Search for Viking life - and boat burial - on tiny Nave Island off Islay
The excavation could offer a breakthrough in the understanding of Viking life on Islay.
A search for the first Viking house or possible boat burial on Islay is to get under way.
Archaeologists will move on to tiny Nave Island, which sits just at the mouth of Loch Gruinart, following the findings of an earlier investigation in 2022.
Nave Island spans just 43 hectares and sits on the western ‘sea road’ of Britain but, despite the high volume of place names on Islay which are derived from Norse, no evidence of Viking-era dwellings or classic boat burials have yet been found.
Now a team from Reading University are to return to Nave Island after preliminary investigtions suggested that a piece of land close to a Christian site, which had its roots in a 6th Century monastic complex, could have been a place of importance for Viking settlers.
The site of interest - which commands “spectacular views” over the narrow stretch of sea to the Islay mainland - is a stone and earth structure around 20m in length with rounded ends and curved or bowed sides.
A report from archaeologists who investigated the site said: “This research has established that the earthwork has similarities with Viking or late Norse domestic structures recorded from the Western and Northern Isles, but can also be compared to Viking funerary monuments, in particular boat burials from the Irish Sea Zone.
“The recent survey work has, therefore, opened new lines of inquiry thatcould be pursued to advance understanding of not only this monument, but also medieval exploitation of the wider Islay landscape.”
While Viking houses or boat burials - usually associated with high-status figures - have not yet been found on Islay , the archaeological record shows at least seven Viking graves and a coin hoard are known.
Scandinavian artefacts found near Ballinbay on Islay indicate a Viking cemetery, with further mid to high status burials discovered near Bridgend.
A late 10th Century hoard unearthed on Machrie farm included more than 90 coins, including examples minted by the English king Aethelstan and the Viking kings of York, as well as some silver ignots.
Professor Steve Mithen, from Reading University, and his team now seek to expand understanding of the Viking presence on Islay after Historic Environment Scotland approved an excavation of the site.
While there are no written accounts of Viking activity on Islay, raids on nearby Rathlin Island and Iona illustrate that Norse warlords were operating in the area as early as 785AD.
While now uninhabited and owned by Islay Estates, the last recorded residents of Nave Island were kelp burners who built their oven and chimney within the chapel ruins, the report from the investigation team said.
Traces of earlier farm settlements dating from the medieval period were also found.
Traces of Viking boat burials in Scotland are relatively rare, with only around 10 such sites found in Scotland to date. They range from the Ardnamurchan boat burial on the mainland, where a a high-ranking warrior was found with his weapons to the Scar boat burial in Orkney, where a woman, man, and child were buried together.
A recent excavation on Shetland, which was led by Time Team, focussed on the site of a possible boat burial at Huesbreck in Dunrossness in the south mainland . The results have not yet been made public.
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