Crarae Garden, Chambered Cairn
Date December 2007
Event ID 966296
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/966296
The central part of the lower area of the NTS garden at Crarae is dominated by the impressive remains of a Neolithic chambered cairn. The cairn is one of the Clyde type cairns (Henshall 1972, 324-326). Although much denuded the original cairn appears to have been trapezoidal in plan 33m long, around 22m wide at the east end and tapering down to 3.5m wide at the west end. There was an almost flat façade of upright stones with drystone walling between at the west end flanking the entrance into the chamber. The chamber was constructed of three compartments divided by two septal slabs. The chamber and narrow strip in front of the façade were excavated by Jack Scott of Kelvingrove Museum between 1953 and 1955. The work was recorded in great detail especially the interior of the chambers which prior to excavation still retained 1.2m deep of in fill. The position of all the finds and bones were recorded in three dimensions (Scott 1963). Human remains from at least three individuals were identified. Burnt bones from the central and inner chamber were from an adolescent or young adult aged 14-20 years old and a 25-35 year old adult. The third individual was represented by unburnt bones and appeared to be a small adult were also found. Artefactual remains included a flint lozenge-shaped arrowhead, sherds of pottery and 2 fragments of later rotary querns. A large pit in front of the façade and another in the interior of the inner chamber were each found to contain 2500 marine shells.
More recently the samples of bone excavated in the 1950s and kept in Kelvingrove Museum have been analysed as part of a study into diet during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition (Schulting & Richards 2000 & 2002). This work obtained two radiocarbon dates. The first was from a human bone phalanx from within the chamber and gave a date of 4735±40 bp (OxA-7662) giving a calibrated range of 3640-3380 BC. The second sample came from a cockle shell from within the pit in the end chamber and gave a date of 5545±35 bp (OxA-7880) giving a calibrated range of 4240-3780 BC. Stable isotope analyses of the human bone also indicated that the diet of those buried in the cairn was based mainly on terrestrial animals such as sheep, cattle and pig rather than on marine resources. This was despite living on the banks of Loch Fyne and also despite the presence of the two deposits of sea-shells.
(CRA07 001)
Information from NTS (SCS) November 2013
