Publication Account

Date 1987

Event ID 1016984

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016984

RCAHMS: Exploring Scotland's Heritage - Fife and Tayside, 1987

These two sites (Balfarg and Balbirnie), along with structures that were found between them, form one of the most important groups of monuments of neolithic and bronze age date in eastern Scotland. The visible monuments are a henge and a small stone circle, now re-sited to the south-east ofits original position; excavations between them have, however, revealed a ditched enclosure, two timber structures, cairns and burials as well as a large quantity of pottery.

The henge monument of Balfarg was excavated in advance of house· building, but the development has been re-designed to allow the earthwork to form an open area, and now, with the partial digging out of the ditch, it offers a remarkable impression of the civil engineering skills of prehistoric man. The ditch encloses an area about 60m in diameter making use of a natural gully on its south-west flank; originally there would have been a large bank outside the ditch and together they would have formed a barrier around the central area. The entrance into the interior was across a narrow causeway on the west side. Several distinct phases of activity or construction were identified in the interior, the earliest involving the breaking of large numbers of pottery vessels and the burning of wood and bone. Later a circle of sixteen massive timbers was set up in pits with two unusually large timbers forming a detached 'porch' or entrance on the west side. These upright timbers are now marked by short posts, but the original posts may have been as tall as 4m on the west side of the circle to judge by the depth of the post-holes. The henge remained the focus for the construction of further rings of uprights, this time of stone. The surviving evidence is not as clear as in the earlier phase because the stones appear to have been set in hollows rather than in deep pits; nevertheless it may be suggested that there had been two concentric rings. The two ' impressive standing stones near the entrance causeway are, however, the only remaining features of this phase. The final period of prehistoric activity on the site is represented by the burial of a young person in a pit at the centre of the henge; the burial, accompanied by an unusual handled Beaker and a flint knife, was covered by a large slab weighing about two tons, which has been replaced in its original position.

At Balbirnie three burial phases of activity could be identified, although the disturbed nature of parts of the site meant that aspects of the sequence were tentative. There is no doubt, however, that the setting up of the ellipse of ten stones was the first phase with a rectangular kerbed area at its centre perhaps only a little later. Sherds of Grooved Ware pottery, in a style akin to that from Balfarg, were found within the filling of one of the sockets for one of the uprights. The purpose of the central setting is, however, obscure (it should be remembered that the crazy-paving within the reconstructed site is entirely modem). Perhaps a long time after the original building of the circle, the site was used as a burial-place. Two cists were constructed in pits which cut across the corners of the central setting, and this implies that its purpose had been forgotten by this time; the more central cist had been robbed in antiquity, and the burial which it contained had been scattered. The pit cutting through the north-west corner of the setting contained an undisturbed cist; when the capstone was removed the cist was found to be almost filled with earth and cremated bone (an adult female and a child), with a complete Food Vessel and a flint knife on the floor. One of the supporting stones behind the south end slab was decorated with seventeen cup-marks. Another small cist to the north-north-east of the centre contained a burnt bone toggle, while a disturbed cist to the south-east had a side slab decorated with cupmarkings and cup-and-ring markings; a cast of this slab has been used in the reconstruction.

Finally the interior of the circle had been covered by cairn material, perhaps covering smaller independent cairns that had protected the cists, and the cairn was used to receive deposits of cremated bones-as many as sixteen individuals-underlining the continued respect for the site as a focus for burials. After excavation in 1970 and 1971 the main elements of the site were re-erected by Glenrothes Development Corporation at a point some 125m SE of the original position. The pottery and decorated stones are on display in RMS, Queen Street, Edinburgh.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Fife and Tayside’, (1987).