Publication Account

Date 1996

Event ID 1016516

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016516

This manicured stone circle is set, unusually, on a ridge of gravel running into the low plain of Leuchar Moss at 90m OD. Eight rough boulders, graded to the north and with their bases keeled, are set in a ring, 10.2m in diameter, within which lie eight small kerb cairns, all but one with eleven kerb-stones. The central cairn is the largest, at 3.4m in diameter; it is the only one to have a double kerb. This and six other cairns each has 11 kerbsrones.

Excavation in 1934 established that the site had first been levelled, the eight ring stones and the kerbs of the cairns erected; a fire of willow branches had then been lit amongst them. Cremated bone was deposited in seven of the kerb cairns and the cairns were infilled. The finding of oak charcoal in five cairns and hazel charcoal in one other cairn could indicate that not all the deposits were contemporary. Cairn 2, which lies to the west of the central cairn, contained a central, capstone-covered fire pit with lumps of charcoal and cremated human bone. The only objects found from the whole site were minute potsherds and three small worked flakes.

This setting is seen as a later development from the recumbent stone circle tradition.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Aberdeen and North-East Scotland’, (1996).