Dail Mòr (or Dalmore) is a hamlet situated in the Northside of Carloway, a major settlement on the

Isle of Lewis The Isle of Lewis () or simply Lewis () is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides archipelago in Scotland. The two parts are frequently referred to as if they were separate islands. The t ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. The hamlet has a beach and a cemetery. A small well kept car park is available for visitors as are picnic and public BBQ facilities. The beach is a known surf destination mentioned in numerous guidebooks. Note there is a strong

rip current A rip current (or just rip) is a specific type of water current that can occur near beaches where waves break. A rip is a strong, localized, and narrow current of water that moves directly away from the shore by cutting through the lines of bre ...

at the north end of the beach. Despite its remoteness, five of the six houses in the village were connected to fibre broadband in November 2012. In August 2016, the ''Transocean Winner'' oil rig ran aground, on a headland just off Dalmore beach. The oil rig was being towed from Norway to Malta, when it became detached from the tug boat.

Archaeology

Excavations were conducted at Dail Mòr in the autumn of 1982 by Gerald and Margaret Ponting when part of the sea wall collapsed near the beach. This was further excavated by Sharples and Curtis.

Prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

stone structures were found and documented, suggested to be a dwelling, along with various artefacts left in place by

Beaker culture The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell Beaker (archaeology), beaker drinking vessel used at the beginning of the European Bronze Age, ...

with some earlier finds from the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

. These included tools made of

bone A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, ...

antler Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) Family (biology), family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally fo ...

and

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...

. A large number of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

s and

arrowhead An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, or sometimes for special purposes such as signaling. ...

s found during excavations and on the beach nearby suggest the area may have been used for a workshop of their manufacture. One noted artefact recovered was the Dalmore bone; a square-sectioned 34mm with perforation. Zig-zag markings just over 5mm apart on the bone were analysed by P.J. Scott and Margaret Ponting. Later analysis of the stone tools found that majority of the arrowheads were of quartz type not found locally. The nearest known source is in

Shieldaig Shieldaig (; )W. J. Watson''Place-names of Ross and Cromarty'' 1904, p. 208. is a village in Wester Ross in the Northwest Highlands, in the Scottish council area of Highland. Geography and history The village was founded in 1800 with a vie ...

Wester Ross Wester Ross () is an area of the Northwest Highlands of Scotland in the council area of Highland. The area is loosely defined, and has never been used as a formal administrative region in its own right, but is generally regarded as lying to th ...

, at least 100 km away, in a direct line. This has led the archaeologists to surmise that there was a trade network between the Western Isles and the mainland for some quartz materials - there are local quartz materials on Lewis but they are not as fined grained.

Images

File:Dail Mor near Carloway in summer 2012 (1).JPG, Dail Mor File:Dail Mor near Carloway in summer 2012 (2).JPG, Dail Mor File:Creag an Dail Mor from Carn Eag Dubh - geograph.org.uk - 1277254.jpg, Creag an Dail Mor from Carn Eag Dubh

References

External links

Scotland's Places, Lewis, Dalmore
Hamlets in Scotland Archaeological sites in the Outer Hebrides {{WesternIsles-geo-stub