Monument record 2130 - BEN NA SCUTE, BARRA

NL69NW 57 6282 9819

For possibly comparable sites, see NL69NW 28, 30 and 55.

T166 ('Wheelhouse?'): This site was identified (during field survey in 1991) as one of two adjacent elevated turfed-over mounds which incorporated many blocks of stone and some larger slabs, the other site being NL69NW 55. The two mounds are situated close to a W- or SW-facing rock face (which forms one wall of a dyke) and some 50m from the shoreline. They were provisionally identified as probable circular or oval Iron Age buildings of about 9 or 12m diameter, being comparable to other structures in the Tangaval valley and Borve peninsula.
In 1992, trial excavation was carried out on the N side of the mound, a trench (5 x 2m) being laid out across the supposed wall line and into the interior. Beneath the turf, there was found a deposit of fine brown silty soil with a few small pieces of weathered and rounded rock which varied between 5 and 15 cm in depth; rabbit disturbance became more prevalant as excavation continued. Beneath this hill-wash, there was found a dark brown, rather peaty, soil with sandy grits (and in places heavily flecked with charcoal); this formed a deposit ('context 4') up to 20 cm deep over all but the N end of the trench. Although its appearance suggested an occupation deposit, only four flint flakes and two dozen small pieces of hand-made pottery were found in it. Some large, and roughly oblong, stone blocks lay within the deposit, but, like the deposit itself, had been badly disturbed by rabbits, and could not be considered in situ. Beneath this layer, a red-brown soil had developed immediately above bedrock.
At the N end of the trench, context 4 ceased at the point where a much-disturbed alignment of stones appeared to represent the remains of a curving wall foundation (about 1m wide) with an internal diameter of about 7m.
Both the quantity and nature of the excavated stone suggest the former presence of a stone-built structure built with blocks selected for their roughly oblong shape. The badly-disturbed remains at the N end of the trench and on the anticipated line of the circuit wall suggest a bulding with a substantial curved wall. The excavated cultural material was not distinctive, comprising coarse hand-made sherds comparable with those from Iron Age sites on Barra, Vatersay and South Uist rather than the Neolithic or Beaker period material from Allt Chrisal (NL69NW 7.06). One of the three sherds of finer ware looks like a much-weathered everted rim from a jar of Roman type, and this site may accordingly be tentatively interpreted as a round house (probably a wheelhouse) of the Roman Iron Age.
K Branigan 1992; K Branigan and P Foster 1995; NMRS, MSS. 595/6 and 595/8.

K Branigan, 1992c, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 87 (Bibliographic reference). SWE25417.

K. Brannigan & P. Foster, 1995, Barra: archaeological research on Ben Tangaval from the end of the Ice Age to the Crofting Commissio, 43, 168-70, 203, 204 figs. 3.9 and 5.6 (Bibliographic reference). SWE33223.