Archaeology
Extensive traces of prehistoric man can be found throughout the island, the vast majority of sites remaining undisturbed. Early settlers of around 3000 B.C. built simple stone shelters – oval or round, the remains of which can now be seen as rubble walls three to four and a half metres thick, although in a tumbledown condition. Some of the shelters are divided into cells, while others have a porch at the entrance for extra protection from the elements. The area at the head of Culivoe has been identified as one such settlement.
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Pictures of the leper colony
Heel –shaped chambered cairns, with a passage leading into a central burial chamber, are also to be found in the island and date from the Neolithic period.
The Middle Bronze Age is represented by Muckle and Little Heogan at East Biggins and there is a fine Bronze Age burnt mound at Dutch Loch near Hamnavoe.
Of more recent archaeological interest are the ruined mills located at various sites around the island. The best examples are to be found at the head of Hamnavoe. The remains of the meal roads built by labour paid for by barley meal during the famine years of the early 19th century are still clearly visible.
During the summer of 2000 a small team from Glasgow University conducted a survey and trial excavation on Brei Holm. This is a possible late Norse monastic community sited on a sea stack at the mouth of Housa Voe. The remains of eight or nine buildings are still visible there today. Maiden Stack may have served as the hermitage.
In 2004 a team from the universities of Glasgow, St Andrews, Stirling and Bradford plus members of the Papa Stour History Group investigated two sites on Papa Stour.
1. The supposed chapel site on the Seeans was investigated by both geophysical survey and excavation. However, only loose rhyolite boulders were found in an old sand dune system that were interpreted as a collapsed sheep shelter or pen. There was no other evidence except one fragmentary whalebone rib. It is possible that the stone had been deposited on the site for use in construction of the kirk but never used due to its burial in the sand by the wind.
2. The Hill of Feilie (or Feelie) (Leper Colony), a Scheduled Ancient Monument, had not been previously recorded in detail. The site is complex and possibly multi-period. The enclosure dyke contains three mounds likely to have been inhabited cells or huts, a cistern, and the remains of low mounds of turf or stone that could be muldiekus’s from flaying the turf, or graves of lepers. Outside the enclosure a further structure can be found with a second cistern, a remnant dyke and a possible gate.
