Trial Trench

Date 1969

Event ID 933928

Category Recording

Type Trial Trench

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/933928

Usinish Bay. NF 854334.

Probable round cairn, some 10 m. in diameter.

Only the tops of several large stones, possibly part of a chamber, are visible above the peat which in this area is at least 2 m. deep, but the edge of the cairn has been approximately planned by a resistivity survey. A small trial trench in the centre revealed on the top of the cairn a stone setting enclosing a burnt area about 2 m. by 1 m. containing ash, charcoal, a few scraps of burnt bone, and many fragments of a large pot. Some of the sherds have an applied band forming a semicircle, similar to a sherd from the Early Iron Age site at Balevullin, Tiree. Another trial pit at the edge of the cairn showed that the lowest stones of the cairn rest on clay overlying raised beach material.

Schools Hebridean Society, per Geoffrey David, Doll, Kinloch Rannoch.