Archaeology Notes

Event ID 697784

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/697784

NR97SE 2 99708 70570.

NR 997 705. Prior to excavations carried out between 1963 and 1971 by Miss Marshall and Mrs Taylor, the much ruined chambered cairn at Glenvoidean appeared only as a grass-covered platform set on a steep hillside. The cairn measures 42ft N-S, 22ft wide at the N end, where there is a flattish facade, narrowing to 16ft at the S end. The E side and S end of the cairn are relatively well-preserved, edged by a wall-face still several courses high in places; the downhill (S) side is too ruined to trace accurately. The excavations revealed a two compartment axial chamber, behind which was a small, probably medieval, corn-drying kiln. Two lateral chambers, entered from opposite sides of the cairn, were also found. Inserted into the cairn was an unusual Bronze Age cist, divided into two tiers by a large horizontal flagstone. The remains of burials were found in both compartments, the upper burial being contained in an inverted enlarged food vessel. The excavators suggest that originally both lateral chambers had been together under a single round cairn which had only later been joined up with the front chamber to form the present trapezoidal Clyde-type cairn. Patches of burning were seen round the outside of the cairn and under the kerb, which is built in so many different styles as to suggest that it had been built in several different stages. A radiocarbon date of 2910 +/- 115 bc was obtained from a sample of carbon found in a primary position under the W slab of the main axial chamber. The artifacts, including neolithic pottery and flint flakes, found during the excavations, are in Bute Museum.

Current Archaeology 1972; A S Henshall 1972; D N Marshall 1969.