Interpreting and visiting the archaeology of Skomer Island

Louise Barker (pointing) working with the Skomer Visitor Officer and volunteers from the Wildlife Trust for South and West Wales  on a recent visit to Skomer Island.

The archaeology of Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, is exceptionally well preserved. Across the island remains of boulder-built boundaries, neat stone walls and the footings of round houses can be seen showing how the island was extensively farmed in Iron Age and Romano-British times between 2,000-2,500 years ago. A prominent standing stone, the Harold Stone, and other megaliths on the island suggest far earlier occupation dating back to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.

Iron Age or Romano-British round house at the Wick, Skomer Island. A view showing the front door into the house.

Following new archaeological surveys and excavations by the Royal Commission, working with colleagues from Sheffield and Cardiff Universities and Cadw, the Wildlife Trust for South and West Wales who manage Skomer are hoping to improve the signage and information for the island’s archaeology during 2016.

In late May, Royal Commission archaeologists Louise Barker and Toby Driver travelled to Skomer to meet the Skomer Visitor Officer, Leighton Newman, and Hannah, a long term volunteer, to talk over the archaeology of the most visible prehistoric monuments. Leighton and Hannah hope to renew parts of the Skomer History Trail, first established following work in the 1980s by Professor John Evans.

One of the most accessible and impressive prehistoric round houses in Pembrokeshire can be found at The Wick, close to one of the main viewing points for Puffins. This prehistoric house also benefits from a new wooden sign. Visitors can walk into the footings of the round house, through its well-defined doorway, and imagine the domestic scene within its walls two millennia ago.

One of the newly-erected signs inviting visitors to explore the prehistoric round house at the Wick.

The house may originally have been completed with a wattle and timber wall, and conical roof. Although timber suitable for building was rare on Iron Age Skomer, it is possible that posts, poles and other building materials were brought out to the island by boat. The Royal Commission continues to work with the Wildlife Trust to raise awareness of Skomer’s archaeological treasures. Details of visiting Skomer Island can be found at: http://www.welshwildlife.org/skomer-skokholm/skomer/

By Toby Driver, RCAHMW


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The Archaeology of the Skerries (Ynysoedd y Moelrhoniaid), north Wales

On 19 April, Royal Commission Investigator Dr Toby Driver accompanied an RSPB monitoring visit out to the Skerries, a small group of rocky islets off north-west Anglesey. Archaeological aerial reconnaissance had identified unrecorded earthworks surviving on the southern side of the islet. The trip was also a long overdue chance to examine the wider archaeology and built heritage of this remote islet which has seen few archaeological visitors since Douglas Hague’s trips in the early 1980s, culminating in his 1994 Royal Commission book ‘Lighthouses of Wales’.

The Skerries is dominated by its fine lighthouse, built on an outcrop at the highest point. A light was first established here after 1716, built by William Trench as a personal venture. After several different phases of work the lighthouse achieved its present appearance under Trinity House and consultant engineer James Walker, who rebuilt it in 1851. The light towers 36m above high water, and the residential block presently accommodates RSPB staff during the nesting season among a noisy colony of Artic Terns. Luckily the lighthouse was open for maintenance by Trinity House staff during the visit, allowing new photography of its interior and lantern room.

The group of buildings around the lighthouse includes the oldest separate keepers’ dwelling in the British Isles, an early eighteenth-century crow-stepped gabled cottage, and a tiny stone well-head building, both now listed. Both buildings were recorded with 360 degree photography, allowing for future 3D modelling using digital photogrammetry.

During the brief two-hour visit there was time to reconnoitre the wider islet. From the lighthouse, this is reached via a tiny cobbled footbridge across a deep chasm. Further on are the ruins of the ‘Buoy-keepers’ cottage’, a small stone shelter recorded by Hague in 1971. This sits at one end of a larger earthwork building platform identified from aerial photographs. This larger platform may be far earlier than the stone ruin, and could perhaps date to the Middle Ages when the Skerries belonged to the monks of Bangor as one of their principal fisheries. Alongside the platform stands a small stone mooring post above the beach. The vegetation across the main part of the islet is a perforated grass sward covered in rabbit holes, re-used by nesting Puffins in the spring and summer months. Other features noted during the visit included stone navigational beacons, and channels cut between freshwater pools presumably to conserve scarce drinking water in times past.

The Skerries Lighthouse seen from the boat as one approaches the landing stage. The roof of the gabled keepers’ cottage can be seen below.

The tiny gabled lighthouse keepers’ cottage, the oldest separate dwelling of its type in the British Isles.

The attractive footbridge over the chasm which separates the lighthouse from the main part of the islet.

Remains of the ‘Buoy-keepers’ cottage’, a small ruin recorded by Douglas Hague in 1971. It lies at one end of an earlier earthwork platform. Scale 1m.

Looking back towards the lighthouse from the pair of navigational markers built on Toucan rock, named on early Ordnance Survey County Series mapping. Scale 1m.

By Toby Driver: Aerial Investigator


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Latest News from the Skomer Island Project - The 2016 Fieldwork Season

Last week, the Skomer Island Project team returned to Skomer to undertake the latest phase of archaeological research on the Island. This year archaeologists Louise Barker and Toby Driver (RCAHMW), Bob Johnston (University of Sheffield) and Oliver Davis (Cardiff University) were delighted to be joined by geographer and environmental scientist Sarah Davies of Aberystwyth University.

Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire is famed for its wildlife and for the survival of its ancient field systems which are amongst the best preserved anywhere in Britain. (© Crown Copyright: RCAHMW, AP_2010_3294)

The aims of this year’s work were twofold; to excavate one of the Island’s main archaeological features, a prehistoric field boundary and the continuation of geophysical survey within the improved fields surrounding the old farm in the centre of the Island.

Despite Storm Katie cutting short our planned four days of fieldwork, we managed to achieve our goals in the two sunny and still days we had and were also lucky enough to witness the return of the puffins.

Archaeological fieldwork involves lots of kit. Getting onto Skomer is always an energetic start to the field season. (© Crown Copyright: RCAHMW)

The site of the excavation. (© Crown Copyright: RCAHMW)

The focus of our small evaluation trench was a substantial lynchet, part of the Northern Field Systems on the Island. A lynchet is a bank of earth that builds up on the downslope of a field ploughed over a period of time and the resulting earth or plough soil is important for helping us reconstruct the environmental history of the Island, identify what was being cultivated and possibly at what date. Therefore, the principal focus of the excavation was to recover samples of the soils within the lynchet which will now be carefully analysed over the coming months.

Excavation in progress. A large number of stones, the result of field clearance, were encountered. (© Crown Copyright: RCAHMW)

Preliminary results from the geophysical survey also look positive. Within the improved fields surrounding the farm in the centre of the Island, there is little evidence for surviving archaeology; however geophysics undertaken in 2012 did reveal sub-surface archaeological features and we wanted to see if this was the case elsewhere. This was indeed the case, and in the area surveyed directly to the west of the farm, the gradiometer detected a linear feature, perhaps a ditch cut by later cultivation ridges.

Geophysical survey in progress with some promising preliminary results (© Crown Copyright: RCAHMW)

As ever the Skomer Island Project team would like to thank the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales and the Skomer Wardens for their continued support and help with our work on the Island.

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Excavations on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire

On Friday, 4 March 2016, Dr Toby Driver FSA of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales will give a talk to the Pembrokeshire Historical Society on the recent excavations on Skomer Island.

Skomer is a highly protected landscape famous for its puffins and other breeding seabirds, but it is also home to some of the best preserved prehistoric field systems and hut settlements anywhere in Britain. In April 2014 a small team of archaeologists was permitted to open the very first modern excavation trench in the island’s history, to retrieve dating and environmental samples to better understand the long and complex history of prehistoric settlement and farming on Skomer. This followed three years of collaborative, non-invasive research between staff of the Royal Commission, The University of Sheffield and Cardiff University, working closely with the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales and CADW.

Excavations in 2014 at a prehistoric mound of burnt and fire-cracked stones on north Skomer, once used to boil water for cooking, have produced the first calibrated radiocarbon dates for farming settlement. The mound sealed a land surface dated by charcoal to between 751-408 BC, the early Iron Age. A cattle tooth deposited in the cooking mound was dated to around 85 BC, the late Iron Age.

The talk will look at the special landscape and archaeology of Skomer, and touch upon the other Pembrokeshire Islands. It will take the audience through the challenges and excitement of opening an excavation trench on a windswept island, and what new information this long running project has told us about the history and people of ancient Skomer.

Venue: The Picton Rooms, The County Hall car park, Haverfordwest.
Date: Friday 4 March 2016 at 7.30 p.m.
For further information : ann.sayer@btinternet.com
Members free, Non-members welcome £3 at the door.

Note to editor: The photographs show prehistoric field systems and settlements on Skomer Island. If they are used, please use the following credit: ‘Crown Copyright RCAHNW’

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Wonders of Borth Submerged Forest Explained by Dr Martin Bates of University of Wales Trinity Saint David

On Sunday 2 August, Natural Resources Wales and University of Wales Trinity Saint David organised a guided walk of the trees stumps and peat exposed by low tides at Borth as part of the Ynyslas National Nature Reserve events programme. 

Dr Martin Bates explained the evolution of the landscape, as it is becoming better understood by the ongoing research project being undertaken by the University. The forest comprises pine, oak, elder and birch which stopped growing between 4,500 and 6,000 years ago when it was inundated by the sea. Down on the beach, participants were on the lookout for animal and human footprints also dating back to this period, when our ancestors were hunter-gatherers.

Dr Bates brought along some of the finds of animal bones – including the jaw bone of an Auroch, the extinct ancestor of our domestic cattle. He told the local story of another beach find, a huge Auroch skeleton, found by the local butcher in the 1960s. The University is still trying to trace this skeleton.

If anyone has any information about other artefacts or animal bones found amongst the forest, I’m sure that Dr Martin Bates would very much like to hear from you.

Prehistoric Landscape Uncovered at Borth in Ceredigion:
http://heritageofwalesnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/prehistoric-landscape-uncovered-at.html

Submerged Forest, Borth Sands:
http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/506500/details/SUBMERGED+FOREST%2C+BORTH+SANDS/

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