| You can see from the photographs
that the stonework is skillfully constructed and similar to that employed
in building dykes (field walls) and 18th-19th century houses on Papay.
The rock which underlies the island splits naturally into flags and blocks
and requires little in the way of dressing.
Post-holes were found which once housed the roof-supports. These were upto 120 mm (over 7 inches) wide. It seems difficult to believe today that such solid posts could have come from a virtually treeless island. Perhaps the climate was a little more favourable, or the posts came as driftwood. They may even have been traded across the sea. No roof debris remained within the buildings, suggesting that they had been covered with turf or thatch. The buildings were surrounded by layers of midden (waste) covering some 500 square metres. The surviving remains had been built into the oldest layer of waste (suggesting even older habitation). The midden was made of decomposed domestic waste, including fishbones, shells (mainly limpets, but also cockles, winkles and razor shells). The fish were inshore rockling, ballan wrasse and young saithe, together with cod, larger saithe and other deep-water species which could only be caught at least 2 miles out at sea. |