Fruits of fieldwalking on show at museum

January 13, 2017 at 9:30 am

A flint scraper, found by community volunteer Helen Aiton, at Maesquoy, was one of the many artefacts uncovered during last year’s World Heritage Site fieldwalking project.

An exhibition focusing on an archaeological fieldwalking project in the West Mainland has opened at the Orkney Museum.

The exhibition is the culmination of a year-long project in Orkney’s World Heritage Site and was put together by a team of trainee archaeologists who participated in the project.

Exhibits include maps, finds, case studies and personal accounts. Stenness Primary School children have contributed posters about their experiences during a day workshop field walking next to the school.

The project, supported by the Orkney Archaeology Society, ran throughout 2016 with a series of workshops and events designed to teach people about the practice of archaeological fieldwalking, the processes that occur after fieldwork, the finds and mapping, and telling the story of the project in a museum exhibition.

Throughout, the main aim of the project was to involve members of the local community and generate internationally significant research in the World Heritage Area, and thereby contribute to the wider understanding of these sites and landscapes.