Excavation

Date April 1985 - June 1985

Event ID 991465

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/991465

Excavations at two of the stone circles on Machrie Moor, both approximately 13m In diameter, continued work begun by Aubrey Burl in 1978 and 1979 (not previously reported in Discovery Excav Scot).

Site I, also dug into by James Bryce 1n 1861, consisted of eleven stones, alternately granite boulders and small sandstone slabs, surviving from a probable original' total of twelve. Of the six granite boulders, only one still stood erect; the others either leaned or had fallen over.

Site I had a complex stratigraphy duplicated in part by Site XI. At Site I after the stone circle had fallen into disuse and before peat covered the area, the ground was used as farm land evidenced by field clearance stone heaped against a fallen granite boulder and very slight remnants of field walls. At some time during the use of the stone circle, cremated bone was inserted at the base of one of the orthostats and the cremated remains apparently of a male aged 25-30 were placed In an off-centre pit, with a bone needle and burnt flint knife and covered by an inverted Cordoned Urn.

An approximate circle of stakeholes was found to surround the stones and may have preceded them but the relationship was tenuous. More definite was the fact that prior to the erection of the stone circle, a timber monument had stood in the same place. Postholes for its uprights were located beneath the stoneholes, where investigated, and one produced a Grooved Ware rim sherd.

Before this two intersecting lines of small stakes, not necessarily contemporary, had spanned the site and may indicate the use of hurdle fences for land division. Both of these stake lines cut a dense series of ardmarks generally aligned NE SW but with occasional more widely spaced ardmarks at right angles to them. Further stake lines were located under this horizon.

In the centre of the site two phases of pits had been dug, some of which were stone filled. They formed an approximate circle of 6m diameter. Investigation of these will continue in 1986.

Site XI (continuing Burl's numbering) largely hidden under the peat until 1978, comprised ten stones, all but one of sandstone, and was complete although one stone had fallen since Burl's excavation.

At Site XI there was no evidence for field clearance after the abandonment of the circle. No sequence of timber phase to stone phase for the monument could be proved, as the ten postholes were spaced between the standing stones with no direct stratigraphical relationship.

During the use of the circle an approximately central pit was dug which contained the cremated remains apparently of a male aged about 30 and a flint core.

Similar pre-circle land division and agricultural phases to those of Site

I were noted, as were various earlier pits which were not fully investigated.

Many finds of pitchstone, flint and pottery came from both sites.

A Haggarty

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