FIND OUT MORE
A common and fruitful way to decide where to conduct archaeological field survey is to look for the landscape gaps in the Historic Environment Record. These are areas where nothing to very little has been recorded.Within Shetland’s confined space and, crucially, limited arable land, this is very often a good indication that field surveys have not been carried out in any comprehensive way. Such was the case when Archaeology Shetland and interested members of the public decided to do a field survey along both sides of the peninsula leading to Hawks Ness broch.With the exception of a burnt mound, a couple of field walls and the broch itself, nothing had been recorded for the 1.5km length of the ness where satellite images suggested prehistoric use of the landscape. Billed as both a benefit to the Historic Environment Record and an exercise in learning basic field survey and site recording, the day produced a handful of new sites, helping to fill in some of the gaps in the landscape.