(Above) The roof falls in on the Crantit excavation (well, not quite...)

After a hectic start with the media, the real archaeology began on Wednesday. We mechanically stripped the barley and topsoil from an area 20 x 20 metres from around the chamber and got down to the subsoil of stones and clayey soil. Our surveyor and his twin brother had been out on the site since 08.00 to begin a contour survey. This will locate the chamber on a map with its height calculated above sea level and its exact position plotted against the national grid.

We soon found a field wall west of tile site which is at least 100 years old, and some large stones down slope from the chamber began to appear. Everybody got down to trowelling the stony subsoil. including the forensic pathologist Dr Jeanette McFarlane from Glasgow University's Department of Forensic Medicine. We have two archaeology students from the University who have had little or no previous site experience and this was their first taste of real archaeology. We are being assisted by David Thurley, a Scenes of Crime Officer from Strathclyde Police. We asked him to join us as he is a skilled photographer and knows what to do with foot- and other prints, we hope to find inside the chamber. David, after recovering from a rather nauseous crossing on the St. 0la, kindly took photographs of the site, the archaeology and the archaeologists.

Two members of the Meet the Ancestors programme also joined us for the day, filming our every movement and small discoveries. And the mobile phone rang and rang and rang….

We decided after an hour or two of quiet after the working day to go back to the site. There was myself and my co-director Colin Richards, David and Jeanette and Julian and Ian from the BBC. We wanted to lift the covering which was placed over the hole to see if we could get a camera down, and to see if we could leam anything about the construction and shape of the chamber. Lifting the plastic and boarding was thrilling, wondering what we were going to see. Nothing jumped out to meet us which was a relief, but we noticed that there was a good deal of soil and stone covering the broken roof slab which had collapsed into the chamber and more covering what we could see of the chamber floor. Trying to light the aperture with photographic lights showed us some curved masonry, but our visibility was limited. With infinite patience Ian and Julian got out their camera gear and mounted a small digital camera with lights on a metal rod and tried to gently navigate it into the hole and under the roof slab we could see. This wasn't an easy operation, and umpteen attempts were made, with adjustments to the camera housing to get the widest coverage of what was down there. We were all excited, but the little monitor which gave us a play-back of the film was too small for us all to see. Even playback through a TV wasn't very helpful as most of the shots were with the camera mounted upside down!

We began the third day knowing that we had a good covering of soil and stone over the roof slabs of the chamber, to a depth of 40 cm. We started to remove the soil and stone mechanically and soon found larger stones - roof slabs, beneath. By this time we had been joined by a man who knows his stone. Joffy, by special request had come for a few days to help us. By the way the stones were lying, the position of the hole with the broken and fallen roof slab, the area of the chamber began to be defined. A cut in the subsoil showed us where soil and stone had been removed to create a large hole for the masonry of the chamber. With the knowledge we were gradually gaining, the shape of the chamber has begun to come to light. Present thinking shows it to be sub-circular with three vertical, radial, stone slabs dividing tile chamber into three or four compartments and at the same time holding up the roof

That was the story until a badly placed foot enabled a broken roofslab to part from its position and make a descent into the chamber! We knew that our excavation would unsettle the structure, but did not know to what extent or how quickly, until now. Tile whole roof with the remaining clay and stones on top, rested precariously on the vertical stone slabs. Joffy, using all his skill, managed to prop up the remaining roof slabs without entering the chamber! We finished this aspect of the excavation for the day, by making the site secure and covering it with our amazing sponsored tent.

The roof of the chamber is too unstable to allow anyone in there, and if it lasts the evening, in spite of the props, we will be lucky. Not all the floor of the chamber has been disturbed, and if we can get the roof slabs off safely tomorrow, we may still have enough undisturbed deposits for forensic analysis.

As a little bonus towards the end of the working day, my supervisor John, and also the project's soils analyst, found and excavated a small area of charcoal which contained burnt bone. Is this the remains of a Bronze Age cremation, as found on other Neolithic burial sites?

Watch this space for the next exciting instalment....

Beverley Ballin-Smith (BBS)