Keeill

The term is ultimately from the Latin cella, which originally meant a storeroom, or a small room.

These survivors vary in size and arrangement, and include examples constructed in unhewn or roughly worked stones, stone-revetted turf and timber-laced rubble.

Beneath some sites remnants of clay daub have been found (Megaw 1978:298), while traces of wall plaster have also been discovered.

Detailed work drawing comparisons with sites in the Northern Isles has been undertaken by Lowe (1987), and with those on Islay, by Swift (1987).

The keeill excavated in 2007 by Time Team fitted into Marstrander's general pattern, in terms of walls, rectangular shape, lack of identifiable internal divisions, and having a single narrow entrance and an eastern altar.