Monument record 250 - DALMORE, LEWIS

NB24NW 4 2141 4503.

(NB 2141 4503) Bone Borer found AD 1905 (NAT)
OS 6" map, (1965); Private 6"map (NMAS)

There is a scatter of stones and shells, possibly the remains of a midden, at the site.
Visited by OS (R L) 19 June 1969.

In the NMAS (Acc No.HR 1112) is a highly polished bone awl which was purchased in 1955. It is uncertain if this is the same awl or borer said to have been found in 1905 from the same site.
Information from T Cowie (NMAS) 28 February 1983.

NB 214 451. Since 1979, small scale excavation has been carried out by the writers at Dalmore Bay during construction of sea defences there.
To date, numerous decorated fragments of pottery, including Beaker-ware, flint & quartz barbed-&-tanged arrowheads, bone pins, quern stones, quantities of shell, animal bones, etc - one painted, have been found. The latest discovery in November 1982 is stones possibly indicating the remains of a house (Information from the Stornoway Gazette 14 Feburary 1983).
G Ponting and M Ponting 1979; 1980; 1981

Excavation has continued to the sea ward of the sea wall, with numerous finds of a similar nature and a small area of prehistoric soil surface. Parts of 5 stone structures were excavated and numerous associated finds, eg over 4,000 sherds with over 25% of them decorated; a few Neolithic, one Iron Age and the rest Beaker; vast quantities of quartz with six arrowheads, four arrowhead roughouts and over thirty scrapers; flint with one arrowhead roughout, and eighteen scrapers; 'mylonite' with one spearhead, four arrowheads, four arrowhead roughouts and twenty scrapers; one broken axehead; 135 plus potboilers; twenty three plus rubbing stones; thirty six bone artefacts and a painted shaped bone object.
B Ponting et al 1983; N Sharples 1983.

As a result of recent erosion by the Allt Garbh, at the site of this settlement, the following finds have been recovered: part of a broken saddle quern, 36cm by 25cm by 12cm, the worn hollow being 4cm deep, in a 1.5m length of coursed walling in the burn bed; 2 hammerstones, pot boilers, quartz core, and a pink quartz core associated with the wall; also 6 quartz flakes, pottery 12cm long with horizontal wavy grooved pattern, antler, animal bone, shell and stone.
Sponsor: Outer Hebrides Archaeology.
M R Curtis, G R Curtis and B Ponting 1994.

The monument consists of remains of a prehistoric settlement buried beneath sand and shingle deposits, and partly overlain by coast defences, at the SW end of Dalmore Bay.
The settlement, which was partly examined in 1983-4, consists of the fragmentary remains of one or more structures, perhaps houses, set in a sedimentary layer rich in artefacts (pottery and bone predominantly) indicating a later Neolithic and early Bronze Age provenance for the site. Coast defences were constructed in 1984-5 over part of the site, sealing it beneath a built-up layer and behind sheet-piled walling. At one location, where a small stream cuts through to the coast, archaeological material continues to be sporadically revealed in the gap between two sections of the sheet-piling.
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 16 January 1996.

G and M Ponting and Ponting, 1979a, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 46 (Bibliographic reference). SWE14540.

G and M Ponting and Ponting, 1980, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 43 (Bibliographic reference). SWE14538.

G and M Ponting and Ponting, 1981g, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 50 (Bibliographic reference). SWE14536.

B et al Ponting, 1983, Discovery and Excavations, Scotland, 38-9 (Bibliographic reference). SWE14542.

N Sharples, 1983a, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 81 (Bibliographic reference). SWE14543.

M R, G R and B Curtis, Curtis , 1994, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 94 (Bibliographic reference). SWE34019.

Niall Sharples, 1998, Dalmore, Lewis: An interim report (Unpublished document). SWE41196.

Niall Sharples and Katinka Stentoft, 2001, Dalmore, Isle of Lewis, 1983 (Unpublished document). SWE41197.

Torben Bjarke Ballin, 2002, Dalmore, Isle of Lewis: the lithic assemblage (Unpublished document). SWE41198.