Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016655
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016655
Stone-robbing has severely reduced the mound of this cairn and it is difficult to be certain of its original shape. The form of the chamber, however, suggests that it is a Clyde-type cairn and the mound was therefore probably rectangular or trapezoidal on plan. The best-surviving feature of the cairn is a portion of the chamber, which is aligned north-north-west/southsouth-east (probably parallel to the long axis of the cairn). The outer, or entrance, section of the chamber has been destroyed, but parts of at least four compartments are visible. These are built in the characteristic form of Clyde cairns with pairs of large slabs along the long axis of each compartment which overlap the inner end of the slabs of the next chamber. This technique was probably designed to give the sidewalls of the chamber greater strength in order to support the considerable weight of the corbelled and lintelled roof The individual compartments are separated by transverse, or septal, slabs which not only serve to divide up the chamber but, being wedged against the side-slabs of the compartment, also helped to give structural support to the side walls.
Although the cairn has been excavated, or more accurately dug into, on at least three occasions (c 1861, 1896 and 1900), attention has only been paid to the chambers and there is litle information about the cairn as a whole. The finds, however, are of some interest and include four human skulls from the third chamber and the remains of at least six adults, one child and an infant from the fourth. Besides the human remains, there was a fragmentary neolithic lugged bowl (now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh) and a fine flint knife, as well as the bones of domesticated and wild animals (ox, pig, lamb or kid, bird, fish, otter and fox). The domesticated animal bones probably represent the remains of ritual feasts but the otter and fox maybe the remains of animals who used the tomb as a den. The bones of exotic mammals and birds have been found in other neolithic tombs and the animals may have played a part in the ritual life of these communities.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Clyde Estuary and Central Region’, (1985).
