International team digs up past on Mull
Archaeologists are returning to Mull for their annual dig at an abandoned 18th-century township.
A team of 15 university students from Canada, America, the Ukraine and the UK arrived on site at Kildavie on Sunday ready for two weeks of excavating.
They are being joined by members of North West Mull Archaeology Interest Group (NWMAIG) searching for clues that will reveal what the ruined remains of 13 different buildings were originally used for – homes, workshops or barns, said Ian Hill, from Edinburgh-based social enterprise HARP that provides archaeological services and field school experiences.
The site, on land owned by North West Mull Community Woodland Company near Dervaig, has been under investigation since 2007. HARP first got involved in the summer of 2014.
Stone walls two to three feet high are the only signs visible to the eye that people once lived at Kildavie.
Evidence gathered so far indicates people could have settled there from the mid 1500s until it was abandoned in the 1800s.
Finds on the site have include lots of glass, mainly fragments of bottles, one of which had the date of 1713 and Tarbert embossed on its shoulder. Shards of pottery and oyster shells have also been discovered there on previous digs, giving hints on how villagers might have lived. And flint tools from much earlier times have been uncovered there but are not linked to the township.
All the new information will be put into a technical report which will be lodged with the landowner and official archaeological archives. Eventually, an article will be produced to appear in a journal, said Mr Hill.
This year’s dig started on Sunday August 12 and ends on Saturday August 25.
The public can go along to an open day at the site on Sunday August 19 from 10am to 3pm to see what the working party has discovered this time.