Archaeology Notes

Event ID 722563

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/722563

NX16SE 14 1867 6100 to 1867 6099

See also NX16SE 27.

(NX 1867 6100) Chambered Cairn (NR)

(NX 1867 6099) Cairn (NR)

OS 1:10000 map (1978)

A chambered long cairn of the Clyde group which excavation by Corcoran in 1963 to 1966 showed to be of multi-period construction. Immediately to the south are the badly disturbed remains of a probable Bronze Age cairn.

The original structure was a small oval cairn with a rectangular chamber opening from the north. A second cairn also with a rectangular chamber opening from the north was built close to the entrance of the original cairn. A facade of orthostats and dry-stone walling, built to flank the entrance to the northern chamber, appears to have been part of the final stage of construction which also involved the enclosing of the two earlier cairns within a straight-sided cairn and the addition of a chamber opening from the west. Apart from the expected Neolithic finds nine cremations in cinerary urns were found in the body of the cairn. The bronze Age cairn actually lay 13' south of the long cairn though prior to excavation they had appeared to form one unit. It had been circular 30' to 33' in diameter with a capping of small stones covering a basal layer of large boulders In the centre cremated human bone was found perhaps comntained within a cinerary urn. The finds are in Dumfries Museum.

J X W P Corcoran 1969; A S Henshall 1972

NX 1867 6100 A grass-covered long cairn generally as described and measuring 21.0m N-S by 12.0m wide at the N end and 11.0m wide at the S end. Seven metres to the S is the partially grass-covered round cairn 10.2m in diameter and 0.6m high.

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (BS) 6 May 1976.