Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 10 October 2014 Version of attached le: Published Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Nesbitt, C. and Church, M. J. and Gilmour, S. M. D. and Burgess, C. P. G. (2013) 'Small-scale evaluation of a Post-Medieval Blackhouse at Bereiro, Lewis, Western Isles of Scotland.', Journal of the North Atlantic., 22 . pp. 1-19. Further information on publisher's website: http://www.eaglehill.us/JONAonline/articles/JONA-22/03-Nesbit-et-al.shtml Publisher's copyright statement: Any further replication or distribution of the article, either in whole or in part, except for personal research purposes, is not allowed except with the written permission of the publisher, the Eagle Hill Institute. 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Burgess3 Abstract - This paper presents the results of the excavation of two dry-stone structures in the abandoned blackhouse village of Bereiro, near to the township of Crowlista, Isle of Lewis. The research was undertaken as part of a wider landscape proj- ect investigating human occupation on the Uig peninsula from prehistory to the post-medieval period (the Uig Landscape Project). The excavation aimed to collect dating evidence from the site to determine the date of construction and abandon- ment of one of the earliest structures in the village, in an attempt to establish the longevity of the blackhouse form in the vernacular architecture of medieval Atlantic Scotland. The results of the dating program are considered alongside historical documents, which record the social history of the village within the context of the long-standing research questions regard- ing blackhouse villages. These questions include the development of the agricultural field systems and continuity or change in the Hebridean landscape from later-prehistory to medieval times. Introduction collect dating evidence for the earliest use of the site Bereiro is a post-medieval abandoned black- and to examine the structural remains to understand house village that sits above the east shore of Tràigh the architectural form of the blackhouse building. nan Srùban, north of the Camas Uig (NGR: NB Therefore, the excavations in 1996 targeted two 0455 3454; Fig. 1). The site was included as part adjacent drystone structures that were the least of the Uig Landscape Survey undertaken in 1995 well-preserved in the village and appeared to show (Burgess and Church 1996). Bereiro was one of four multi-phase activity compared with the other more sites chosen for excavation including a Middle Iron straightforward and apparently single-phase final Age islet site at An Dunan, a Late Bronze Age/Early blackhouse structures in the village (see Fig. 4). This Iron Age promontory enclosure at Gob Eirer, and a evidence led the excavators to believe that the more multi-period relict landscape of Late Bronze Age ephemeral structures represented the earliest black- to post-medieval date at Guinnerso (see Nesbitt et house in the village. al. 2011). The buaile (small village) of Bereiro is located on a low spur that runs north–south and is The Archaeology of Blackhouses easily visible in the landscape, as it is surrounded by the remains of an agricultural field system in the Blackhouse is a term given to a distinctive form form of runrig (Fig. 2). Local historic documenta- of architecture used for dwelling houses in post- tion places abandonment of the village at around medieval Atlantic Scotland. The architectural form 1830 (Comann Eachdraidh Uig 2011). A number of of the blackhouse follows a broad pattern, namely a recurrent research objectives have underpinned the long and narrow house with annexes to the front and study of blackhouse villages including discovering: rear. Often the main body of the house was separated whether it is possible to see the blackhouse village into a byre area at one end, which housed animals, as a continuation of prehistoric settlement patterns and a dwelling space at the other end for the hu- or as a break from the past (Campbell 2009, Dodg- man occupants. The annex to the rear was routinely shon 1993); how the use of certain building materi- used as a barn while, the front annex, the fosglans, als in particular ways suggests an environmental served as an entrance to the structure. Blackhouses determinism in vernacular architecture (Geddes are also characterized by their thatched roofs, built 2010); the form and extent of the remains of the on A-frame trusses that rest on the inner skins of the villages (Fenton 1995, Kissling 1943, Walker and walls, and the absence of a chimney. The walls are MacGregor 1996); how the settlements develop in thick and stone lined, usually with an earthen core terms of the in-field/out-field system of agricul- (Holden et al. 2001:17). Within a given region, the tural land use (Dodgshon 1973, 1977; Whittington forms of the blackhouse tend not to vary signifi- 1975); and the threats to the extant remains of these cantly from one another; however, the characteris- particular types of settlement (Parker Pearson et al. tics do vary from region to region. For example, the 2011). The research aim of the Uig Landscape Proj- blackhouses of Barra and South Uist are smaller than ect survey and excavation at Bereiro was simply to those in Lewis, and it seems likely that they may 1Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK. 2Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, National Museums Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF, UK. 3County Hall, Morpeth, Northumberland NE61 2EF, UK. *Corresponding author - [email protected]. 2 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 22 2013 C. Nesbitt, M.J. Church, S.M.D. Gilmour, and C.P.G. Burgess 3 not have housed animals within the dwelling in the periods. For example, the Underhoull longhouse way that Lewisian blackhouse dwellings clearly did on Shetland dating from the Early Norse period (ca. (Branigan and Merrony 2000:1). 800–1000 cal AD; Small 1964:264) shares several The architectural form of the blackhouse was one similarities with Hebridean blackhouses, including which suited the climate and availability of materials the plan of the structure, the construction materials, in the North Atlantic in the latter half of the second the paved floor, and the central hearth. Similar struc- millennium AD. Geddes has argued that the roof was tures also exist from the Norse period across the wid- designed to be easily accessible for the necessarily er North Atlantic, in the Faroes (Arge 1991, Church frequent repair of weather damage and to minimize et al. 2005), Iceland (Smith 1995, Vésteinsson 2004), the amount of timber required in an area where that and Greenland (Høegsberg 2010). Examples of simi- commodity was at a premium (Geddes 2010: 20). lar Norse-period structures in the Western Isles can be While there is some evidence that woodland may seen at Bornais, South Uist, where mound 2 was ex- have been managed in the Iron Age of Atlantic Scot- cavated to reveal a rectangular Norse building, which land (Church 2002a), oral testimony from Arnol sug- post-dated an 11th-century bow-walled hall (Sharples gests that at the time of construction of the houses 2012). At Bostadh in Great Bernera, a Late Iron Age there, all the timber used for blackhouse building and Norse multiphase settlement was excavated and was salvaged from shipwrecks or collected as drift- revealed a stone-walled rectilinear building and as- wood (Geddes 2010:22). Geddes (2010:15) stated sociated midden deposits of 9th–11th century date succinctly: “blackhouses are distinctly vernacular (Neighbour and Burgess 1996:113–114). However, buildings in which design materials limitations and very few rectilinear domestic structures have been pretensions are all allied to a particular cultural and excavated in the Western Isles that date from the 13th natural context”. to 17th centuries AD, after the Norse period but before It is clear that examples of dwellings closely the post-Medieval appearance of classic blackhouse matching blackhouse architecture exist across the form. Holden et al. (2001:17) suggest that it is likely North Atlantic region from earlier archaeological that turf was used in the construction of these earlier Figure 2. Extent of rigging associated with Bereiro. Reproduced from the 1967 Ordnance Survey® Aerial Photograph OS_67_174_837 with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of The Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, © Crown copyright. Figure 1 (opposite page). Location map of Bereiro. 4 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 22 domestic structures and accounts for the lack of vis- binocular microscope at 15x–80x magnification. All ibility of more examples of early blackhouse forms macrofossil identifications were checked against because they simply have not survived as obvious up- botanical literature and modern reference material standing monuments.