We watched an episode of ‘Digging for Britain‘ in which Alice Roberts visited the Swandro dig, Rousay
https://www.swandro.co.uk/post/swandro-on-digging-for-britain
This got me thinking about the fact that archaeology digs are finite events and however interesting the site is a point is reached when the diggers have done what can be done at the time, and digging is replaced with writing up what has been discovered so far – as happened with the Ness of Brodgar…
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk
Considering the precarious situation of the Swandro site, I was wondering what might happen after the final dig, so I asked Caz Mamwell of Team Swandro, and Caz took the time to reply…
“The backfilling plan is to do a more final version of what we do every year, so basically reinstate the beach over the whole trench rather than just the lower levels as we do between seasons. So we would cover with the protective membrane, the lower level (i.e. the bit more exposed to the sea) would be carefully covered with rocks, the upper level would be covered with a double layer of sandbags then carefully with rock, using all the rocks we’ve removed from the site over the years.
This would give the site the best protection we could – we can’t stop the erosion, but we can reinstate the beach so that the erosion would be no worse than it was before we excavated.”
Whatever happens afterwards, the 2025 dig season might be your last opportunity to experience Team Swandro in action on site – take that opportunity if you can!
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