Publication Account

Date 2011

Event ID 886948

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/886948

RCAHMS, The Recumbent Stone Circles of Scotland

In 1995 this ring-cairn and its surrounding stone circle were fully excavated by Thomas Rees (1997) and reconstructed on a new site adjacent to the access road from the adjacent field it remained in this state until the excavation in 1995 (Henshall 1963, 400; RCAHMS 1984, 8, no. 12; Rees 1997, 255–9, 264). As disinterred, the ring-cairn measured at least 7m in diameter over a near-continuous outer kerb; for the most part this kerb was made up of thin slabs up to 0.7m high, but around the south-west it was formed of more rounded thicker boulders, and one slab on the south was 1.8m long. The internal court measured 4.2m across and the slabs of its kerb formerly stood about 1m high. Outside the outer kerb a platform of cairn material extended out to a line of larger stones following the circumference of the surrounding circle, which measured about 9m in overall diameter. To all intents and purposes, the final form of this ring-cairn and its stone circle is fairly typical of other examples contained within this volume. The excavation, however, revealed a complex sequence of activity, beginning in the Neolithic with six shallow pits set out in a semicircle some 14m in diameter. Two of these contained Neolithic pottery, and charcoal from another returned a radiocarbon date of 4680 ± 80 BP (GU–4402: 3650–3190 cal BC). The next secure context was some 1600 radiocarbon years later, comprising an area of intense burning that was interpreted as the remains of a funeral pyre and dated to 3070 ± 60 BP (GU–4399: 1515–1180 cal BC). The excavator suggested that the otherwise undated stone circle also originated in the middle Neolithic to account for the concentric position of the earlier pits in relationship to the eventual position of the ring-cairn. Be that as it may, the use of the site as a pyre heralded a series of events that are evidently closely related in time and space. The first of these was the construction of a small penannular enclosure 5.7m in overall diameter, formed of timbers set in a continuous bedding trench and terminating in two large post holes flanking the entrance on the south; a radiocarbon date of 3020 ± 70 BP (GU–4400: 1435–1035 cal BC) was returned from charcoal at the bottom of one of the terminal post-holes. Four pits set in a shallow arc outside the entrance were also sealed beneath the ring-cairn and probably belong to this phase. All contained fragments of burnt bones, though in only one could it be identified as human; in another the bones probably belonged to a large mammal, and charcoal from this pit was dated to 2970 ± 50 BP (GU–4401: 1395–1050 cal BC). On the basis of radiocarbon dates of 3020 ± 50 BP (GU–4396: 1420–1135 cal BC) and 2970 ± 50 BP (GU– 4398: 1395–1050 cal BC), the excavator also attributed the five cremation pits that were first discovered within the interior in 1858 by Thomson to this phase. While this may be the case, there is no reason stratigraphically why they should not have been deposited in the court of the ring-cairn, which references several components of the timber enclosure so closely that they are unlikely to be of substantially different dates. The inner kerb, for example, roughly followed the line of the timber wall, while the long slab in the outer kerb lay across its entrance and the kerbstones on either side were the only two in the entire circuit that were set in sockets cut into the subsoil. A radiocarbon date of 3100 ± 50 BP (GU–4396: 1515–1270 cal BC) was obtained from a buried soil containing pottery beneath the ring-cairn. The rubble platform outside the ring-cairn was clearly an addition extending out from the foot of the outer kerb to embrace the orthostats of the surrounding circle. Despite the excavators’ hypothesis that the latter was erected in the Neolithic, the registration of the stone and timber components to one another suggests that they are all very closely related, and probably constructed over a relatively short period of time. As Cairnwell was clearly a ring-cairn standing within a stone circle, Audrey Henshall included it with the two on nearby Campstone Hill, Raedykes, in her survey of the Clava group of passage graves and ring-cairns, and it has since appeared with that designation in Burl’s gazetteer and guidebooks (Burl 1976a, 360, Knc 3; 1995, 137; 2005a, 137). As long ago as 1972, however, James Kenworthy argued that the ring-cairns in the North-east had their own identity (1973), and Barnatt has since suggested that these three share more features in common with recumbent stone circles than with Clava cairns; in his view they are extreme recumbent stone circles, albeit that they have dispensed with the recumbent setting (1989, 96–8, 275, no. 6:21). In the light of the excavation, Burl has now listed Cairnwell as a possible recumbent stone circle (2000, 429, Knc 4). There can be no doubting the connections between the architectural features of Cairnwell and these monuments, from the use of the larger boulders in the outer kerb on the south-west through to the encircling platform. It is equally detectable in the symbolism of the long slab on the south laid across the entrance to the earlier enclosure, probably between two of the larger outer kerbstones. That said, there is no link forged between this blocked doorway and the surrounding circle in the way that is typically found in recumbent stone circles; if anything, it lies asymmetrically to the closest orthostats of the circle. In effect, there is no unison in the design that focuses from the circle to this slab in the way that is routinely presented by the monuments included in this Gazetteer as recumbent stone circles.