Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 54

Frans-Arne Stylegar
single farms, the biggest of which were
of township-size (Thomson 2001:315ff).
The settlement structure within each
township could be very complex.
Grimeston in Harray, Mainland consisted
of 'several smaller towns or districts,
such as Isbister, Horraquoy, Beneath the
Dyke etc' (Sandnes 1996:66). This last
’district' was actually surrounded by a
separate dyke. The farms Vola, Nistaben,
Behind the Town, and Windywa's
belonged to Beneath the Dyke (ibid.).
The hill dyke divided the township from
the common moors (Clouston 1932:350).
It has recently been proposed, for
Shetland, that the medieval manors were
breaking up in the late 13th century, and
that their fragments became discrete
farms, with free tenants, in the process
(Smith 2000:1-15). Satellite farms, that
may have provided labour on the manor
farm, from then on paid a separate rent.
This interpretation have obvious similar-
ities with the suggested trajectory in W
Norway (above).
In Orkney too there are indications
that townships at some point have been
expanded. As Thomson writes,
'in a number of townships there are
references to an inner dyke known as 'the
auld bow'. We find the term being used in
two senses; primarily it was applied to
the dyke itself, and less frequently it was
used to describe the land enclosed by the
dyke (the old bu, the old farm). The sec-
ond usage seems to imply that there was
a stage of township expansion when the
hill-dyke had been "flitted out" to take in
the grassland of the backs. By the time
the "auld bow" was recorded, the dyke
seems invariably to have been ruinous,
and sometimes its very location was
uncertain. Inner dykes of this kind are not
unique to Orkney; a similar old dyke is a
regular feature of Shetland townships,
and indeed an inner dyke was sometimes
found in Scotland. The inner dyke, as
long as it remained intact, created an
intermediate zone, inside the hill dyke
but distinct from the arable land; it
allowed the backs to be used as a series
of peripheral grazing enclosures'
(Thomson 2001:328).
What about the dating for the re-loca-
tion of the hill dykes and the expansion
of the Orkney townships, then? Much of
the more substantial evidence for the age
of the different types of dykes in the
Scottish Northem Isles is from Shetland.
The small island of Papa Stour, where
large-scale archaeological investigations
have been carried out in recent years, can
serve as a case in point. Here, it is clear
that the present day two-fold division of
the island, marked by a stone hill dyke,
was established by c. AD 1300
(Crawford & Smith 1999). At that time,
documentary, place-name and archaeo-
logical evidence indicate that settlement
was limited to the eastem half of the
island. In earlier periods settlement in
Papa Stour was more widespread.
Remains of prehistoric settlements are
found both in the hills and within the hill
dyke (Carter & Davidson 1998:130).
Another Shetland site, that of the
abandoned farm of Kebister in Mainland,
have yielded more information relevant
to this discussion. Here, several radiocar-
bon dates from dykes are available. A
number of dykes were found at Kebister,
including some that are being interpreted
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