Tools
Bone objects, analysed by Martin Goldberg and Fraser Hunter (National Museums of Scotland).
Several bone toggles were discovered in midden heaps outside Structure 5. These were made simply by boring a hole through a cattle phalange (a bone from the foot). They might have been used to fasten nets, bags or clothes. Similar ones were found together in a souterrain at Jarlshof. The fact that these were found so close together may mean that they were all fastened to a single object, perhaps a leather bag or net, which was tossed onto the midden.
A broken pin, a bone spatula and several bone points made from the long bones of animals were found in the ground surfaces outside the building, where they may have been thrown or lost during use. These are fairly common finds in Iron Age settlements. Rough-outs for a blade tool and a long-handled comb, both made from cetacean bone, were found in middens associated with structure 5. Several unfinished antler rings, shaped with a knife, were found together in the windblown sand that covered the building; they might have been intended for use as part of a larger object or tool.
Stone tools, analysed by Ann Clarke
Over 80 heavy stone artefacts were found at Sandwick, most made from stones that could have been collected close by; many were cobbles that were probably picked up on the beach, where water had worn them smooth. However, two ard points (used for ploughing) were made from metamorphosed sandstone, which was not available locally or indeed at any spot presently known on Shetland.
Some cobbles were used to burnish and polish the surfaces of leather objects or clay pots, leaving shiny facets on the stones. Other cobbles were used as pounders or grinders, perhaps to crush steatite for use in pottery making. One grinding or smoothing stone was found together with a large slab on which material had been ground. Cobbles with pecked or damaged ends were used as hammers. Several larger flat stones had pecked impressions on their surfaces, showing they were used as anvils. A heart-shaped stone is similar to ones found at the late Bronze Age Shetland settlements of Bayanne, Jarlshof and Sumburgh; they are thought to have been used in byres, maybe to protect animals’ hides from being rubbed by tethering ropes. A saddle quern was used for grinding grain. Several stone with drilled holes were probably used as weights; one has a decorative circle carved around its perforation.
By comparison with other excavated sites, the heavy stone assemblage offers some pointers to the date of this settlement. The ard points and heart-shaped stone are more typical of late Bronze Age or early Iron Age settlements (dating from the early to mid first millennium BC), while the other artefacts sit comfortably in a late Iron Age context (late first millennium BC to early first millennium AD). The quern and the pounders/grinders indicate domestic occupation and food preparation. However, the abundant smoothers, polishers and anvils are more likely to have come from a workshop; they are similar to the stone tools found in the late Iron Age craft workshop at Mine Howe on Orkney. This suggests that at least part of the Sandwick building was used as a workshop, perhaps to craft leather.
Iron, analysed by Martin Goldberg and Fraser Hunter (National Museums of Scotland)
A broken iron file with evenly spaced teeth, found outside the building, might have been used for fine metal-working or bone-working. An iron rod with a t-shaped head and a sharp tip, found in a heap of hearth waste in Structure 1, could have been a clamp for inserting in a piece of wood that was burnt on the hearth.
Fragments of very thin sheet iron with straight edges were found together in the clay floor of structure 3.
Steatite, analysed by Amanda Forster
Several objects made from steatite (soapstone) were found during the excavations. Two were perforated pieces known as whorls. One, a round whorl or large bead, was found in the grave cut through windblown sand that covered the buildings after their abandonment. It is similar to objects found at the Iron Age settlement at Old Scatness on the Shetland mainland. The other was a flat disc, found in the wall of Structure 1; although it is on the large side, it may have been a spindle whorl, used in spinning yarn. Part of a block tuyère, found in Structure 1, would have been used to protect bellows from the heat of the fire during metalworking or another industrial process.
Most of the other pieces were small fragments, which are working debris from some craft process –possibly pottery making. Steatite may have been crushed and added to clay as a temper. It would have aided the firing process and also improved the pots’ thermal properties and appearance, making them less likely to break as a result of heating and cooling. These were mostly associated with Structure 1.
Pumice, analysed by Beverley Ballin Smith (GUARD) and Anthony Newton (University of Edinburgh)
Of the 38 pumice pebbles found at the settlement, Beverley Ballin Smith found that about 10% showed signs of having been used. These are small, rounded or irregular pieces that would have fitted easily into the hand. Most of them bear grooves, a few are notched, and several have smoothed, flattened or faceted surfaces. The grooves may have been created when people used the pumice pieces to manufacture objects from bone or wood – for example, to polish bone points, needles or combs or to smooth arrow shafts. The flattened pieces may have been used to work hides.
Many of the pottery vessels found at Sandwick had highly burnished surfaces, produced by rubbing the pots when the clay had dried to a leather-hard state. Some of the flattened or faceted pumice pebbles could have been used for this.
Analysis by Anthony Newton found that all the pieces are brown dacitic pumice, a common find on coastal archaeological sites in Scotland. They most likely derive from sub-glacial eruptions of the volcano Katla in southern Iceland, and would have drifted on ocean currents to the shores of Unst. Of Katla’s nine known sub-glacial eruptions, the one that took place between 1100 and 1400 BC probably produced the Sandwick pumice, but some of it could have come from earlier eruptions.
Chipped quartz, analysed by Torben Ballin (Lithic Research)
Of the almost 3,600 pieces of quartz recovered during the excavations and through wet-sieving, nearly all (97%) are debitage, or waste created during the working of quartz to make tools. The rest comprises tools (2%) and cores – the pieces from which tool blanks were struck (1%). Among the tools are 33 scrapers (mainly short end scrapers, but also a blade scraper, two double scrapers, a side scraper and a concave scraper). There are also three knives, a piercer, five notched or toothed pieces and 17 bipolar flakes. Twenty of the pieces have had their edges refined through retouched. The distribution of cores and waste seems to indicate that quartz was mainly knapped outside the building and in structures 3 and 4.
Part of a large, leaf-shaped arrowhead was found in an exterior ground surface to the west of the building. This piece clearly dates to the early Neolithic period, during the fourth millennium BC. Perhaps it was dropped by someone hunting along the shore at Sandwick around 6,000 years ago.
Industrial waste and bog ore, analysed by Dawn McLaren (National Museums of Scotland)
A heap of unprocessed bog ore (almost 25 kilograms worth) was found inside the tiny Structure 2. Bog ore, as the name suggests, forms in bogs, marshes and peat mosses as water leaches iron from the soil to form compact layers and pockets of iron pan. Some of the pieces were broken, perhaps as they were being collected. Its presence suggests that people were smelting iron in the settlement, perhaps The steatite tuyère in Structure 1 also points to metal-working. There are several possible explanations for the heap of bog ore. Maybe it was being stored for smelting – either somewhere outside or in the part of the site that has been lost to the sea.
