Excavation
Date 1994
Event ID 1000927
Category Recording
Type Excavation
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1000927
NH74SE 4 (SW cairn) and central cairn: The 1994 excavation at Balnuaran of Clava had three main aims. First, it sought to identify how far the site has changed its appearance as a result of modem restoration of the monument. A main focus was the largely unpublished excavation of 1930-31. Two of these trenches were reopened and other work was carried out on the SW passage grave. This showed that the chamber 'floor' identified in that work was in fact the old land surface beneath the monument. Both there and at the central ring caim excavation had extended into the natural fluvio-giacial gravel, In the case of the central ring cairn unrecorded excavation around the end of the last century had resulted in the clearance of the interior. The rubble removed from that part of the site was added to the material of the cairn.
Second, it sought to resolve the structural sequence at both monuments. At the SW cairn the external ramp was of a single phase. It had been built simultaneously with the kerbstones, which lacked any sockets. At the central ring cairn, there is evidence that the cairn, the stone circle and the external rays which connect these features together were all built at the same time. The line of at least one of the rays seems to have perpetuated division in the internal construction of the ring cairn. In between its kerb and the circle of monoliths was a setting of flat slabs overlying an unaccompanied cremation- This formed the focus for a distribution of pieces of worked flint and quartz.
Third, it aimed to obtain radiocarbon samples. Four such samples were collected, from the old land surfaces beneath each of the cairns, from the cremation outside the central ring cairn and from the socket of one of the monoliths enclosing that site.
Sponsors: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, British Academy, Society of Antiquaries of London, with considerable help in kind from Historic Scotland, Highland Regional Council and Reading University.
Bradley 1994.
