Transcript: VFT 2: Orkney - Interview with James Moore,
Orkney college, UHI
Q1: Can you discuss some of the geophysics results from Stenness and the
surrounding area?
Hi there, I’m James Moore; I’m a lecturer in Archaeology based up in Orkney at the College here.
So, the plot here shows the results of the gradiometer survey over the peninsula at Stenness. On the
ground, obviously, all you can really see today are the Stones of Stenness themselves and the modern field
boundaries and the house there. The geophysical data is quite interesting and tells us a lot about the
archaeology and also some of the geology of the area. There are three key things to focus on: one is the
features at the Stones of Stenness themselves; the second is a broch just a short distance to the SE of the
Stones of Stenness; and then the third feature is some geological features which are quite interesting in the
way they show up.
So, starting at the Stones of Stenness themselves the bank and ditch that’s just visible on the ground is
really clearly visible in the data as a large, highly magnetically enhanced ring, which corresponds to the
location of the ditch. This is obviously a negative feature which is in-filled with enhanced material over time
and that’s why it’s showing up as this really strong anomaly. In the interior of the ring, it’s just about
possible to make out some of the internal features, although not very clearly, although you can just about
make out the location of some of the standing stones and some of the internal furniture and the little
hearth in the middle of the monument. It’s quite interesting because this is the site of one of the first ever
pieces of gradiometer survey ever undertaken back in the 1970s at the very advent of geophysical survey.
The results that we see now are from the recent survey but it’s quite nice to see that the results are very
close, very comparable, between the two surveys.
To the east of the stones of Stenness you can see a feature that in size is roughly similar to the Stones of
Stenness it’s almost a light bulb shaped enclosure that has been heavily damaged by modern ploughing and
cultivation and this relates to Big How broch. It’s now visible as a very small lump in the field but there are
historical/antiquarian mentions of a substantial broch here that’s subsequently been levelled and ploughed
out. The ditch around it is somewhat atypical. If you compare to some of the other brochs in the
geophysical data elsewhere it’s somewhat atypical in this almost light bulb shaped enclosure but it does
still seem to fit in with the broad typology of brochs and the kind of trends of the way in which brochs show
up in geophysical data. What’s quite sad about it, I suppose in a way, is that to the south of the broch itself,
south of the enclosure itself, you can see really quite a large area of very mixed anomalies and responses
and this is almost certainly a result of the plough catching into the structural material, midden material, and
pulling it out and spreading it across the area. The likelihood is that although there’s probably some of the
broch remaining, a large part of the super-structure and the surrounding settlement has probably been
destroyed. It’s quite nice to be able to see some of the formation processes at work almost in the
geophysical data.
It’s probably worth mentioning also briefly the location of Barnhouse Neolithic settlement, which is to the
north of these two sites. The settlement itself was dug by Colin Richards and wasn’t surveyed but it is
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Transcript: VFT 2: Orkney - Interview with James Moore,
Orkney college, UHI
05/06/13
possible to see a few features just extending out from the area around it that does imply that the
settlement extended off slightly beyond the area that was excavated although not to a significant degree.
The third [set of] features that you can see within the data that I want to talk about are the igneous dikes.
These are visible as a series of really strong, highly enhanced linear responses that are visible running
roughly east-west across the data. These are found throughout Orkney and are a product of igneous
material welling up between fault lines in the sandstone bedrock and because it’s igneous material it’s
obviously very highly magnetised and that’s why it’s showing up as such strong anomalies. We haven’t
actually looked at these up close and personal, as it were, but what we do know from having seen other
igneous dikes exposed in various beaches around Orkney is that often these are extremely small features,
possibly only a few centimetres wide, and they obviously show up as [being] much wider on the magnetic
data simply because of the strength of the response that they’re creating, which is why they appear to be
many metres thick.
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