The Rubha Port an t-Seilich Project
2017 report The Rubha Port an t-Seilich Project | 2017
The archaeological significance of Rubha Port an t-Seilich is matched “ by its spectacular setting on the east coast of Islay. Having the opportunity to excavate the site is both a privilege and a responsibility. By this we can address key research questions about the human past while also giving The project works University of Reading students closely with Islay an outstanding archaeological Heritage, a Scottish experience, one that expands their Charity (SCO46938) knowledge, develops their skills devoted to furthering and builds their abilities for teamwork. knowledge about Islay’s past, and the many Steven Mithen Professor of Early Prehistory and ” ways in which it can Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Reading, be explored and and Chair of Islay Heritage (SC046938) enjoyed by everyone [email protected] www.islayheritage.org. www.islayheritage.org
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The straits passing between Islay and Jura provide a major seaway used throughout history and today by sailing boats, kayaks, fishing boats and ferries. Rubha Port an t-Seilich, located close to the present day ferry terminal of Port Askaig, shows that this history of sea travel reaches far back into prehistory.
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Outer Hebrides The Rubha Port an t-Seilich Project
Rubha Port an t-Seilich is located on the east Scotland coast of the Isle of Islay in western Scotland.
A small terrace overlooks It is the only site in Scotland the Sound of Islay and is where evidence of ice age Inner Hebrides known to be the past hunter-gatherers is known camping site of prehistoric to remain largely undisturbed, hunter-gatherers between sealed below the debris from 12,000 and 7000 years ago. later settlement.
Northern Ireland
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“THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF WHERE WE WOULD BE SPENDING TWO WEEKS DIGGING WAS BREATHTAKING”
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Following a site This marked the start of a The project is designed to enables them to undertake this evaluation undertaken multi-year research project provide University of Reading in a remote rural setting and to in 2010 and 2013, the that will utilize a range of students with an opportunity explore the role of heritage within scientific techniques to explore island communities. University of Reading to gain fieldwork experience. Rubha Port an t-Seilich and its begun to excavate At this stage it is anticipated that significance for the prehistory In addition to addressing key Rubha Port an t-Seilich five seasons of excavation will of Scotland and northwest research questions, the project is be required between 2017 and in April 2017. Europe in general. designed to provide University of 2022, with a further three years Reading students with a chance The aim is to recover, analyse of post-excavation analysis. to gain fieldwork experience on a and interpret data pertaining research excavation and acquire to the entire history of activity new skills. The opportunities for at the site and its relevance to students to excavate prehistoric issues of colonization, economic hunter-gatherer settlements are and cultural change in Scotland very sparse. Rubha Port a t-Seilich and northwest Europe.
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A dramatic period of global period. The only other evidence While the Howburn discovery was The first warming at 14,500 years ago for ice age people in Scotland exciting, it was also frustrating. reduced the ice and brought the had been chance discoveries The stone tools were found in people in first known people to Scotland. of isolated stone points on plough soil and mixed up with These were Palaeolithic hunter- Tiree, Orkney and at Shieldaig not only those of the Mesolithic Scotland? gatherers exploring the NW that many archaeologists but also the later Neolithic and frontier of the ice age world had dismissed as being later Bronze Age periods. There who lost or discarded some of prehistoric in date. were no associated settlement 20,000 years ago, their stone tools at a location remains, and hence no way to at the height of the last That was a sensational now called Howburn in South discover anything more about ice age, Scotland was buried Lanarkshire. find…most archaeologists what must have been intrepid below the North West believed that the first people ice-age explorers. Those tools were discovered in European ice sheet. in Scotland had arrived after 2010, scattered in a ploughed No other traces of the the end of the ice age. field. That was a sensational find Hamburgian culture have been because most archaeologists The Howburn stone tools were found in Scotland. By 13,500 years believed that the first people made in the distinctive style of ago, severe ice age conditions had in Scotland had arrived after the Hamburgian Cultue, known returned. These began to alleviate the end of the ice age at 11,500 from the continent and dated to after 12,000 years ago, after which years ago during the Mesolithic c. 14,500 years ago. there was a dramatic period of
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The chemical analysis of sediments from Greenland ice cores provides a record of global temperature change, showing dramatic global warming that brought increases at 14,500 and 11,500 years ago, and the ice age to its close. relative stability during the postglacial. In 2013 further evidence for ice age hunter-gatherers was discovered at Rubha Port an t-Seilich on the east coast of Islay. At 20,000 years ago, Scotland No other traces of the was covered by ice sheets, up to a kilometre thick. Hamburgian culture have been found in Scotland.
Unlike that from Howburn, these stone tools were still sealed in sediments, providing an opportunity to make the first excavation of an ice age campsite in Scotland. By 12,000 years ago, most of the ice had disappeared while Britain remained joined to the continent by the now drowned landmass of Doggerland.
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The sharp eyes of the The discovery of ice gamekeeper noticed that the snuffling of pigs had exposed age hunter-gatherers flint flakes on the terrace of Rubha Port an t-Seilich. These at Rubha Port were inspected by Professor Steven Mithen (University of Reading) and identified as being an t-Seilich characteristic of the Mesolithic, a period he had been studying in In the spring of 2009, the Dunlossit western Scotland for many years. Estate set pigs to forage along its land on the east coast of Islay The snuffling of pigs had exposed flint flakes Arhensburgian point as a means to constrain the from Rubha Port an t-Seilich. on the terrace of spread of bracken. Rubha Port an t-Seilich.
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A test-pit survey was undertaken These [finds] revealed the in 2010 and a test-trench site to be one of the most excavated in 2013. These significant Mesolithic sites revealed the site to be one of the ever discovered in Scotland. most significant Mesolithic sites ever discovered in Scotland: the Sealed below the Mesolithic deposits had abundant stone deposits at the base of the test- tools and the debris from their trench was a thin horizon of manufacture, associated with sediment that – to an expert eye many thousands of fragments of – contained some quite different animal bones and charred plant types of stone tools. These remains. The test-trench had cut had also been made from flint through a Mesolithic fireplace, nodules but the manufacturing constructed in the shelter of large technique and the style of the boulders. Radiocarbon dating stone points produced was indicating the campsite had been indicative of ice-age rather than repeatedly utilized between 9300 Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. and 7700 years ago.
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The 2013 site evaluation
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This had flourished in To reach western Scotland, they The 2013 test-trench had only Validating continental Europe towards most likely sailed in skin boats exposed a small quantity of the end of the last ice age along the rivers and marshes of that underlying sediment, the discovery around 12,000 years ago, with Doggerland – the now drowned which lacked any material that a few traces known in southern landmass that once connected could be radiocarbon dated. Independent experts agreed England. Although traditionally Britain to Europe – and then Contained within the sediments, that the stone tools interpreted as reindeer hunters, around the north of Scotland to however, was tephra – volcanic recovered from the recent discoveries in Denmark arrive at its west coast, where ash. The end of the ice age and Sweden had suggested the Rubha Port an t-Seilich provided and start of the postglacial lowermost layer at Rubha Ahrensburgian people might an attractive camp site. had been particularly active for Port an t-Seilich had the also have been coastal foragers. volcanic eruptions in Iceland. Recent discoveries in characteristics of the Tephra fell to earth from the ash Ahrensburgian culture. Denmark and Sweden had clouds that crossed Scotland suggested the Ahrensburgian and became embedded into people might also have been the accumulating sediments at coastal foragers. Rubha Port an t-Seilich.
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Each eruption produced tephra with a distinct chemical Full details of the recovery, analysis and composition, and several of interpretation of the these have been accurately 2010 and 2013 finds dated. By this method – from Rubha Port an t-Seilich have been tephrochronology – we were published:. able to date the sediments Mithen, S.J., Wicks, K, just above the stone points et al. 2015. A late glacial to around 11,000 years ago, archaeological site and tephra sequence confirming their attribution to in the far northwest of the Ahrensburgian culture. Europe: Ahrensburgian artefacts and We were able to date the geoarchaeology at sediments just above the Rubha Port an t-Seilich, Isle of Islay, western stone points to around Scotland. Journal of 11,000 years. Quaternary Science 30, 396-416. DOI: 10.1002/ jqs.2781.
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Fragments of animal bone The from red deer, roe deer and wild boar, pebble and Mesolithic chipped stone tools from the Mesolithic period deposits 9–7000 years ago.
Ice age tools form the base Ice age of the deposits in the 2013 evaluation trench.
deposits These tools are characteristic of the Late Glacial Ahrensburgian culture, c. 12,000 years ago.
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mm 10 20 30 40 50 Ice Age deposits Age Ice
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The aims Staff Student volunteers
The 2017 • Undertake a topographic Professor Steven Mithen, George Biddulph survey of the locality Project Director Kayce Herrick excavation • Document all surface Dr Karen Wicks, Field Director Rosie Hoggard archaeology Dr Rob Fry, surveyor Rosie-May Howard and survey • Establish a trench centered Nick Pankhurst, Thomas King on the likely focus of the Excavation supervisor The first field season of the Mesolithic and Late Glacial Leanne Waring Tom Lyons, RPAS Project took place deposits Emma Warner between 1–14 April 2017. Excavation supervisor • Remove surface deposits The field team consisted Sarah Lambert-Gates, to expose the Mesolithic Photography and planning Islay volunteers of staff and students from occupation horizon the University of Reading Kerry Baker • Secure samples of finds for and local volunteers. post-excavation study Niall Colthart
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“WORKING ON THE PROJECT TEAM WAS A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY”
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As well as fixing the location A series of stone and turf walls The topographic of the new trench on the terrace, were also located and mapped, the survey also located a as was a standing stone that and archaeological disused structure close to the seems likely to have been shoreline which was called the artificially positioned. ‘Fisherman’s hut’. survey The surface of the terrace was strikingly flat, suggesting it The surface of the terrace was had been levelled during the strikingly flat, suggesting it course of cultivation. This was had been levelled during the validated during excavation by course of cultivation. the observation of furrows – most likely for potatoes – within the subsoil and scratches on stones most likely from spades and hoes.
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Standing stone
Right: Fisherman’s hut prior to excavation Far right: Turf and stone wall
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The topographic survey of Rubha Port an t-Seilich was conducted using a Leica GS09/ CS09 GNSS SmartNet system, which is able to record location (X & Y) and height (Z) data to within 2cm accuracy.
The survey included the shoreline, beaches, and steeply undulating headland which surround the excavation trench.
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The system collects satellite The landscape survey The survey included the The extent of the Fisherman’s data which is corrected in covered an area of 3.6ha. shoreline, beaches, and the hut near the coastline was also real-time, from a known base steeply undulating headland recorded during this survey. station on the mainland via an A broad landscape survey was that surrounds the terrace. The survey data was and internet link. The surveys took first conducted to record the Archaeological features downloaded into a GIS package four days, over which 2000 data topography of the environs and identified and mapped where the data points were points were collected within the the position of any upstanding during this survey included converted into surface layers local environs and across the archaeology. This covered the location of a standing (via a Natural Neighbour excavation trench itself. an area of 3.6ha at a spatial stone to the south-east interpolation algorithm) and resolution between 1–10m of the excavation trench, height contours. The data (dependent on changes in and surviving traces of was also be imported and topography). boundary walls. manipulated within a 3D workspace for further analysis The surveys took four and visualisation. days, over which 2000 data points were collected.
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Preservation was poor and Excavation structural remains were limited beyond that of a dry stone of the wall at the western end of the structure. Fisherman’s hut A collection of glazed and earthenware ceramics was An evaluation trench was recovered from within the excavated to expose the structure, the identification foundations of a Fisherman’s of which will date when the hut had been used. hut surviving on the foreshore, overlooking the sheltered bay.
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Once the turfs were The topsoil contained glazed De-turfing removed, the trench pottery similar to that coming was gridded into square from the Fisherman’s hut and signs of recent cultivation. It also and exposing meters to control the contained considerable amounts recovery of finds. the Mesolithic of chipped flint and quartz artefacts, that had evidently The underlying topsoil was been churned up from the removed by trowel to expose the horizon underlying horizons. surface of the Mesolithic deposits and to locate the backfill from the 2013 evaluation trench.
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I’ve worked with Steve Planning and directing the in the Hebrides for 2017 excavation at Rubha Port many years and share an t-Seilich enabled me to “ pursue those interests while his passion for early prehistoric settlement. leading an outstanding team of While having my own professional archaeologists – special interests of Nick, Rob, Sarah and Tom – and environmental history hardworking, talented students. and the chronology of The 2018 excavation will be really exciting as the dig reaches human settlement. the layers of the ice age hunter-gatherer campsite. Dr Karen Wicks, ” Field Director of the 2017 excavation
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“HARDWORKING, TALENTED STUDENTS” 29 The Rubha Port an t-Seilich Project | 2017
During the removal of the topsoil a decorated sherd of pottery was discovered in the NE corner of the trench. Although yet to be formally identified, the character of the sherd and incised geometric pattern suggests it is most likely from the Bronze Age – emphasizing the enduring significance of Rubha Port an t-Seilich throughout prehistory.
The character of the sherd and incised geometric pattern suggests it is most likely from the Bronze Age.
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Further trowelling cleaned the surface of the Mesolithic deposits, exposing a number of small pits and flat slabs that had been deliberately positioned, most likely as working surfaces and anvils, along with stone artefacts that had remained undisturbed. Excavation continued by removing the Mesolithic deposit in a 3cm spit, hand collecting all artefacts, bone fragments and charcoal. Sediment samples were collected from each grid square to wash through a 2mm wet sieve, to ensure that a sample of the very smallest archaeological materials were recovered.
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Detailed photographic and drawn plans were made of the Mesolithic deposits.
The concentration of flat slabs in the central part of the trench are the uppermost deposits of the Mesolithic hearth that has been located during the 2013 evaluation.
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Composite plan of all contexts from August 2013 evaluation trench and April 2017 excavation.
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Glazed ceramics and glass, similar to that recovered Approximately 50 coarse stone tools were recovered from Charcoal samples were carefully collected during the from the Fisherman’s hut were found within the both the topsoil and the underlying Mesolithic deposits. excavation, to be used for radiocarbon dating. topsoil of the excavation trench. Some had been deliberated shaped by grinding, while others had been fractured or worn down through use. Many of these tools are elongated pebbles that have detached flakes from one end, appearing to have arisen from striking objects. All of these are likely to be Mesolithic in date.
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Approximately 5000 this collection appears to piece of chipped be Mesolithic in character, stone were recovered with the possibility of some Neolithic and Bronze Age from the excavation, material, as well as that primarily consisting from the Late Glacial. Such of flint. mixing will have arisen as a consequence of the past The majority is waste from the cultivation of the terrace manufacturing of blades, some and hence churning of the of which were chipped into underlying deposits, and by points, and thick flakes that re-use of existing flint flakes had been turned into scrapers. by successive occupants Although formal cataloging, of the terrace. analysis and interpretation has yet to be undertaken,
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The last day of the dig was spent returning all of the spoil and re-turfing the site, a requirement of the landowner. Next year, much of it will need to be removed again.
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The project is in the process Post of recruiting archaeological The 2018 specialists to catalogue, analyze excavation and interpret the collections of excavation ceramics, glass, chipped stone and coarse stone tools.
The charcoal samples are being cleaned and will then be identified as to the tree species. Those that are sufficiently well preserved and come from significant areas of the site will be selected for radiocarbon dating.
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The 2017 excavation identified a The 2018 concentration of artefacts and slabs, close to the Mesolithic excavation fireplace that had been exposed in the section of the 2013 evaluation trench. The 2018 excavation will make a detailed excavation of this area, seeking to remove all of the Mesolithic horizons with the expectation of finding undisturbed ice age settlement remains.
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“SO MUCH ARCHAEOLOGY ON SUCH A SMALL ISLAND”
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Islay was an amazing The first glimpse of where we I would love to have the archaeological would be spending two weeks opportunity to come back to the experience. The digging was breathtaking. The island and continue work with “ excavation work was challenging the project and the team. The opportunity to dig on such a significant in terms of what we wanted to University provided me with a Mesolithic site was achieve in the time available but wonderful experience to work on really exciting for me. we quickly formed a good team; Islay and learn about the island. communicating well, working hard The tour around the island but at the same time ensuring to visit other archaeological the techniques of excavation and sites showed me just how overarching research aims of much archaeology there is the project were being achieved. on such a small island. Students had ample opportunity I’m really excited to learn and improve their to see what future. proficiency in the field. Rosie-May Howard, University of Reading undergraduate”
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It was not all work. Visiting Islay’s famous whisky distilleries, watching otters and eagles, and even swimming were all part of the experience.
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Acknowledgements
The fieldwork at Rubha Port an t-Seilich was made possible by the kind permission of the Dunlossit Estate and the Schroder family to whom the project is most grateful. Equally, it was made possible by a generous donation to the University of Reading by an alumnus of the Department of Archaeology, Mr David Bailey, keen to support research and its current students. The project is grateful to in-kind support from the Islay Heritage charity and is pleased to contribute towards its mission of furthering knowledge about Islay’s past and public engagement with archaeology. Thanks are also due to staff members at the University of Reading who have supported the organization of the fieldwork and production of this report, notably Sue Jones and Rachel Warner. Many Islay residents have generously given their time and advice, and encouraged the project. For 2017 particular thanks are due to Susan Campbell, Les Wilson, Lynn Wilson and Niall Colthart.
44 www.islayheritage.org | [email protected] /islayheritage @islayheritage @islayheritage