Monument record 11841 - LEWIS, BHALTOS, TRAIGH NA BERIE

NB13NW 58 centred on 1000 3600

NB13NW 58.01 c.100 360 Cist; Pottery

See also NB13NW 4 and NB03NE 6, 55, 56, 57

(Centred NB 105 358) The Sands of Bere (Traigh na Berie) are the site of extensive settlement, ranging from Mesolithic (with a working floor and a stone industry close to Late Larnian in character) to the broch period (with a broch - NB13NW 3 - and abundant typical pottery and heavy stone implements). Lacaille suggests that the Mesolithic way of life continued to the broch times.
Hut circles and great areas of kitchen middens are also revealed by shifting sands.
One of the middens, on a sandhill about 600 yards from Berie and noticeable for its large content of oyster shells, also produced slag and two small Samian sherds.
Excavations in the sandhill about 1909 produced a number of hut-circles and probable souterrain, and another hut-circle and an apsidal setting of stones at least 6ft in diameter internally, were seen. An area of extensive middens at the western extremity of the Traigh na Berie produced bronze needles, pins and wire, and was the site of more hut-circles and, probably, the principal working floor.
A selection of the finds is in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).
A D Lacaille 1937; 1954; RCAHMS 1928; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1914; 1938; 1960.

RMS FC 247 Skewomorphic pin with kidney ring, of type current in Ireland from the Viking period to the 12th century.
L R Laing 1973.
REPORT DATE: 29/04/2004