Machair Bharabhais: A landscape through time

This paper provides a preliminary analytical summary of the results of post-excavation work underway on a series of archaeological surveys and excavations on the western coast of the Isle of Lewis, on the machair of Barabhas township. The excavations, carried out by Mary MacLeod Rivett and Trevor Cowie variously between 1976 and 2001, sampled settlements, ritual sites and landscape features dating from between the Early Bronze Age and the Norse Period, including a Beaker settlement and a Viking Age or Norse settlement, within an area suffering from severe Aeolian erosion. They yield a picture of the development of the landscape, both ritual and subsistence, over a period of at least 2,500 years