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North Uist, Bharpa Carinish
Clearance Cairn (Iron Age), Enclosure (Bronze Age), Hearth(S) (Neolithic), Unidentified Flint (Neolithic), Unidentified Pottery (Neolithic)
Site Name North Uist, Bharpa Carinish
Classification Clearance Cairn (Iron Age), Enclosure (Bronze Age), Hearth(S) (Neolithic), Unidentified Flint (Neolithic), Unidentified Pottery (Neolithic)
Canmore ID 10288
Site Number NF86SW 45
NGR NF 83690 60375
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/10288
- Council Western Isles
- Parish North Uist
- Former Region Western Isles Islands Area
- Former District Western Isles
- Former County Inverness-shire
NF86SW 45 837 604
Piles of stones, exposed in adjacent peat-cuttings last year, were found to form part of a large stone bank lying some 15m distant from the northern edge of Bharpa Carinish chambered cairn and apparently curving around the small hillock on which the latter is sited. The bank lay under 1m of peat and was built over a thin black, humus-rich soil, which may represent the earliest development of peat in the area. This black soil lay over a mineral soil which had developed over a neolithic structure containing a pit, postholes and large quantities of carbonised stems, suggestive of a wattle screen.
B A Crone and C M Mills 1988a; 1988b.
The full extent of the large stone bank, investigated in 1988, was traced under the peat by probing. It formed a large, roughly rectangular enclosure 58m by 37.5m in area, attached to the long cairn, Caravat Barp (NF86SW 14) so that the northern edge of the cairn formed the southern perimeter of the enclosure. Two radiocarbon determinations from the thin black peat on which the enclosure was built have produced dates of 2750 +/- 50 BP (GU-2457) and 3180 +/- 50 BP (GU-2454).
In the excavation area the black peat had developed over three stone-built hearths all built within 6m of each other. Each hearth was surrounded by thin but, extensive deposits of ash and charcoal, but no stratigraphic relationships between the hearths were determined. One of the ash-charcoal spreads has been radiocarbon-dated to 4490 +/- 50 BP (GU-2458). Associated with each hearth, and usually sealed by the ash-charcoal spread, was a shallow-pit and one or two small post-holes. The area in which these hearth complexes were found was delineated to the S by a shallow gulley and to the N by a steep natural scarp.
Sponsor: SDD HBM-AOC.
B A Crone 1989b.
The stones of the field bank recorded during the excavations in 1989 remain visible in the edges of a peat cutting to the N of the E end of the chambered cairn (NF86SW 14). A stretch of the enclosure bank, also investigated in 1989, can be traced as a low heather grown bank emerging from the peat and running up to join the NE end of the cairn.
Visited by RCAHMS (ARG, SPH) 31 August 2009
Field Visit (31 August 2009)
The stones of the field bank recorded during the excavations in 1989 remain visible in the edges of a peat cutting to the N of the E end of the chambered cairn (NF86SW 14). A stretch of the enclosure bank, also investigated in 1989, can be traced as a low heather grown bank emerging from the peat and running up to join the NE end of the cairn.
Visited by RCAHMS (ARG,SPH) 31 August 2009
