Archaeology Notes

Event ID 660668

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/660668

NH54NW 1 5031 4522

In January 1925, a Bronze Age cist was unearthed near the eastern edge of a rocky, wooden knoll, on the summit of a slight ridge. Its presence was suspected by the protrusion of a slab of conglomerate 4' square and 1'3" thick, which, when lifted proved to be the cover stone of an oval-shaped grave cut into the rock. It was 7' long, 4' wide and from 2' - 3' deep.

The grave, which was full of gravelling soil, contained the remains of an incompletely incinerated human skeleton, the skull lying near the N end, facing E; the fragments of a bronze blade with midribs and grooves either side, but of too indeterminate a nature to say definitely whether they represent a dagger or a halberd (V G Childe 1944); a barbed and stemmed flint arrowhead, and a flint knife. The flints were calcined, but the bronze appeared not to have been through the fire.

(The finds are now in the National Museum of Antiquites of Scotland [NMAS]).

J G Callender 1925.

NH 5031 4522. All that remains of this cist is a slight depression 2.2m long, 1.3m wide and 0.3m deep. The slab 1.3m square and 0.4m thick, noted by Callander, lies at the side of the depression.

Site surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (N K B), 22 December 1964.

The dagger is EBA (J M Coles 1971) and the flint knife is plano-convex.

A S Henshall 1968.

(NH 5031 4522) Bronze Age Burial found 1925 (NAT)

OS 1:10,000 map (1974).

(Bronze dagger of Armorico-British B or Cressingham type). Seven fragments of dagger with well-defined midrib flanked by hollow and cast groove on upper part of blade; towards tip midrib turns into central ridge with diamond-shaped section. Present length 12.3cm, present width 4.1cm. Associations: barbed-and-tanged flint arrowhead; plano-convex flint knife. NMAS EQ 366.

S Gerloff 1975.