Archaeologists return to the Knowe of Swandro

An international team of archaeologists from the University of Bradford, William Patterson University, New Jersey, and Hunter College, New York, are this week returning to the Knowe of Swandro in Rousay for a six-week excavation.

This unique archaeological site includes a 5,000-year-old Neolithic chambered tomb, Iron Age roundhouses, Pictish buildings, a Viking settlement and a Norse Long Hall.

Results so far suggest that Swandro was a high-status settlement in the Pictish period, with evidence of skilled metalworking.

This importance continued into the Viking/Norse era, when it was part of the estate of Sigurd of Westness, with the Westness area featuring in the Orkneyinga Saga as the location of Earl Paul’s kidnapping by the notorious Viking Sveinn Ásleifarson.

Further details in The Orcadian, on Thursday, and online at the website www.swandro.co.uk