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Archaeology Notes

Event ID 705191

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/705191

NS66SE 2 6695 6280.

(NS 6695 6280) Bronze Age Burial Ground (NR)

OS 6" map, (1967)

Burials and Cists, Greenoakhill, Mount Vernon (Sites): In 1928, during the working of a sand-pit at Greenoakhill, several cists were discovered on the summit of a ridge (40.6m OD) about 100m SW of Boghall (Information from the Glasgow Herald, 13-14, 16-20 April 1928).

Although it was suggested at the time that there was a covering cairn, photographs of the site preserved in the National Monuments Record of Scotland do not confirm this, and it seems more likely that the site was a flat cemetery. Four cists (nos 2, 4, 6 and 7) were subsequently reconstructed in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum where all the finds from the site have been deposited.

(1) The existence of the burials was first indicated by the discovery of three pottery vessels, but only one of these, a Food Vessel, survives. It is said to have been found in a cist, but the associations of the other vessels are not known, although no doubt they originally accompanied burials.

(2) A disturbed cist, aligned NE and SW and measuring 1.0m by 0.7m and 0.5m in depth, contained the crouched inhumation of an elderly man; in the reconstruction the burial is accompanied by a hollow- based flint arrowhead, although there is no mention of this object in the original newspaper account.

(3) Some 4.6m to the N of (2), a smaller cist containing a Food Vessel was discovered, but neither the dimensions of the cist nor details of the burial appear to have been recorded.

(4) A further cist was found about 3.0m to the N of (2) at a depth of about 1.5m below the turf; aligned NE and SW, it measured 1.0m by 0.5m and 0.3m in depth, and was filled with sand and layers of charcoal. It contained the fragmentary remains of an inhumation accompanied by a Food Vessel.

(5) At a distance of 15m SE of (2), a skeleton was discovered at a depth of about 1.5m from the surface in what may have been the remains of a wooden coffin.

(6) A cist aligned NE and SW, and measuring 1.0m by 0.6m and 0.4m in depth, was found about 2.5m of (2). Covered by a substantial slab, it contained the crouched inhumation of a young woman lying on her right side, together with a Food Vessel, a flint knife and a white pebble. Traces of oats and rye were identified in a deposit found inside the Food Vessel.

(7) The final cist of this group was found about 1.5m to the SW of (6). Aligned E and W, and measuring 0.7m by 0.3m and 0.3m in depth, it was covered by a capstone measuring 1.2m long and 0.9m broad. It held the crouched inhumation of an adolescent lying on its left side facing S, accompanied by a Food Vessel; the remains of what has been described as a 'hair-moss garment' (c) covered the body.

(8) A deposit of cremated bone and a flint knife were recovered after riddling soil from an area in the centre of the sand-pit. The association of another Food Vessel from Greenoakhill, also preserved in the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, is uncertain.

(9) On the date of visit the manager of the sand-pit recalled that a skeleton had been discovered during digging operations about 1953, but no further details of this find are known.

L M Mann 1928; H E Kilbride-Jones and M E C Mitchell 1933; A S Henshall 1950; RCAHMS 1978, visited 1972.

The site of the burials (centred NS 6695 6280) was plotted from records held in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.

Visited by OS (J L D) 24 August 1953.

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