Fifty years ago, Iain Crawford began a forty year programme of excavation on the Udal peninsula, in North Uist, in the Western Isles of Scotland, employing new and innovatory techniques and accumulating a remarkable collection of finds and site records covering a sequence of occupation from the Neolithic to the 17th century. His excavations have acquired mythical status because Crawford only publicised the most spectacular elements, discouraged the visits of other academics and deterred researchers’ enquiries. He was unhappy when other scholars wrote about his site, but found the task of writing up himself too daunting. Since 2010, with the blessing of the Crawford family and the help of Historic Scotland and the Western Isles Council, a small team has assessed the documentary archive and the collections and work on publication has begun. This is the first report to appear. It is on the important faunal remains which tell a story of farming, fishing and harvesting seabirds in the Western Isles over a millennium from AD 600 to AD 1700 and it links the farming practices with descriptions in the historic accounts of the islands. This work by Dale Serjeantson (with a forward by Beverley Ballin-Smith), comprises an important contribution to Scottish archaeology and social history with clear implications for continuity in the lifestyle of the Western Isles over this period. Dale Serjeantson is one of Britain’s leading zooarchaeologists with a lifetime of experience in the field. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and author of the Cambridge manual in archaeology Birds. She has contributed many papers to academic journals and co-edited Food in Medieval England in the Oxford Studies in History and Archaeology Series, Animals in the Neolithic of Britain and Europe (Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers) and Diet and Crafts in Towns.
