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Orkney, Whaness Burn

Organic Material (Neolithic)

Site Name Orkney, Whaness Burn

Classification Organic Material (Neolithic)

Canmore ID 300429

Site Number HY20SW 41

NGR HY 24575 01043

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/300429

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Orkney Islands
  • Parish Hoy And Graemsay
  • Former Region Orkney Islands Area
  • Former District Orkney
  • Former County Orkney

Activities

Pollen Analysis (June 2006)

HY 24575 01043 In this PhD project high-resolution palaeoenvironmental records for the period 4500–1500 BP

(late Neolithic to Iron Age) are being reconstructed from sediment cores from three wetland basins in landscapes with differing degrees of marginality, in order to assess environmental evidence for the hypothesised Bronze Age population and/or cultural ‘decline’ in Orkney.

In June 2006 a 2.25m core was recovered from a valley mire site at Whaness Burn in northern Hoy. Three radiocarbon dates have been obtained on this core – SUERC-17751 (3415 ±38 BP), SUERC-17752 (1214 ±38 BP), and SUERC-17753 (987 ±38 BP).

Pollen, charcoal, non-pollen palynomorph and plant microstructure analyses on the core have shown survival

of woodland into the late Neolithic at Whaness Burn, with no indications of human activity. Woodland decline and intensive pastoral farming took place during the Bronze Age, possibly linked with a Bronze Age settlement in the valley. The site then became wetter, and this was associated with a decline in human activity in the vicinity of the wetland. Although the timing of this event needs to be confirmed by radiocarbon dating, it seems to occur during the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age.

Report: Orkney SMR (intended). Results to be included in University of Hull PhD thesis (2009)

Funder: The University of Hull and NERC

Michelle Farrell and M Jane Bunting (University of Hull), 2008

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