This first of two volumes presents the archaeological evidence of a long
sequence of settlement and funerary activity from the Beaker period
(Early Bronze Age c. 2000 BC) to the Early Iron Age (c. 500 BC) at the
unusually long-occupied site of Cladh Hallan on South Uist in the
Western Isles of Scotland. Particular highlights of its sequence are a
cremation burial ground and pyre site of the 18th-16th centuries BC and
a row of three Late Bronze Age sunken-floored roundhouses constructed in
the 10th century BC. Beneath these roundhouses, four inhumation graves
contained skeletons, two of which were remains of composite collections
of body parts with evidence for post-mortem soft tissue preservation
prior to burial. They have proved to be the first evidence for
mummification in Bronze Age Britain.
Cladh Hallan's remarkable stratigraphic sequence, preserved in the
machair sand of South Uist, includes a unique 500-year sequence of
roundhouse life in Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Britain. One of the most
important results of the excavation has come from intensive
environmental and micro-debris sampling of house floors and outdoor
areas to recover patterns of discard and to interpret the spatial use of
15 domestic interiors from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age.
From Cladh Hallan's roundhouse floors we gain intimate insights into how
daily life was organized within the house - where people cooked, ate,
worked and slept. Such evidence rarely survives from prehistoric houses
in Britain or Europe, and the results make a profound contribution to
long-running debates about the sunwise organisation of roundhouse
activities. Activity at Cladh Hallan ended with the construction and
abandonment of two unusual double-roundhouses in the Early Iron Age. One
appears to have been a smokery and steam room, and the other was used
for metalworking.
