2024 will be the final dig season at Orkney's incredible Ness of Brodgar before the site is backfilled. We've asked Sigurd Towrie from the UHI Archaeology Institute to preview the last excavation at this sprawling Neolithic siettlement.
This fieldwork season will be the last at the Ness of Brodgar, so there will inevitably be mixed emotions.
Over the past 20 years the Ness has become a major part of the team’s lives – and Orkney life in general. But it is important to stress that although digging might be over, the project continues with the vitally important post-excavation phase.
So, what’s on the cards this year?
As always, archaeologists and diggers from all over the world will be heading to Orkney to take part in the dig. They will be tying up loose ends across the site before the trenches are backfilled in August. This will involve checking all site records to ensure they are 100 per cent accurate as well as further recording the structures - planning, photographing and documenting them from every angle, and creating new 3d models in even greater detail.
It may be the final dig season, but there are plans to re-open an old trench to further investigate an early stalled building, Structure Two, which was revealed in 2005.
It is pre-dates the later piered buildings in Trench P (c. 3100BC). The goal is to expose more of Structure Two, reach its occupation deposits and hopefully get dates to see whether it is contemporary with Structure Five, the earliest excavated building on site (c. 3300BC).
Elsewhere on site, work will concentrate on finishing the excavation of all the structures’ primary floor levels and, at the same time, look for more evidence of earlier buildings.
In Structure Ten, for example, more of its predecessor, Structure Twenty, will be revealed. Again, the goal is to reach its floor level and, hopefully, secure dating material.
Ness aficionados will recall that in Structure Twelve, the 2023 dig ended with much head-scratching. A narrow trench inside the building had revealed multiple features lying underneath. Although one definitely related to Structure Twenty-Eight, Twelve’s known predecessor, the others were more perplexing. Clearly there was a lot going on in the area before Twelve was raised around 3100BC. But exactly what could not be fully understood in such a small window.
The plan this summer is to finish the floor deposits in Twelve and, hopefully, the situation beneath will become clearer.
Over at the south-eastern end of the site, work to reveal more of the floorplan of the magnificent Structure Twenty-Seven will continue. This might include exposing the building’s north-western corner, which is still overlain by deep deposits of midden.
In addition, the Trench T team will be looking to clarify the sequence of the enigmatic building, perhaps using slot trenches running across the interior to expedite the process. Multiple samples of prehistoric timber were recovered from the floor deposits in 2023 and the same seems likely this season. Work will also concentrate on revealing more of the internal furniture features lining the inner walls.
Last, but not least, we turn to Structure Five, where the primary floor level has been reached. To secure every scrap of information that will help see how the building was used, 2024 will see the painstaking process of floor sampling continue.
Like the other buildings, hopes are high that the excavators might also glimpse what, if anything, lies beneath this early building and which could turn out to be the earliest evidence of activity on the Ness to date. Fingers crossed!
As always, a daily dig diary will run on the official Ness of Brodgar website, so keep an eye on it for updates.
The excavation is open to the public, on weekdays, between Wednesday, June 26, and Wednesday, August 16. Open days will take place on July 14, and August 4, on site and in the Stenness school.
There are other excavations being held across Orkney this summer too - find out where you can see archaeologists in action.