Thirteen projects look set to receive money from Orkney Islands Council's fund for archaeological investigations in 2010. Members of the OIC development committee have backed recommendations to award funding to the projects selected by a panel made up of the OIC manager of museums and heritage, the county archaeologist and the Orkney Museum's curator of archaeology.
     Set to receive the highest amount is the ongoing excavation on the Ness of Brodgar, which is described in the report as having huge tourism potential and exciting archaeology. Led by Nick Card, of the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (ORCA), the project has been allocated £8,000. Other ORCA projects were also successful in attracting funding, including the Brae of Habreck, in Wyre.
     The Hoy and South Walls Landscape Interpretation work has been approved for £4,662 in funding. This project is a continuation of another scheme that has so far 'hugely changed the interpretation of an area of Hoy', including a mound, previously thought to be a broch, which turned out to be a Neolithic chambered cairn. Expected to receive £1,500 is Oxford University's Birsay-Skaill Landscape Archaeology Project, which, councillors heard, "should deliver interesting results". Due to its "huge media potential", the "Wrapping places: interpreting the Ring of Bookan complex" project has been approved for £2,500 from the fund. The investigation is led by Dr Colin Richards of the University of Manchester.
     Three geophysics projects, led by Dr Susan Ovenden, of Orkney College, look likely to receive £1,000 each. These include ongoing geophysics work in the World Heritage Area Inner Buffer Zone, which completes a long running programme of magnetometry, and the Skaill Loch Environs Project. Dr Ovenden's third successful project is the World Heritage Area LiDAR Zone, which is approved for funding because it enables Orkney to contribute to the national 'Scotland's 10' programme.
     
Source: Orkneyjar (4 February 2010)