Dig diary – stratigraphic detective work

Day 12
Tuesday, July 21, 2026

You can’t have a Neolithic structure without a drain or two. And that’s what seems to have emerged today.

Perhaps not on the scale of some of the monumental drain encountered elsewhere on site, this little drain ran under the foundation slabs at the western end of the building.

It might not be as grand as some we’ve seen, but this little drain unlocked more of the story of our latest Neolithic structure.

How?

Through a fine piece of stratigraphic detective work.

Paul noticed the potential drain yesterday and continued excavating the area this morning. Once clear what he had, he continued to the north-east where it became clear that the north-eastern foundation slabs had been cut into that primary phase drain.

To cut a long story short, this confirmed that these slabs were later than their neighbours and therefor part of a second phase of activity that saw part of the building re-used and the northern wall rebuilt.

Today was more like a typical Orcadian summer’s day – brisk winds and overcast. That made seeing differences in colour across the site easier than the past few days but the blowing dust and grit was somewhat irritating.

That said, we made great progress, working down through overlying subsoil material and into the archaeological deposits.

At the south-eastern end, Jem, Tom and Dani opened a section to examine the rubble layer in that area – to see, in particular, whether any traces of the possibly larger phase one building survived. Nothing to report yet.

Meanwhile, Jackie set to excavating the central hearth, revealing a small sherd of pottery in the north-eastern corner. The hearth has now been half-sectioned – one half will be excavated downwards to reveal changes in the deposited layers – before the second section is removed.

Despite being down to the archaeology in all quadrants of the trench, finds remain something of a rarity. That said, Sigurd found a beautiful flint blade today from the west of the building. Again fashioned from the same toffee-coloured flint as the leaf arrowhead earlier in the season, the tool is fairly substantial and showed signs of use.

The flint blade found by Sigurd this morning. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Among today’s many visitors were Simon Thurley, chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund, Tom Ingrey-Counter, of the Scottish Heritage Lottery Fund and Inga Burton from Orkney Islands Council.

Today’s winds are beginning to drop, so tomorrow will hopefully see less eye-rubbing due to billowing clouds of dust…