Remote dig offers clues to life in the Iron Age

A cremation pit containing a human jaw bone mixed with animal bones is one of a treasure trove of finds currently coming to light in an archaeological dig in North Uist.

Other finds include a perfectly preserved hearth, with a clay foundation scratched with a cross, and a plethora of worked bone, shell and pottery artefacts.

The Iron Age site at Sloc Sabhaid on the tidal island of Baleshare comprises a settlement of wheelhouses - round structures divided by internal radial walls forming rooms within the building.

A huge storm in 2005 tore away more than 150m of Baleshare's fragile coastline to reveal the 2000-year-old settlement, which appears to extend some distance under neighbouring croft land.

In a race against time, Scottish Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion (Scape), a charity that aims to research, conserve and promote the archaeology of Scotland's coast, has been working to excavate and record the site before it is lost forever to the sea.

Part of the settlement was dug out and recorded last year, shortly before a high August tide ripped away a further three metres of coastline and the excavated area with it.

This year, funded by Historic Scotland, professional archaeologists have been joined on a three-week dig by volunteers from the local archaeology group, Access Archaeology.

The volunteers include Kirsty MacDonald, a 30-year-old Gaelic television presenter, whose family has farmed the adjoining croft for many years.

Her most exciting find came towards the end of a hard day's digging in a charred area suspected to be a cremation pit. In a moment she described as "freaky" she lifted out a perfectly preserved human lower jaw bone, possibly that of one of her distant ancestors, lying among burnt animal bones in the pit.

The mandible has 14 straight and undecayed teeth, but on the left side the back molars are painfully worn down to the dentine. Although lying among burnt remains, the jaw bone shows no sign of charring.

Ms MacDonald said: "I have been finding things on this beach since I was 10, when I found a ninth- century coin. I've found stone tools and moulds for casting, worked bone, pottery and lots of Viking boat rivets.

"It was slightly freaky finding the jaw - I've never held anything like that before."

Senior archaeologist Tom Dawson, a research fellow at St Andrews University and a founder of Scape, is managing the Baleshare project.

He said: "This appears to have been an animal cremation with a bit of human skull thrown in. The Iron Age does have a skull cult in some places. It could be someone they've revered from their own family, or they've taken as a trophy. This kind of deposit could be interpreted as being part of a ritual closing, as if you have finished using the building for something and want to move on.

After the discovery of the jawbone, the cremation pit yielded one more extraordinary secret: a small, perfect hole appeared in the ground underneath the charred remains. Mr Dawson thinks this is a rotary quern or grindstone, used as an integral part of the cremation pit, perhaps to create a flue. It remains to be fully excavated.

The charred material will be carbon-dated and analysed to see if there are any more human remains among it, and what species of animal have been burnt there.

Another significant find in the wheelhouse is a layer of at least four hearths, indicating a long period of habitation. The top hearth is perfectly preserved, outlined by stones and with a clay foundation, marked with a cross.

Mr Dawson added: "It looks like it's been scratched on wet clay with the three middle fingers, but we have no idea why. I've never seen anything like it before."

He added: "This site is incredibly significant. It would be totally lost if Access Archaeology and Scape hadn't started excavating it, and at the current rate of erosion it will be gone in three to four years.

"The information we're getting from it will significantly increase our knowledge of that time."