Help with shelter ID?

[Chance]

The nest of the grey-flecked elm-pollarder:

I'm not sure how to classify it - wickiup, debris shelter?
There's no trick photography involved: the structure is just as you see it, made up of snedded stems no thicker than a finger.

It sits over the stone-lined hole that we cover with a tent to make a basic sweatlodge. There's headroom to stand.

 

[Retired Member southey]

That look very cosy! i reckon you could call it a wikiup. looks great.

 

[charlieh]

thats really fantastic, does the smoke just filter up through the roof or do you have a chimney,

I really am inpressed not seen a shelter like this before, going to have to make one with my son when hes a bit older, many thanks for posting it

 

[maddave]

I'd call it a Bushfro !! Like an Afro but made of bush

 

[JAG009]

Who cares what it is called ! its just a top shelter,just call it the DEN

Jason

 

[fred gordon]

I certainly wouldn't want to be in there if the fire started sparking!

 

[Retired Member southey]

I certainly wouldn't want to be in there if the fire started sparking!

lucky for me im a mimetic poly-alloy, I'm in!

 

[Chance]

thats really fantastic, does the smoke just filter up through the roof or do you have a chimney

Thank you. It's just a 'toy', and not especially weather-tight (although the floor was dry in the drizzle). For the test firing, the smoke went out through the back wall (the door was facing a stiff wind). With the addition of a leaf/debris layer, I'm fairly confident that it would act like a round house roof (i.e. filter).

Fred - with the weather that we've been having recently around these parts, I wasn't overly worried about sparks.

 

[WeThePeoplexfbm]

ooo nice ^^, my winter shelter is ood, it a deep hole wcover buy a tarp and pine , then in ti is a small fire with metal pipe that let the smoke out ^^ epic



---
Skipp

 

[pango]

I'd call it a Bushfro !! Like an Afro but made of bush

Risque, Dave! ...tea sprayed over the lap-top again!

Noting the fir plantation, I'd be worried about fire risk as well... in almost all other climates than ours.

Chance, Can I take it that's in Aberdeenshire?
The enclosure your shelter is built on is rather curious looking. Do you have any ideas as to age or purpose? I'm going to be gutted if you say you built it yourself!

I'm most intrigued that it appears to have an entrance and threshold stone, although it's difficult to guess proportions from the photo.

My brother lives near Skene and I've taken the opportunity to have one or two overnighters in the surrounding country, wholly satisfying despite the ominous atmosphere on the occasion when you instinctively know you're camped on hallowed ground. And I've had the funny looks from distrustful and suspicious Aberdeenshire Farmers! I was challenged more than once, although they did seem re-assured when they realised I wasn't an Aberdonian!
A bit like telling a Fife Fermer you're from Perth or Newburgh.

What amazed me in the area was the sheer number of burial cairns, stone circles, standing and recumbent stones, etc. I even found a carved Pictish stone almost 3 mtrs long and conveniently on the line of a dry stone dyke.

My question is whether or not your shelter is built on an ancient foundation which has been excavated, which wouldn't exactly be unique considering the density of such sites in the area, but you may well be spending the night in an ancient burial chamber or, what a wonderful thought, a temporary shelter from the Iron, Bronze, or Middle Ages!

I shook down for the night in a hut foundation on Kefalonia once and later discovered it to be Bronze Age. Who knows, it may have been the house of Philoetius himself!

Cheers,

 

[Chance]

Chance, Can I take it that's in Aberdeenshire?
The enclosure your shelter is built on is rather curious looking. Do you have any ideas as to age or purpose? I'm going to be gutted if you say you built it yourself!

I'm not sure how best to put this... I'm afraid that the neo- in this lithic is from around 2000 AD (or should that be CE?).
I'm fairly confident of not having desecrated an old burial ground, since I've landscaped that area (including the 'sweat lodge') from building rubble left by the previous owners. Although I have found a single flint shard in clearing the ground, the rest of the debris is very much 19th and 20th century.

We can see two recumbent stone circles from the garden. Since you're not the first to question the age of the structure, am I going to have to destroy it if we leave the place, so as not to confuse future archaeologists?

 

[pango]

Hi Chance,
The Victorian Folly, etc, is a trend which I'm sure has caused quite a few beamers amongst archaeologists. Oh to be a fly on the wall.

Although your "sweat lodge" does have the look of a cist burial in the photo, it may not appear so with a cursory closer inspection.

Why tear it down though? Recreation is as valid an area of interest as any other human behaviour. I can just hear some anthropologist 1,000 years from now waffling on about the brief re-emergence of an Ancestor Culture in C21st Aberdeenshire!

Cheers,

 

[Chance]

does the smoke just filter up through the roof or do you have a chimney

I've been complicating the archaeological evidence, and risking a bushfro fire, to answer this question visually.
My hobo shield burns hot, so I had to add wet leaves to get smoke.