Animal bone
Analysed by Catherine Smith (Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust)
The fairly well-preserved animal bone assemblage from Sandwick tells us a great deal about what animals people were raising, hunting and eating. Cattle were most abundant, followed by other ungulates, sheep/goats, pigs and cetaceans (whales, seals and so on). There were also plenty of wild bird species, including great auk, little auk, guillemot, razor bill, gannet, cormorant, shag, goose, eider duck and duck species, wader species and passerine. Bone from a white-tailed sea eagle came from one of the early midden deposits. Sandwick even had a resident mouse: the bones of a house mouse were found in the packing for the first hearth in Structure 1.
The greatest quantities came from deposits associated with Structures 1 and 5, and in midden overlying Structure 5. Much less was found in Structures 3 and 4, which confirms the general impression that these were not domestic rooms. Many of the bones bore cut marks and other evidence of butchery. Bird bones had been cut to remove meat, and a bone from a pig’s skull had been chopped in half, probably to remove the brain. Many of the whale bones had been cut to extract oil.
