Pottery
Handmade, and bearing fingerprints of the potters, the ceramics from Clachtoll bring us closer to the people of the broch
Less than 300 sherds of pottery were found at Clachtoll, representing less than 20 vessels.
This is a remarkably small number when you consider that other contemporary sites have uncovered between 200 and 3000 vessels. The limited number of vessels from Clachtoll might suggest that the debris represents activities of an extended family over no more than 10 to 20 years.
Most of the sherds in the assemblage are small and can’t tell us much about the vessel’s original form. However, 23 rim sherds and 10 base sherds were recovered, and we were able to reconstruct the profiles of several of the vessels. It’s clear that all of the vessels were hand-thrown, as we would expect in the Iron Age.
The predominant type seems to have been vessels with an everted rim
An everted rim is the best type for pouring. Such rim types are recovered from numerous sites and periods on many northern Atlantic sites in various guises.
In broad terms, the vessels appear to fall into two general types: vases and urns/jars
It is very likely that the small vases were for everyday use, perhaps for drinking, and the larger urns could be for storage or cooking.
Clachtoll’s potters used three different types of decoration: applied, impressed and incised.
Wavy-cordon
Wheat impressions
Ring-shaped impressed boss
The most usual form of applied decoration was a cordon around the shoulder of the vessel. It came in many forms including wavy-cordon, incised lines, pinched up, and even impressing wheat into the shape! The other form of applied cordon was a ring-shaped impressed boss, possibly made using a pin found on site.
They also used incisions to decorate their pottery, usually on the top area above the shoulder and below the rim.
Most of the incised decoration was fine incision, creating geometric patterns like this
Although the decoration and types is of interest, we can use pottery in many more ways, particularly in relation to understanding: use, date and identifying contacts.
The pottery assemblage from Clachtoll is one of only a handful from Atlantic Scotland to come from secure, well-dated contexts. The devastating fire that led to the deposition of the Clachtoll pottery allows a rare opportunity to see a domestic assemblage from mainland Scotland during the first centuries BC and AD. Thus, it will be a critical cornerstone for any future narrative of pottery sequences and dates in Middle Iron Age Atlantic Scotland.
Comparison with pottery from areas to the west of Clachtoll (eg the Hebrides and Skye) or to the east (Caithness, Orkney and Sutherland) shows that the Clachtoll assemblage is very similar to pottery found in the Outer and Inner Hebrides; there are some very good parallels with numerous sites in Lewis and North Uist. This suggests that the inhabitants of Clachtoll were in direct contact with people living on these islands.
We also undertook analysis of the residues found on some of the potsherds, revealing intriguing clues about life at the broch. Read more about that here.