A Pictish burial and Late Norse/Medieval settlement at Sangobeg, Durness, Sutherland

Abstract

Salvage excavation was carried out on an archaeological site, discovered during the North Sutherland Coastal Zone Assessment Survey in 1998, in dunes at Sangobeg, near Durness in northern Sutherland. The excavation, conducted in 2000, uncovered the fragmentary remains of probable Norse-period settlement, including stone walling, a hearth and occupation deposits that had been truncated by erosion. Sealed beneath the Norse-period remains was the burial of a child of indeterminate sex, aged between 8–10 years, who had been placed in a flexed position on a bed of quartzite pebbles and covered with a mound of clean sand, capped with larger quartzite stones. The burial was dated by radiocarbon to 170 cal BC–cal AD 30 (GU-12535).