of work done since I last visited it 2 years ago. Many thanks for the blog and the tour and I wish you all well and hope to visit again in 2010.