Summary of Findings

The aim of the Festival was to provide hands-on training and memorable experiences in archaeology to the local community through a number of archaeological events. A key aim was for these activities to help develop a skilled and engaged community group that could develop and sustain archaeological projects within the county.

Three sites were chosen as a focus for the project: Bruan Broch, near Lybster, and Things Va and Thusater Burn, near Thurso. Geophysical survey was carried out at all three sites, to help characterise their immediate environs and to provide targets for subsequent excavation. Both survey and trial-trenching produced interesting and valuable results relating to the sites and their landscape situations

Volunteer numbers for the community outreach programme were good, particularly for the trial-trenching stages. The schools engagement was highly successful, with hands-on workshop days carried out with both Wick High, Wick, and Miller Academy, Thurso. The Festival concluded with an overview lecture hosted by CBP at Caithness Horizons, Thurso, and the launch of an online exhibition focusing on the Festival and its results.

The majority of the artefacts from the trial-trenching at Bruan were post-medieval ceramics and glass, and iron objects likely to be of similar or modern date. No prehistoric artefacts were recovered. Similarly, there were no prehistoric artefacts from the excavations at Thing’s Va broch and cairn.

At Thusater, however, a number of objects were found that suggest the site is probably later prehistoric in date, with likely Iron Age phases. A strike-a-light, hammerstone and pig’s tooth were found during excavation (Plates 1-3), as well as a small quantity of marine shell.
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Specific achievements have been to:

• Successfully locate the apparent extent of the broch settlements and the cairn at Thing’s Va, and better characterising the known archaeological remains as well as the discovery of new sites.
• Use two types of geophysical survey (magnetometry and earth resistance) which provide complementary datasets and to provide targets for subsequent excavation though trial-trenches.
• Demonstrated the success of geophysical survey in rapidly characterising the hinterlands of the monuments of Bruan and Thing’s Va;
• Make a contribution to wider broch studies;
• Engage community members and visitors to Caithness in archaeological fieldwork.
• Provide day workshops for both local primary and secondary schools.
• With regard to the individual sites, more time at each site, with larger area excavation would be highly beneficial. Certainly, Thusater Burn has proved to be an intriguing site, which would benefit from a longer programme of archaeological investigation.
  

Importantly, the Caithness Broch Festival Archaeology Programme has laid a solid foundation for future work, and employed a methodology in terms of both engagement and fieldwork that could be extended to other sites across Caithness.

Media Interest

The festival attracted a great deal of interest from the national and international media - not only for the archaeology and finds, but also for the community involvement in one of the most scenically attractive areas of the United Kingdom .

Check out just some of the more than 30 articles published world wide below. The pictures in the slideshow are linked to the online articles....so click through to read about how the world learnt about the Caithness Broch Festival