More than 29,000 artefacts found at Culbin! That was the astonishing figure given by ARCH project officer Cathy MacIver at her talk in Dingwall Community Centre last night.

‘One of the richest archaeological fields in Scotland’ was the description given to Culbin by Callander in 1916 and the area has indeed produced a phenomenal number of artefacts that are now displayed in many museums - more than 29,000 of them in the National Museum in Edinburgh alone, but also locally in Nairn, Elgin and Forres, as far south as London and scattered in other museums across the country. 

Cathy described tray upon tray of arrowheads and scrapers that the group were able to see in the National Museum, an intriguing many-facetted mould for bronze age axe making, an iron age leaf-shaped spearhead - the Culbin blade - on permanent display in Elgin museum - and many other fascinating finds. Amongst which are more than 4,000 beads, many of them glass iron age beads that have been made at Culbin. These have been found as far north as Shetland and south to Ayrshire and are of a  similar design to beads found in central Europe - all strong indications of a wide trading network.

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Undeterred by the crazy weather last week ARCH project officers, Susan and Cathy, faced wind, rain snow and floods to be with their classes.

Some might think them mad to be travelling to Milton and to Skye (good grief!) on Thursday, when the rest of us were battening down hatches and huddling close to the fire - but Susan and Cathy are made of sterner stuff - and so too, it seems are their classes.

At Broadford on Skye only those from Raasay were unable to make the class, but everyone else was able to complete the magnificient display shown left, which is now on view in Broadford Library. For more on this story take a look at our latest news.

Displays were also completed in Alness and in Milton last week - all details of their exhibitions will be coming soon . . .

We think that our funders - The Heritage Lottery Fund, the European Community Highland LEADER 2007-2013 Programme, and The Highland Council will be impressed by everyone's efforts.

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Well, a bit of disappointment for me today . . . Snowed in on the top of the Black Isle I couldn't make it to the final session of Delve into the Past in Alness where they were putting the finishing touches to their display. It will go on view to the public after Christmas, and is the culmination of the summer dig at Foulis. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they've created, but in the meantime it is well worth reading some of the summer blogs and comments from those that took part.

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Apple scrumping, two storey cellars, bee boles in walls and hangman’s rigs - there’s been a few surprises coming out of Tain recently.

 

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Hi all,

Well thats it! Day 14 had us finishing of our final section drawings, laying down terram to protect the surfaces of the areas we want to reopen next year and backfilling! backfilling! backfilling! The day was finished off in great style with a sunny! BBQ and a beer or two :)

Thankyou all for a wonderful dig and great company - and most of all thanks for all your hard work! Hope to see you all next year.

Cheers,

Cathy and Cait

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Today has been all sampling, sectioning, drawing and delineating levels above ODN!!!

Yes, as we prepare to backfill our trenches, some very carefully and over a semi-permeable layer of membrane - because we are returning to them next year - we have been recording and sorting all the insights that have emerged at the ends of our trowels, hoes and mattocks.

Martin and Bob have continued to excavate down the half-section along the tumbling spread of rubbular cobbles and underlying big boulders that hug the base of the slope of the mound.  What is clear is that we are looking at a slipped stony context that may represent a collapsed revetting of the mound, or other structural elements, and may even include some later dumping of stone into this already convenient stony store.  What is clear is that we can see the stone falling into a cut in the redeposited natural sand that appears to make up the earthwork of the mound.  Whether this cut rings the base of the mound, we will have to investigate further next year.  It is not yet clearly wide enough that we might consider it to be a ditch, but more targeted excavation at this spot next season could well produce some very satisfying results.

In Trench 2, over in the Barley Field, Rosemary and Malcolm have also been digging into their half section of that part of Sondage Y that is opposite Allan’s Test Pit – which has just gone down and down.  In the section they have discovered differentiated layers of small, sharp stones, overlaying a cobble layer and all this above a degraded sandstone surface, possibly underlaid by fragmented slabs of varying stone types.  All this is very like the layering of that opposing Test Pit..  But, we are really only getting a keyhole peek in each case and so, resolving whether we are examining made, modified or natural surfaces needs further examination and indicates that next year we can consider further open area excavation of the sub-soils here.

A curiously semi-circular micaceous schist slab, with a pit of dark loam resting in what appears to be a central demi-perforation at the centre, lay just above the natural bedrock in the Test Pit.  The stone was so degraded that it crumbled to the touch of the trowel, but not before we drew it in its context, to scale, photographed it and sampled the contents of the context.  Whispers of quern stones, post pads and deliberate depositions might have been heard, but we’ll need to do a bit more head scratching together before we come back to you on that one.

And, of course, today there was more Flotation, Flotation, Flotation, as we sifted and vibrated through our heavy sediment samples in order to float up those precious fragments of grain, seeds, charcoal and bone that might give us an indication of the date and nature of the human activities of growing, eating, processing and depositing that will enliven that archaeological remains across the site.  The Flotation Tank was definitely an active centre of super sampling sensation and I think Karen, Betty, Kay, Alpha and all those who joined them will agree that it was also the centre of some chuckle worthy craic!

Kirsty, Siobhan and Johnathan have completed some sterling work cleaning and photographing all of our small finds - careful cleaning and fine photography have revealed some hitherto unseen details including further definition of the possible stamped identification or weight details on our copper ingot and a bonnie Britannia on the George II penny.

We hope the laughter and sunshine stay with us tomorrow as we round u all those little bits of un-dones and necessaries before backfilling all the earth that has moved and lay the last turf over fabulous Foulis, in readiness for our return next year.

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Goodness, can you believe it, here we are already only two days to go of this the first ever ARCH Delve into the Past Dig, and the first ever known excavation of Foulis Mound and possible Relict Routeway!

Today we continued to record the site’s various interesting features, in a whole variety of ways, including continuing to conduct our 3-D Total Station Survey of the Mound and environs and, a new one for this season, taking levels on the sondages and test pit in Trench 2, our exploration of the possible projection of the routeway that we believe connects Foulis to an early communications network traversing Easter Ross, from the Beauly to the Dornoch Firths.

Using theodolite to read measurements on a specially constructed vertical staff ‘ruler’, Ellen and Rosemary took readings at 1 metre intervals along the sondages that will enable us to identify even the smallest differences in height – dips and bumps – that could indicate whether we are working on the buried remains of a metalled (or made up and level surface) of an early ‘road’. We might even be able to assess whether we have also picked up the tell-tale rise and fall of roadside embankments. This sort of recording is vital, as we are working in a cultivated area, where we cannot find the above ground remains as these are likely to have been ploughed away. It’s going to take a while to process these finding (the maths bit takes a while), but we are sure they will be enlightening.

Allan continues to go down and down into the Test Pit that we have put in opposite Sondage Y, in this proposed routeway trench. Interestingly, he still hasn’t bottomed out (hit an entirely natural surface) yet! A surface of river cobbles and fragmentary stone continues to be visible, and, most importantly, the matrix – that is: the soil that holds these stones – still has lenses of lovely, dark, brown loamy silt (an archaeologists’ dream – if there is any archaeology to be found it will be in these lovely, organic rich layers).

Further Test Pit news: at the mound, Bob and Ellen continued to clean back Test Pit 3, before recording it by photographing it and drawing all those lovely ‘rubbular’ stones to scale in a measured plan. We like these stones because they are indicating a few things. Firstly, that there is a voidy area right there at the top of the mound – the stones are collapsing and spreading into this hollow ground. We are beginning to feel confident that we are not simply cleaning back a glacial mound, but that there may be some interesting activity underlying this rubble – again, another indication of archaeological possibility, as wherever there is a cavity and a deposit (the void and the stones) we start to look for the signs of human intervention in the past (building collapses, the depositing of stone and spoil, levelling of ground).

It is too early to place absolute interpretations on these events in the earth – you will simply have to join us next year to help us develop these – but we do know that we want to investigate more in this area.

And, speaking of ‘rubbular’ deposits – do you remember that cobble spread over the big boulders at the base of the mound? Today, Martin and Bob have started to half section this mass, carefully taking half of it down layer by layer, so that we can all watch and understand what is happening in each layer, both as it comes out of the trench on one side and by looking at the remaining vertical section on the other – it’s like going down in a glass fronted elevator, seeing the strata emerge layer by layer. They will be recording this vertical section tomorrow – photographing it and drawing it, adding this wall of archaeological activity to our developing understanding of this feature of the site. So far, we are able to see that all those cobbles appear to have been a superficial deposit, thrown in over the bigger boulders and, helpfully delineating the dip and curve of what might be a ditch cut – but, we’ll hold back on saying too much more on this until we see more of the section emerge – keep digging deep lads!

Join us tomorrow to hear about how we get towards retting things up in advance of Sunday’s BIG Backfill Bonanza… And, keep all those fingers crossed that the rain continues to steer clear of the particular corner of Mid-Ross.

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Hi all,

Another productive day with the weather gods being kind to us!

Our test pit 3 on top of the mound has shown up an interesting fill of stony rubble material so we cleaned up the surface photographed it and started to plan it. The depth of topsoil here approx 40cm (only a few meters from Trench 1 Area C) compared to the edge of the mound approx 5cm highlighted that  it is likely that we have lost some topsoil and maybe archaeological material to water erosion in Area C which has a very thin topsoil layer in comparison. Due to the interesting spread of stone in the test pit we will complete planning tomorrow and then backfill - leaving the opportunity to explore this deposit further next year by opening a much wider area around the deposit to give us a clearer picture of what is going on and how it relates to the other parts of the site.

Area C planning was completed and with the chance to dry out the context differences were becoming more obvious. A new surface of stony deposit was appearing through the day and will be cleaned up tomorrow for photographing.

Meanwhile in Area B the planning of the trench was completed - we are now ready to half section our possible ditch at the base of the mound. Our half section will also aim to explore how far the stone layer stretches into the mound and whether it is structural erosion from the center of the mound or a dump of stone from elsewhere.

Trench 2: Allan continued coming down onto a stony spread in his test pit  - a visit from Finn and Jacky who has been ploughing in the field for years confirmed that this was not a typical deposit to be found in this field. This gives us hope that we are coming across something archaeological rather than natural. We also got confirmation that we are in the right area to catch part of the field boundary that we think preserves the old routeway (although maybe moving 4-5m downslope will put us more squarely on the feature).

A new section has been started opposite Allan's test pit to give us an alternative section or profile to draw and this will help us record any small layers showing up in profile. Planning has a been completed on Trench 2 today so we have a nice record of the stony spreads we have been coming across.

So, all in all it has been a very useful day, clarifying that what we are digging is not a natural mound.

A small shower drove us to cover up the site half an hour early today so we had a small spot of sample flotation to end the day!

P.S. Sorry there are no photos - I have temporarily (I hope) lost the download cable for the camera. Doh!

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Oh we have been lucky – another rainless and very active day on the mound and in the barley field as we spent most of the day preparing to, setting up tapes and poles for and then drawing, to measured scale all that we have uncovered so far.

Planning – the process of drawing to scale exactly what can be seen when we look down into our trenches – is the process of preserving by record an exact replica of each new archaeological layer, or context, before we remove it in order to get further down and further back in time on the site.

As we remove each strata of archaeology we record it precisely so that what we necessarily destroy, in order to understand the make up of the site, can be replicated by putting together our scaled drawings and overlaying them in sequence. Every time we excavate a layer off the site we build another layer of plans, so that as the site goes down, our drawn plan layers increase in height.

We have discovered some nifty draughts people in the team – keen eyes spotting every change in soil colour and change in gradient, a really valuable skill on any excavation.

Those who weren’t planning were also fully active with, yes, you guessed it, more troweling, and some excellent cleaning back of the Sondage (or, Trench-within-a-Trench) at the Western extent of Trench 2 in the Barley Field has revealed a stony concentration that looks very likeploughing disturbance of a buried stone surface and is an encouragement to us as we continue to explore the possibility of a relict route making its way to the SSE of Cnoc an Teampuil.  We've also managed a crafty wee test pit outside the trench area on the top of the mound - more on this to come!

We have also been able to spend some time stabilising (cleaning and drying) the assemblage of finds and some clever and patient work her has given us more insights into the material culture being recovered from the very latest occupation and use of the site. This has included clarifying facets on all of our musket balls, indicating that all three were once fired and more definition of the incised stamp on the copper ingot – making it easier for an expert eye to perhaps identify the stamp and propose a date and an origin for this intriguing wee piece; some military bullion maybe?

This post-excavation work (the continuing examination of what has come out of the ground after it has been recovered from the trenches) is invaluable and will continue after the excavation has completed, for sure – if you are interested in finding out more about this and in getting involved we will be running courses in the autumn, using the finds and other recoveries from this dig to learn more and to develop the interpretation of the site.

Post excavation has also begun on the environmental samples that we are taking of each new context uncovered. These sediment samples are being floated and vibrated through a series of fine meshed sieves in a flotation tank on site. The heavy soil drops to the bottom of the tank and lighter (floatable) organic material such as seeds, grains, charcoal and fragments of bone and shell is floated up and captured for further analysis. This material can tell us a lot about the food that people grew, processed and ate at the site and, if we get some useful charcoal samples for radiocarbon dating, may also tell us when they were doing this.

So, as you can see, our day has been busy and diverse, but, worry not, we still had time for teabreaks and some exploration and sampling of some particularly fine doughnuts that ‘appeared’ on site this morning… We might have to continue studying these a little further tomorrow. Do come back and take a peek then to find out more about these and our other findings as we get closer to our final days for this season at Foulis Mound.

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Hi all,

We were back at Foulis today for the final haul after calling off work on Sunday due to soggy trenches and another day off on Monday. 

In Trench 1 we cleaned back all the surfaces in Areas A, B and C and the Area B extension to define our features clearly. Some low light (otherwise known as general gloominess) helped us define spreads of redeposited material in Area C. Planning (drawing the stone spreads and context boundaries from above) began in Area C and will be completed tomorrow in preparation for digging further to explore the stony spreads.

The cleaning of Area B went slower with lots of individual stones to clean around and a much deeper deposit to clean in the extension. Good progress was made and planning will commence tomorrow so we can record and half-section the stony spread.

Meanwhile in Trench 2 the spread of interesting stones has been cleaned to plan tomorrow. Two small test pits were excavated in opposing ends of the trench to test the depth of potential features and the natural. These were planned today and some kubiena samples were taken to provide further information on the micro-morphology (tiny layers) of the soil.

So its going to be planning central tomorrow so we can get back to the digging for the final stretch before the end of the dig!

This feed was drawn from the ARCH Highland website