Archaeological Excavations at Swordle

Professor John Robb of Cambridge University

Every year for the last nine years, a group of archeologists from British universities, from Archaeology Scotland, and from the commercial sector – they call themselves the Ardnamurchan Transitions Team – spend a fortnight or more at Swordle on Ardnamurchan’s north coast excavating structures of all ages dating back to the Neolithic, over 6,000 years ago.  It was this team which found the Viking boat burial which recently featured in the British Museum’s special Viking exhibition.

This year, they had the privileged of being joined by Professor John Robb of Cambridge University, who excavated a Bronze Age cist burial.  In it, he found human bones which almost certainly belonged to a number of individuals.  They have now gone to Cambridge to be analysed, but it is already known from a previous excavation that this burial dates from about 4,700 years ago.

The Ardnamurchan Transitions website is here.