Note

Date 18 December 1992

Event ID 1095651

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1095651

RCAHMS National Archaeological Survey: South-east Perth

In 1989 a much-disturbed cairn in the garden of Beech Hill House, Coupar Angus, was excavated in advance of redevelopment; the following account is based on the excavator's interim report.

The Beech Hill cairn had probably been a focus of activiy over a long period of time. Two cists had been built before it was raised, but one of these cut an earlier pit and this may have been a grave too. Both these cists, and the pit, lay within the area enclosed by what may be conveniently described as a ring-ditch measuring some 8.5m in internal diameter. The fill of the ring-ditch, however, suggested that it had never been an open feature and may have held upright timbers. The ring-ditch had been dug through an earlier pit on the SE, but was itself cut by a third cist on the E. This cist, and two further cists on the W, lay outside the edge of the cairn, which measured 8.5m in diameter over a boulder kerb. The cairn was set concentrically within the ring-ditch, but the relationship between the two could not be demonstrated stratigraphically.

For various reasons, the radiocarbon dates for three of the cists and the ring-ditch cannot be relied upon to clarify the sequence of events on the site, but grave-goods accompanying the burials show that this cemetery was certainly in use at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. These grave-goods include Food Vessels, a bronze pin and two bone artefacts, one of them a pommel and the other a toggle. Some of the artefacts found beneath the cairn, which include sherds of Grooved Ware of Late Neolithic date, are thought to derive from manure spread in the course of earlier agricultural activity on the site.

The author of the Statistical Account also recorded the discovery of a 'Roman urn' in the cairn.

Information from RCAHMS (JRS) 18 December 1992.

OSA 1796; S Stevenson 1989b.