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Publication Account

Date 1985

Event ID 1016254

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016254

On a clear day the view from Cairnpapple's bleak and rounded hilltop ranges from the Bass Rock in the North Sea to Goatfell and the mountains of Arran in the Firth of Clyde, south to the Border hills, and northwest beyond Stirling to the Trossachs and Schiehallion. Few better spots in central Scotland could have been chosen for rituals, burials or assemblies of the highest order.

Of the five main phases at Cairnpapple (best revealed from on top of the reconstructed cairn), the most recent comprises the group of four rectangular full-length graves almost due east, close to the ditch probably Iron Age, maybe early first millennium AD.

Some 1500 or so years earlier, but very much visible to succeeding generations, the site was dominated by a huge 30m diameter stone cairn overlying the west part of the massive ditch and supported by the outer kerb of rounded boulders some 14m away from the present cairn. Two cremations in inverted pottery cinerary urns had been placed in shallow pits within. Neither survives, but the massive effort required to build the cairn must have reflected the status of the intended occupants-for normally such urns were placed simply in existing cairns, in natural knolls or merely holes in the ground.

The cairn was an enlargement of an earlier one, 15m across, the basis of today's reconstruction, and dating perhaps to around 1800-1700 BC. One of two graves in this earlier cairn has been retained-a short cist for a crouched burial, lined with stone slabs and drystone walling. A stone with three cup-marks was found; also a pottery Food Vessel on a small ledge. Curiously, the second cist contained cremated remains-some overlap of cultural tradition maybe separated a little in time?

These Bronze-Age round cairns reflected a complete change of site function. The first overlies two socket holes for an earlier ring of standing stones-which were evidently taken down and re-used as a massive retaining kerb to support the weight of the cairn.

The previous phase at Cairnpapple was characterised by explicit ritual and ceremony rather than simple burial. Late on in this phase, perhaps c1900 BC, two small rock-cut graves for crouched burials had certainly been constructed on the site-one of which, perhaps covered by a small mound outlined by its oval stone kerb, was subsequently incorporated and preserved within the later cairn and was marked by a single standing stone. But in essence, phase two comprised a massive oval enclosure containing an eggshaped setting (cf Burgh Hill, no. 100), 35m by 28m, of 24 standing stones close to the inner edge of a wide rock-cut ditch, upcast to give an external bank. There are two causewayed entrances, to north and south, and in the centre there may have been a small, rectangular stone setting.

The first, original phase was far less impressive-seven small pits in an irregular arc within what subsequently became the western segment of the enlarged round cairn. A setting of three large stones close by was probably associated. Amongst the mixture of cremated bones and rubble, a small bone or antler pin was found; also stone axe chips; one of which came from the neolithic 'factory' at Great Langdale in Cumbria-a site dated to c2800/2700 BC.

Cairnpapple, therefore, was a focus of prehistoric man's attention, on and off, for nearly 3000 years.

Information from 'Exploring Scotland's Heritage: Lothian and Borders', (1985).

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