Scalloway: A broch, Late Iron Age settlement and Medieval cemetery in Shetland

The Scalloway site is important for understanding the early historic settlement of the northen Isles of Scotland. Radiocarbon dates provide a firm chronology, and the variety of material recoved gives a detailed picture of agricultural economy. The artefacts indicate wide-ranging contacts with the rest of Britain, including the southern Anglo-Saxon areas, demonstrating that Shetland was integrated into the wider networks of power and patronage well before the Viking invasion. This report contains results and analysis from the 1989-90 excavations, which revealed that the ridge had been the focus of intense activity since the first century BC. Evidence also surfaced of an earlier cremation burial. Succesive periods were identified into the medieval period, including a broch occupied up to the 8th century, which seems to have been a mixed farming community that practised metalwork. A scatter of objects and fish bones suggesta viking settlement was situated nearby. The rubble layer left by the destruction of the broch broch was cut by graves, most likely medieval. The cemetry was gradually forgtten,a and in the 17th century a settlement was established which continued in use until the present era