by Professor Steven Mithen, 21st February 2026
Professor Steven Mithen started his talk by reminding us that the Vikings, as well as being raiders, were also traders, explorers and farmers. We looked at a map showing the sea routes travelled by the Vikings from their homelands to areas they settled in the British Isles. In Scotland, these settlement areas comprised islands to the north and west, as well as the west coast.
Steve told us that here, in the south west of England, people did not escape the raiders, with Danish Vikings arriving at Reading in 870, and making a winter camp there. However, they were defeated by the West Saxons at Englefield, near Reading; the first of many battles fought to keep the south free from the Viking invaders.
A map showed the presence of the Vikings in Scotland, from 800 to 1014, and displayed the many monasteries and settlements raided, sometimes repeatedly, by the Vikings. Iona Abbey, founded by the Irish monk St Columba in 563, was one such place.
We looked at Viking building remains, as well as reconstructions of their turf-built houses. We saw an excavated warrior’s boat burial from Westness cemetery on Rousay, Orkney. On the Isle of Colonsay was a boat burial that gave evidence of the Vikings as traders, in the form of a set of scales and elaborately decorated weights.
On a map of the Isle of Islay, off the west coast of Scotland, we saw where three Viking burial sites had been found. We looked at a Viking cemetery at Ballinaby, and at grave goods found there. A pair of ‘tortoise brooches’, a ladle and a polishing stone (used for pressing linen), indicated a female burial, while swords and other weapons suggested male burials.
Steve discussed the evidence, or rather the lack of it, for Viking settlements on Islay. 40% of Islay place names derive from Old Norse, suggesting widespread Viking settlement. However, in spite of archaeological surveys and excavations, no Viking houses have yet been found. Steve thinks that the Vikings may have just used Islay for burials, allowing the islanders, the Ilich, to continue to live there, and to gradually adopt Viking place names.
On Islay are the remains of medieval buildings at Olistadh, which in Old Norse means ‘Olaf’s Farm’, suggesting a 12th century Norse farmstead, or possibly an earlier Viking settlement. The settlement at Olistadh was first documented in the crown rentals of 1541, with the last tenant leaving in 1851, when the landowner wanted to use Olistadh for sheep farming.
In 2024, Steve and a team from the University of Reading went to Olistadh, in an attempt to find evidence of Viking buildings. We looked at photographs of the five trenches dug at Olistadh, revealing details of the medieval buildings, including the large stones and paving slabs used in their construction.
In Trench 2, there was great excitement when a turf wall, as used by the Vikings to build their houses, was revealed, but sadly it turned out to be part of a 17th century corn drying kiln. In conclusion, Steve said that Olistadh, and other medieval settlements on Islay, had been so heavily developed, that any Viking remains, had they ever existed, would likely have been destroyed.
Steve decided to look for the Vikings where medieval and post-medieval development was not so concentrated. Nave Island, off the north coast of Islay, seemed to fit the bill. Here, at the site of Port na h-Eaglais, there is an enclosure that is thought to have been a monastic outpost from Iona. Within the enclosure is a 13th/14th century chapel. Just outside the enclosure is an intriguing oval-shaped structure.
In 1961, this was recorded as ‘an oval mound’, 18m in length and 8.2m wide, with stones visible near the centre and at one end. In the 1970s, it was Scheduled as a ‘Viking house’. In 1978, as part of Ordnance Survey mapping, it was described as a ‘boat-shaped building’. In 1999, the structure was described as a ‘barrel-shaped house with turf walls’, somewhat confusingly, as other visitors had noted stone walling.
Wondering if the oval-shaped structure could be a Viking ship burial, we looked at the excavated Viking ship burial at Balladoole on the Isle of Man, which was similarly sited near a Christian chapel.
In March 2022, Steve and a team from the University of Reading, had been allowed just one day to do a topographic and geophysical survey of the mound. The structure, now accurately measured, was seen to be earlier than post-medieval farming, as rig and furrow plough marks avoided it.
In August 2024, Steve and the team were allowed, by Historic Environment Scotland (HES), one week for a small-scale excavation of the oval-shaped mound, but only ‘down to archaeologically significant layers’.
We looked at Trench 1, where the curved wall of the structure was seen to have large blocks on the inner and outer faces, and a rubble core. A George V (1911-1936) penny was found in an upper layer. Within the mound, a human burial, and an unusual, possibly deliberately buried tree trunk, were only partially excavated due to the HES restriction.
A human cranium and scapula had to be left in situ, but fragments of human bone and a tooth found nearby indicated a single adult burial. A phalanx (finger bone) had bone growth which suggested repetitive action (like rowing), and generative changes in vertebrae fragments found, also suggested a lifetime of vigorous activity.
In another part of Trench 1, a buried log; too large to have grown on Islay and thought likely to be driftwood, was associated with large stone slabs, and had a black crust on one end. Chemical tests have failed to reveal the identity of the black substance. One suggestion was that it could be tar, used to waterproof wooden boats, with the log having been used to raise up the boat to facilitate this process.
In Trench 2, the surrounding wall continued, there was an interior mound of stones built on a pebble substrate, and another human burial was found. As before, the cranium was left in situ, but fragments of bone and one tooth suggested another single burial.
Without dating evidence, one can only surmise at the purpose of the oval-shaped structure. For Steve, the current evidence points to the Vikings over-wintering and repairing their boats at this safe, isolated location, with, inevitably, people dying, who were then respectfully buried.
An application has been made for radiocarbon dating, and Steve and the Team intend to return to Nave Island in 2027. I look forward to learning more about the enigmatic oval-shaped structure!
Report by Joan Burrow-Newton
Image: Dunyvaig Castle by Henning2254 – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia