Reconstructing House Activity Areas

Well preserved floors within Norse longhouses from Kilpheder, South Uist, Outer Hebrides, provides the opportunity to study domestic space and activities within house interiors. Intensive sampling for bioarchaeological remains together with a range of other analytical techniques has been used in an attempt to understand the formation of deposits and the distribution of artefacts across them. Through an integrated approach to excavation, sampling and analysis it is hoped we can contribute to the theoretical concerns of archaeologists trying to understand why people inhabited their houses in the ways they did.