Reconstructing House Activity Areas Using Environmental and Geoarchaeological Techniques
The SEARCH Project on South Uist, Outer Hebrides, has been developing a long-term perspective of changes in settlement and house form from the late Bronze Age to the 19th century, with eight excavations of sites within this timespan. Research indicates that Iron Age round house organization appears to have been very different from the use of space within 19th century "blackhouses" in which the dwelling was shared with stock. One of the pivotal transformations between these two domestic systems occurred in the Viking Age with the adoption of rectangular dwellings. Excavations of a group of complete Viking long houses at Kilpheder and three settlement mounds containing complete long houses and associated buildings at Bornish, have allowed an intensive sampling of floor deposits and associated external contexts. For comparative purposes, the same approach is being applied to late Bronze Age round houses at Cladh Hallan, South Uist. Chemical and physical analysis of samples is taking place and bioarchaeological evidence is being recovered in an attempt to gain evidence of differential activity across the house floors and thereby address questions relating to the patterns of movement within these structures.
Project Directors:
Helen Smith (BU) and Peter Marshall (RCHME)
Collaborators:
U of Sheffield, U of Cardiff, U of Southampton
Funding:
Historic Scotland
Publications
- Brennand, M, Parker Pearson, M, and Smith, H, 1998, The Norse age settlement and Pictish cairn at Kilpheder, South Uist. Excavations in 1998. Sheffield. University of Sheffield Department of Prehistory and Archaeology. [Limited circulation printed report]
- Parker Pearson, M, Sharples, N, Mulville, J, and Smith, H, 1999, Between land and sea: excavations at the broch of Dun Vulan,. Sheffield. Sheffield Academic Press
- Smith, H, and Marshall, P D, forthcoming, Reconstructing house activity areas. In U Albarella and A Hammon (eds.) The meaning and purpose of environmental archaeology
