The Birsay Bay Project Volume 3

Christopher D. Morris is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, having previously been Reader in Viking Archaeology at the University of Durham. His lifelong research interests have been in the Early Medieval period, especially post-Roman, Anglo-Scandinavian, Pictish, Viking and Late Norse. He has carried out archaeological fieldwork in Orkney, Shetland, Caithness, Sutherland, the Isle of Man, northern England and Cornwall, and his many publications include four major site monographs together with two edited volumes on the Viking Age and Late Norse settlements across the North Atlantic region. Rachel Barrowman is a research associate at the University of Glasgow. She worked with colleagues on the Viking and Early Settlement Archaeological Research Project in the 1990s, when she was involved in excavations at Tintagel in Cornwall. She has since published work on the chapel and burial ground on St Ninian’s Isle, Shetland, the late medieval clan stronghold of Dùn Èistean, and the chapel-sites of Lewis. She lives and works with her husband and family in Ness at the north end of Lewis.

List of illustrations

List of tables

Preface

Acknowledgements

 

Part I. Background and context for investigations 1946–2014

1. Background by Christopher D Morris

2. The Birsay Bay Project and the Brough of Birsay by Christopher D Morris

 

Part II. Area I: The church and churchyard

3. Historical background to the 1950s–1960s investigations at the church, associated buildings and churchyard on the Brough of Birsay by C A Ralegh Radford

4. Investigations by Ralegh Radford and Stewart Cruden on the church compiled by Christopher D Morris

5. Investigations by Ralegh Radford and Stewart Cruden on the buildings north of the church compiled by Christopher D Morris

6. An architectural analysis of the church and related buildings on the Brough of Birsay by Richard Fawcett

7. The graves, churchyard enclosures and notable stone monuments compiled by Christopher D Morris

8. Reassessment of the ‘Celtic Enclosure’ in 1981 by Christopher D Morris

 

Part III. Area II: The buildings east of the churchyard

9. Investigations by Radford and Cruden on the area to the east of the churchyard (‘The Viking House’) and excavations in ‘Room 5’ of the ‘Small buildings’ in 1973/4

10. Explorations in 1993 on the cliff-side to the south-east of the churchyard by Christopher D Morris

 

Part IV. Area III: The buildings west of the churchyard

11. Investigations by Radford and Cruden on the buildings to the south-west of the churchyard by Christopher D Morris

12. Area excavations 1974–80 in and around Structure N by Christopher D Morris

13. Area excavations in 1974–5 in and around Structure L and trial excavations in 1977 on features around Structure M by Christopher D Morris

14. Area excavations in 1976–80 in and around Structure E to the west of the churchyardby Christopher D Morris

15. Area excavations in 1977–81 in and around Structures ‘S’ and B to the west and north-west of the churchyard and re-assessment of the dating of Structures F, P and R to the north

16.  Specialist studies relating to Area III

 

Part V. The south-western cliff-side area

17. Survey and trial investigations 1979 and re-assessment of the dating of Sites VIII and IXby Christopher D Morris

18.  Investigations on the Peerie Brough 1979–81 by Christopher D Morris

 

Part VI. Economy, landscape and analysis

19.  The artefactual assemblage by Colleen E Batey

20.  The biological assemblage by Christopher D Morris based on work by D James Rackham with others

21. Geophysical prospection 2007 on the Brough of Birsay by Susan Ovenden and David W Griffiths

22. Overall re-assessment of radiocarbon dates from Birsay by Zoe Outram

23. Birsay Bay landscape geophysical surveys, 2003–6 by David W Griffiths with Susan Ovenden

 

Part VII. Drawing the threads together

24. The Brough of Birsay and Birsay Bay in retrospect by Christopher D Morris

25. An overview and final assessment by Christopher D Morris

 

Appendices

Bibliography

Index