5 things I love about Shetland archaeology

People started farming in Shetland around five thousand years ago. As they cleared areas, they marked the edges of their fields with stones. They built their houses on the edges of the fields and buried their dead on higher spots nearby. They even built walls between the farms so that the hill-land was also clearly divided, presumably with rights of grazing, using the peat and quarrying stone for tools. Remarkably, and unparalleled elsewhere, the remains of these early farms are still visible in Shetland’s West Side.

Pinhoulland is a little off the beaten track, located on the slopes above the Voe of Broulland. This astounding site includes eight prehistoric houses picked out in stone, a burial cairn on a rise overlooking the site and a complex pattern of fields. Although it has never been excavated, the remains are easy to spot even if you aren’t an archaeologist.

The majority of burial cairns from the Neolithic (the first farmers) have a distinct “heel” shape. This is quite different to burial cairns found elsewhere in Scotland.

The cairns have a curving back but the front is concave, creating the front of the heel. A passage runs in from the middle of the front, ending at a chamber in the middle. Usually the chamber is just big enough for one person to lie down in. It is possible that only a few bones from any one person were placed in the cairn. Alternatively, the cairns may have been swept out regularly and a new body replaced an earlier one. A mystery which we have yet to solve.

Punds Water chambered cairn is one of the best examples we have. Sitting on a particularly wild hill, overlooking a loch, the cairn has spectacular views including the peninsula in the loch, where there is a well-preserved prehistoric house site.

Either the ancestors kept an eye on the settlement, or the living wanted to keep watch on the dead.

Shetland has over 100 broch sites, and of course, at 13 metres, Mousa is the tallest and deserves its iconic reputation.

Like most of Shetland’s brochs, Old Scatness broch was partially dismantled within a few hundred years of being built. The stone was reused to create a village of dry-stone, roundhouses which were even larger inside than the broch, had much narrower walls, and included a mezzanine upper floor. The houses at Old Scatness huddle inside the ditch built around the broch and are the best-preserved Iron Age Village in Northern Europe.

I was privileged to project manage the excavations between 1995 and 2006, working with a team from Bradford University. Although we started with geophysics, nothing prepared us for what we found.

Our excavations rewrote what we thought we knew about when brochs were built, setting them back by about 400 years (400-200BC). It also suggests that broch building potentially started in Shetland and Orkney, rather than further south.

Shetland Amenity Trust are currently working on a project to conserve the site and make it sustainable long-term. We welcome visitors on Fridays in the summer with an archaeologist-led guided tour, see the reconstructions and enjoy the archaeological treasure trove which is Old Scatness.

Unst has a greater density of Viking longhouses than anywhere else, including Scandinavia. There are at least 60 sites in 120 sq km. all of which look Viking/ Norse (although we haven’t been able to excavate them all to prove it – yet!).

My favourite walk starts at Underhoull, where there is an excavated longhouse close to the road, then a broch with spectacular defences. Heading down the hill takes you to another longhouse, which was excavated in the 1960s.

Following around the coast you’ll encounter some noosts (boat shelters) cut into the bank, which have been dated to the period and then across a peninsula with some lumps on (could they be Viking graves?). Continuing around the bay you arrive at Lund chapel with six Viking crosses outside it and a Pictish fish carved onto a window lintel. Not only is the archaeology inspiring, but the scenery is breath-taking too.

There’s a second amazing Viking walk on the other side of the island, from Hannigarth down to the Eastings beach (a Pictish building and a later longhouse) and on to Framgord (another Norse chapel with crosses).

When the Vikings came to Shetland, one of the reasons they immediately felt at home was that, exceptionally, Shetland has soapstone. In their homelands the Vikings didn’t make pottery. Instead, they used natural materials, including wood, horn and leather, and somewhat surprisingly, they carved heavy bowls out of soapstone. Soapstone is so soft when it is fresh that you can scratch it with a fingernail. Heat it in a fire and it hardens – good properties for a bowl.

Catpund, on the hillside above the Cunningsburgh cliffs, is the biggest of the Viking quarries, although there are many others. In the burn, just above the loop of “old road”, which is good for parking on, you can see where the Vikings carved square and rounded blocks from the rock. The bowl-shapes are covered in the marks of Viking chisels.

The Vikings shaped their bowls on the hillside and the surrounding low mounds are full of the debris. If there were flaws in the rock it would split, so the Vikings did the basic shaping in the hill. They finished them off and polished them closer to home.

When planning a visit to these amazing archaeological sites, or any others, please remember that access is often across land which is farmed or crofted – discover more Essential Information on our Walk page.