Dr Mary Macleod - Small scale excavations were carried out on Machair Bharabhais between 1979 and 2001, by Trevor Cowie, and Mary MacLeod. These are finally being brought together for analysis and publication.

1. Machair Bharabhais
A landscape through time

2. • Coastal erosion survey
1978
• LBA-IA site (Cowie 1979,
Cowie unpublished)
• Viking-Norse site (Cowie
1979, Cowie
unpublished)
• IA site 01 (Pontings
1979, 1984)
• Beaker site 13 1986-7
(Cowie 1978, Cowie et al
1986, Cowie 1987 and
Cowie unpublished);
• Rudh a’ Bhiogair 30 1993
& 1996 (Stuart 1997)
• Coastal erosion survey
1996 (Burgess & Church
1997)
• AOC landscape survey
1999 (Cook 1999)
• Iron Age site 2000-2001

3. Beaker period site

4. • Two
phase
structure

5. Inserted burials

6. Ceramic dating

7. Late Bronze
Age site
Very damaged and
ephemeral -
Two phases of building,
separated by erosion
phase
Material culture
remained the same
Plain ware ceramics

8. Iron Age site on Loch Bharabhais
Periodically revealed by fluctuating loch levels
Iron Age ceramics
Hearth

9. • Sample
trenches –
Ponting et al
• Survey by
Cook

10. Iron Age mortuary? site
Located on coastal erosion survey 1996
Oval building, loose human teeth
Stone settings and a cairn

11. •Stone settings
•Cairn-covered prone
inhumation

12. • Accompanied
by unique iron
bracelet

14. Oval building with multiple
phases of use
Unusual ceramics
Domestic & non-domestic?

15. • Earlier building on
different alignment
underneath

16. • Norse-Mediaeval site

17. Period specific
finds

18. Cnoc Mor Late
Mediaeval site
• Kiln
• 15-16th
C?

19. • Move from lower ground to
higher
• Two prehistoric foci around
the fresh water sources, on
machair
• Mediaeval occupation in
between, and further from
streams, lochs