Archaeology Notes

Event ID 664241

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/664241

NH89SW 9 8177 9265

An Orkney-Cromarty type round cairn with two chambers and intrusive short cists and cremations lay 111' NNE of Boston House on the links at about NH 8175 9265. It was a small, irregular, inconspicuous, turf and sand- covered, oval mound, measuring about 42' by 30' which had obviously been much disturbed before 1956 when the first excavation took place (Henshall and Taylor 1959) A rescue dig was undertaken in July 1960 when the landowner proposed to remove the ciarn to make a car-park. It proved to be of such interest that it was preserved in the car-park, although the soft sand-stone of the orthostats is weathering rapidly. The lower part of the cairn was of large flat slabs beneath a mixture of sand and rounded irregular boulders. There was no definite edging to the ciarn, but there was a rough kerb on the SE side, 9' from the chamber. There was no definite evidence for the southern chamber with a smaller cairn being earlier, but the northern might be an addition to the original plan. The passage and entrance to the southern chamber had been deliberately blocked.

One cist had been set into the southern chamber, and contained an intact food-vessel and jet beads. The other had been inserted into the centre of the cairn and contained the skeletons of two babies accompanied by a foodvessel and beaker sherds. A speck of corroded bronze lay near the centre.

Of the nine cremations found, one was accompanied by fragments of a Mid Bronze Age bifid bronze razor, another by part of a bronze blade, probably part of a razor.

The finds were donated to National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) by the landowner, J Macintosh of Embo House.

A S Henshall and H W Y Taylor 1959; A S Henshall and J C Wallace 1965; J M Coles 1966; Information from MS of Chambered Cairns of Scotland, by A S Henshall.

An Orkney-Cromarty chambered cairn as described and planned by Henshall, preserved within an iron railing at NH 8177 9265 in the forecourt of "Grannies Heilan' Hame".

The two chambers and the central cist with capstone survive, but the cist within the S chamber is not evident. The cairn is truncated in the E by the railing and car-park.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (A A), 23 March 1971.

(Full description).

A S Henshall 1972.