Archaeology Notes

Event ID 664441

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/664441

NH89NW 2 c. 814 966

(Area: NH 814 966) Flint Implements in large numbers, Rude Pottery, Iron Slag & Scoriae, Sheel Mounds, Stone Hammers and Sculptured Stones of Pictish Period found here (NAT)

OS 6" map, Sutherland, 2nd ed., (1907).

See also NH89NW 22.

Near the Meikle and Little Ferries many shell-mounds were observed about 20ft from the shore. They were from 20ft to 100ft in diameter, heavily capped with grass-covered sand, and seldom more than 30ins thick (Tait 1871).

From sections exposed, artifacts of flint, quartz, and other stone were taken, and these are now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS). They are atypical and belong to a poor industry of utilised flakes and pieces with few crudely retouched forms. The situation of the refuse, which was composed of the shells of the ordinary food molluscs and the bones of wild animals, suggests an equivalent of the culture of the western Obanian strand-loopers. A well-made faceted flint implement, described as a spear-head, from one of these shell-heaps, may point to contact with the cairn-builders (Lacaille 1954). Four fragments of Pictish symbol stones have been found in this area in 1872, 1874 and 1880. All are in Dunrobin Museum (Accession nos: 1872.3 and 4, 1874.3, 1880.10).

L Tait 1870; L Tait 1871; J R Allen and J Anderson 1903; RCAHMS 1911; A D Lacaille 1954.

The stones described by authorities 3 and 4 are in Dunrobin Museum. No further finds were made in the area, it now being planted with conifers.

Visited by OS (W D J), 4 May 1964.

(Name: NH 814 967) Mesolithic Flint Implements and Pictish Symbol Stones found (NAT)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1971).

Artifacts from this site which are in Dunrobin Museum comprise:

Accession no - 1870.1: Butt end of a stone axe, donated by Rev G Gordon, Birnie;

1872.1: sherd of neolithic pottery;

1891.1: sherd;

1891.2: piece of slag found near Loch Unes, donated by Dr A Sutherland, Invergordon;

X 10: leaf-shaped arrowheads;

X 11: hollow-based flint arrowheads (probably from Ferry Links);

X 14-19, X 22-3, X 34-5: flints, scrapers, knives, fabricators, rod, blade, flakes, points;

X 20-21: Me type cores of flint;

X 33: four microlithic type blades of flint;

X 73: whetstone;

X 82: sherds;

X 86: chip of stone axe (probably from Langdale);

X 12: fifteen barbed and tanged arrowheads, mainly from Ferry Links.

(Undated) information from TS of Catalogue of Dunrobin Museum, by A S Henshall.

No change to the previous reports.

Visited by OS (N K B), 5 December 1980.

Four Class I symbol stones showing :

Little Ferry Links 1 - part of a rectangle.

Little Ferry Links 2 - horseshoe and rod end.

Little Ferry Links 3 - a triple disc

Little Ferry Links 4 & 4a (two fragments of the same stone) : crescent and V-rod over ? part of a mirror.

A Mack 1997.