No / Excavations were carried out on the tidal islet settlement of Eilean Maleit, previously excavated by Erskine Beveridge in the early part of this century, to test the hypothesis that the site represented a wheelhouse built into an earlier Atlantic roundhouse or broch. It is clear from the re-excavation that the wheelhouse was indeed set into an earlier massive-walled dry stone structure, probably an Atlantic roundhouse but almost certainly not a classic broch tower. The denuded condition of this early structure when the wheelhouse was built suggests that a significant period of time may have elapsed between the occupation of the two structures. Publication of this work is sponsored by Historic Scotland.

no / The promontory site of Eilean Olabhat, North Uist was excavated between 1986 and 1990 as part of the Loch Olabhat Research Project. It was shown to be a complex enclosed settlement and industrial site with several distinct episodes of occupation. The earliest remains comprise a small Iron Age building dating to the middle centuries of the first millennium BC, which was modified on several occasions prior to its abandonment. Much later, the Early Historic remains comprise a small cellular building, latterly used as a small workshop within which fine bronze and silverwork was produced in the fifth to seventh centuries AD. Evidence of this activity is represented by quantities of mould and crucible fragments as well as tuyère and other industrial waste products. The site subsequently fell into decay for a second time prior to its medieval reoccupation probably in the 14th to 16th centuries AD. Eilean Olabhat has produced a well-stratified, though discontinuous, structural and artefactual sequence from the mid-first millennium BC to the later second millennium AD, and has important implications for ceramic development in the Western Isles over that period, as well as providing significant evidence for the nature and social context of Early Historic metalworking.

This thesis argues that commons enclosure in the Clearance Era on the Uist island group in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland was a direct result of the Clearances on those islands in the 18th and 19th centuries and how the enclosure of commons on these islands was catastrophic to those communities who had functioned, worked, and thrived in those regions for millennia. Commons and commons systems are those resources such as land, water, and produce either from agriculture or natural harvesting which contribute to human habitation and existence in a particular geographic area. Commons and commons systems on North and South Uist island group are no exception. The recognition of these systems in the Uists is imperative to understanding how the enclosure of commons in the Outer Hebrideans impacted land use and agrarian practices.

No / The loch-side settlement of Druim nan Dearcag has been shown by excavation to date to the 16th-17th centuries AD, when it formed part of a dispersed settlement pattern in north-west North Uist. Elements of this settlement system were subsequently truncated by ridge-and-furrow cultivation associated with the cleared township or 'baile' of Foshigarry. The site produced rare structural and artefactual evidence for this period of Hebridean history and may help shed some light on the development of settlement patterns, house types and land use in the late medieval and post-medieval periods.