Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1018910
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018910
Many of the elements of this pair of sites join to make them unusual and in so doing remind us that the groups, categories or 'norms' of the archaeological record are to some extent illusions. To the north-east there is a stone circle which was discovered in the course of recent excavations; measuring about 10.5m by 10m, this site was of two periods: a timber circle, the posts of which have been marked by round concrete pillars, and a stone circle, most of the uprights of which were subsequently removed, but one remains in situ. A radiocarbon date shows that this is one of the earliest circles in Scotland.
The sequence of construction of the larger and better known circle has been made much clearer as a result of excavation and is explained on information-panels on site. The circle of upright stones, about 12.2m in diameter, was the architectural focus for burials over many centuries with several periods of reconstruction. As displayed today the site shows the last phase of rebuilding, when it was largely covered by a stone cairn, though some of the capping may be comparatively recent One small cairn, built immediately outside the circle to the north-east contained a cist with a Beaker vessel associated with three flint arrowheads and a flint scraper, but there were no burial remains. This cairn, like a second, which covered an empty cist (presumably also an unaccompanied inhumation burial), is now sealed by the bank of cairn material outside the stone circle.
Excavation in 1929 revealed that the cist at the centre of the circle had already been rifled, and thus its chronological position is uncertain; the kerb-stones of the cairn that enclosed it were, however, later destroyed, and the present stones are largely reconstructions. The cist is a well-built one, measuring 1.4m by 0.8m and 0.5m in depth, and is comparable in size to several in the adjacent monuments.
One of the most unusual features of the stone circle is the presence of a pecked double spiral on one of the stones, one half on one side and the other on the next face; it is unlikely that this carving is of two periods as has sometimes been suggested.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Argyll and the Western Isles’, (1985).
