Archaeology Notes

Event ID 678541

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/678541

NN85SE 9 8806 5056

(NN 8806 5056) Stone Circle (NR)

OS 6" map (1902)

At NN 8807 5054, nearby, is a cup marked stone bearing 43 cups, and sited approximately 42' SE from the centre of the stone setting. There is, however, nothing to confirm contemporaneity.

F R Coles 1908; J H Dixon 1922.

Four standing stones (7'3", 4'8", 4'10" and 3'9" respectively above turf level) sit on the rim of an artificially flattened gravel knoll, defining an area 17' in diameter; the knoll has been disturbed by recent dumping of material from an artificial water channel on the S side. Excavated by the Breadalbane Arch Soc (c.1964), the knoll was found to incorporate spread cairn material and to be partially surrounded by a ditch; within the enclosed area was a nearly central pit with fragments of burnt bone and wood, and other fragmentary evidences of cremation. Pieces of 'B' beaker and a collared urn (the only datable material) and some small fragments of undecorated pot were found among the cairn material (plan by Stewart also shows five standing stones).

M E C Stewart 1967.

Burl, classifying the "Stone Circle" as a "Four-Poster", built on a mound, gives a sequence of activities starting with the deturfing of the site, the top of the mound being hollowed and a demarcation ditch being dug around it. A pit was then dug in the centre in which cremated bone was deposited and the pit refilled. Finally the four stones were erected around the edge of the hollowed area and the hollow filled with cairn material. A second cremation was found at the foot of the NW stone. Cremated bone was also scattered over the whole of the central area. In the cairn material within and just outside the stone setting were found several sherds of a collared urn and an incomplete cord-ornamented beaker. The presence of the latter (which Clarke states is now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) is so anomalous that its presence might be best explained as having been placed in the earlier cairn long before the erection of the 4-Poster, or it may be the redisposition of a treasured and attractive pot. Burl suggests a date of c.1800 BC for 4-Posters.

D L Clarke 1970; H A W Burl 1971.

A 'four-poster' set on top of a small knoll, which is at least in part artificial. The ditch noted by the excavators is not visible. The cup marked stone to the SE is as illustrated by Dixon and has the appearance of having been cast aside when the distillery dam was constructed.

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (SFS) 12 December 1975.