A Norse Settlement in the Outer Hebrides PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download A Norse Settlement in the Outer Hebrides PDF full book. Access full book title A Norse Settlement in the Outer Hebrides by Niall Sharples. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Niall Sharples
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789250471
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1056
Get Book Here
Book Description
The settlement at Bornais in the Western Isles of Scotland is one of the largest rural settlements known from the Norse period in Britain. It spans the period from the fifth to the fifteenth century AD when the Atlantic seaboard was subject to drastic changes. The islands were systematically ravaged by Viking raiders and then colonised by Norse settlers. In the following centuries the islanders were central to the emergence of the Kingdom of Man and the Isles, played a crucial role in the development of the Lordship of the Isles and were finally assimilated into the Kingdom of Scotland. This volume explores the stratigraphic sequence uncovered by the excavation of Bornais mounds 2 and 2A. The excavation of mound 2 revealed a sequence of high status buildings that span the Norse occupation of the settlement. One of these houses, constructed at the end of the eleventh century AD, was a well preserved bow-walled longhouse and the careful excavation and detailed recording of the floor layers has revealed a wealth of finds that provides invaluable insight into the activities taking place in this building. The final house in this sequence is very different in form and use, and clearly indicates the increasing Scottish influence on the region at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The excavation of mound 2A provides an insight into the less prestigious areas of the settlement and contributes a significant amount of evidence on the settlement economy. The area was initially cultivated before it became a settlement local and throughout its life a focus on agricultural activities, such as grain drying and processing, appears to have been important. In the thirteenth century the mound was occupied by a craftsman who produced composite combs, gaming pieces and simple tools. The evidence presented in this volume makes a major contribution to the understanding of Norse Scotland and the colonisation of the North Atlantic in a period of dramatic transformations.
Author: Niall Sharples
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789250471
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1056
Get Book Here
Book Description
The settlement at Bornais in the Western Isles of Scotland is one of the largest rural settlements known from the Norse period in Britain. It spans the period from the fifth to the fifteenth century AD when the Atlantic seaboard was subject to drastic changes. The islands were systematically ravaged by Viking raiders and then colonised by Norse settlers. In the following centuries the islanders were central to the emergence of the Kingdom of Man and the Isles, played a crucial role in the development of the Lordship of the Isles and were finally assimilated into the Kingdom of Scotland. This volume explores the stratigraphic sequence uncovered by the excavation of Bornais mounds 2 and 2A. The excavation of mound 2 revealed a sequence of high status buildings that span the Norse occupation of the settlement. One of these houses, constructed at the end of the eleventh century AD, was a well preserved bow-walled longhouse and the careful excavation and detailed recording of the floor layers has revealed a wealth of finds that provides invaluable insight into the activities taking place in this building. The final house in this sequence is very different in form and use, and clearly indicates the increasing Scottish influence on the region at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The excavation of mound 2A provides an insight into the less prestigious areas of the settlement and contributes a significant amount of evidence on the settlement economy. The area was initially cultivated before it became a settlement local and throughout its life a focus on agricultural activities, such as grain drying and processing, appears to have been important. In the thirteenth century the mound was occupied by a craftsman who produced composite combs, gaming pieces and simple tools. The evidence presented in this volume makes a major contribution to the understanding of Norse Scotland and the colonisation of the North Atlantic in a period of dramatic transformations.
Author: Niall M. Sharples
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
ISBN: 9781842174692
Category : Antiquities, Prehistoric
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
The settlement at Bornais consists of a complex of mounds which protrude from the machair plain on the island of South Uist. The excavation of the settlement is a long-term project which has been going since 1994. This volume examines mound 1, thought to have been occupied from the late Bronze Age.
Author: Niall Sharples
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789250498
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 726
Get Book Here
Book Description
The settlement at Bornais in the Western Isles of Scotland is one of the largest rural settlements known from the Norse period in Britain. It spans the period from the fifth to the fifteenth century AD when the Atlantic seaboard was subject to drastic changes. The islands were systematically ravaged by Viking raiders and then colonised by Norse settlers. In the following centuries the islanders were central to the emergence of the Kingdom of Man and the Isles, played a crucial role in the development of the Lordship of the Isles and were finally assimilated into the Kingdom of Scotland. This volume explores the stratigraphic sequence uncovered by the excavation of Bornais mounds 2 and 2A. The excavation of mound 2 revealed a sequence of high status buildings that span the Norse occupation of the settlement. One of these houses, constructed at the end of the eleventh century AD, was a well preserved bow-walled longhouse and the careful excavation and detailed recording of the floor layers has revealed a wealth of finds that provides invaluable insight into the activities taking place in this building. The final house in this sequence is very different in form and use, and clearly indicates the increasing Scottish influence on the region at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The excavation of mound 2A provides an insight into the less prestigious areas of the settlement and contributes a significant amount of evidence on the settlement economy. The area was initially cultivated before it became a settlement local and throughout its life a focus on agricultural activities, such as grain drying and processing, appears to have been important. In the thirteenth century the mound was occupied by a craftsman who produced composite combs, gaming pieces and simple tools. The evidence presented in this volume makes a major contribution to the understanding of Norse Scotland and the colonisation of the North Atlantic in a period of dramatic transformations.
Author: Niall Sharples
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789255414
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 666
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book explores the economic evidence for the settlement at Bornais on South Uist. It reports in detail on the large assemblages of material found during the excavations at mounds 2 and 2A. There is important evidence for craft activity, such as bone and antler working and this includes the only comb making workshop from a rural settlement in Britain. A large proportion of the copper alloy, bone and antler assemblages comprise pieces of personal adornment and provide important information on the dress and thereby social relations within the settlement occupation. There is a large assemblage of iron tools and fittings, which provides important information on the activities taking place at the settlement. The information derived from the artefact assemblages is complemented by that provided by the ecofactual material. Large amounts of animal, fish and bird bones plus carbonised plant remains provide detailed information on agricultural practices, and the processing, preparation and consumption of foodstuffs. It is clear that the Norse inhabitants of the settlement had access to a much richer variety of resources than had been exploited before the Viking colonisation of the region. The settlement also had a significantly wider range of connections; material culture indicates contacts to the south with the Irish Sea ports and Bristol, and to the north with Shetland and the Viking homelands of Norway. The evidence produced by these excavations is exceptional and provides an unparalleled opportunity to explore medieval life in the Scandinavian kingdoms of Western Britain.
Author: Chris Chinnock
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1803276878
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Get Book Here
Book Description
MOLA undertook archaeological excavations at Brackmills, Northampton, investigating part of a large Iron Age settlement and Roman complex farmstead. The remains were very well preserved having, in places, been shielded from later truncaton by colluvial deposits. Earlier remains included a late Bronze Age/early Iron Age pit alignment.
Author: Niall M. Sharples
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Get Book Here
Book Description
This volume examines South Uist, a small island in the soutern half of the Outer Hebrides. In the middle of the island lies the township of Bornais. This covers a particularly flat area of land which means that the three mounds can be seen all the more clearly. These mounds have been identified as being from the Viking period, with evidence of pre-Viking habitation at the site coming from Iron Age sherds. The excavation of the Bornais settlement is a long-term project, which has been going since 1994. This first volume of results of the excavation focuses on Mound 3, but includes a discussion of the topographic and geophysical survey of all the mounds. There is also considerable analysis of the environmental remains and radiocarbon dating.
Author: Mary MacLeod Rivett
Publisher: Birlinn
ISBN: 1788850688
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229
Get Book Here
Book Description
The Outer Hebrides lie 40 miles to the west of mainland Scotland, forming a barrier to the North Atlantic. Culturally distinct from early prehistory, the islands contain a wealth of historical and archaeological monuments, including the standing stones at Callanish, the magnificent St Clement’s church at Rodel as well as numerous brochs, castles, Pitish houses, croft houses and industrial and military buildings. In addition to descriptions of key historic sites from prehistory onwards and gazetteers covering every place of historical interest, this book also traces the development of the modern environment and landscape of the islands, enabling the visitor to appreciate the sites within their historical and cultural context.
Author: Dale Serjeantson
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789259576
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 524
Get Book Here
Book Description
The Archaeology of Wild Birds in Britain and Ireland tells the story of human engagement with birds from the end of the last Ice Age to about AD 1650. It is based on archaeological bird remains integrated with ethnography and the history of birds and avian biology. In addition to their food value, the book examines birds in ritual activities and their capture and role in falconry and as companion animals. It is an essential guide for archaeologists and zooarchaeologists and will interest historians and naturalists concerned with the history and former distribution of birds.
Author: Mike Parker Pearson
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789256968
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 568
Get Book Here
Book Description
This first of two volumes presents the archaeological evidence of a long sequence of settlement and funerary activity from the Beaker period (Early Bronze Age c. 2000 BC) to the Early Iron Age (c. 500 BC) at the unusually long-occupied site of Cladh Hallan on South Uist in the Western Isles of Scotland. Particular highlights of its sequence are a cremation burial ground and pyre site of the 18th–16th centuries BC and a row of three Late Bronze Age sunken-floored roundhouses constructed in the 10th century BC. Beneath these roundhouses, four inhumation graves contained skeletons, two of which were remains of composite collections of body parts with evidence for post-mortem soft tissue preservation prior to burial. They have proved to be the first evidence for mummification in Bronze Age Britain. Cladh Hallan’s remarkable stratigraphic sequence, preserved in the machair sand of South Uist, includes a unique 500-year sequence of roundhouse life in Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Britain. One of the most important results of the excavation has come from intensive environmental and micro-debris sampling of house floors and outdoor areas to recover patterns of discard and to interpret the spatial use of 15 domestic interiors from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. From Cladh Hallan’s roundhouse floors we gain intimate insights into how daily life was organized within the house – where people cooked, ate, worked and slept. Such evidence rarely survives from prehistoric houses in Britain or Europe, and the results make a profound contribution to long-running debates about the sunwise organisation of roundhouse activities. Activity at Cladh Hallan ended with the construction and abandonment of two unusual double-roundhouses in the Early Iron Age. One appears to have been a smokery and steam room, and the other was used for metalworking.
Author: Brais X. Currás
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351012096
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Get Book Here
Book Description
Alternative Iron Ages examines Iron Age social formations that sit outside traditional paradigms, developing methods for archaeological characterisation of alternative models of society. In so doing it contributes to the debates concerning the construction and resistance of inequality taking place in archaeology, anthropology and sociology. In recent years, Iron Age research on Western Europe has moved towards new forms of understanding social structures. Yet these alternative social organisations continue to be considered as basic human social formations, which frequently imply marginality and primitivism. In this context, the grand narrative of the European Iron Age continues to be defined by cultural foci, which hide the great regional variety in an artificially homogenous area. This book challenges the traditional classical evolutionist narratives by exploring concepts such as non-triangular societies, heterarchy and segmentarity across regional case studies to test and propose alternative social models for Iron Age social formations. Constructing new social theory both archaeologically based and supported by sociological and anthropological theory, the book is perfect for those looking to examine and understand life in the European Iron Age. We are so grateful to the research project titled "Paisajes rurales antiguos del Noroeste peninsular: formas de dominacion romana y explotacion de recursos" [Ancient rural landscapes in Northwestern Iberia: Roman dominion and resource exploitation] (HAR2015-64632-P; MINECO/FEDER), directed from the Instituto de Historia (CSIC) and also to the Fundaçao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia [Foundation for Science and Technology] postdoctoral project: SFRH-BPD-102407-2014.
