Hill Of Skares
Barbed And Tanged Arrowhead (Flint), Flake(S) (Flint), Implement(S) (Flint), Leaf Arrowhead(S) (Flint)
Site Name Hill Of Skares
Classification Barbed And Tanged Arrowhead (Flint), Flake(S) (Flint), Implement(S) (Flint), Leaf Arrowhead(S) (Flint)
Canmore ID 18302
Site Number NJ63SW 8
NGR NJ 635 337
NGR Description NJ c. 635 337
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/18302
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Culsalmond
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Gordon
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ63SW 8 c. 635 337
A flint-knapping 'factory', using Buchan flint, was found and thoroughly examined by J G Callander in 1916, some 300 yards to the S of the summit of the Hill of Skares (NJ 635 337) (where a cart track up the hill emerges from the trees and turns W). It was only 9 feet in diameter, and revealed a mere handful of flint chips and three marked flints, including the point of a leaf-shaped arrowhead. Part of a leaf-shaped arrowhead, a barbed and tanged arrowhead and several small flint implements have been found elsewhere on the hill.
(Simpson {1943} states that this site is possibly of Mesolithic period: the finding of the arrowheads suggest Neolithic/Bronze Age use as well).
J G Callander 1917; W D Simpson 1943.
The precise site could not be ascertained, as the cart-track mentioned by Callander (1917) could not be located. However, the remainder of his siting information, suggests it was situated on a shelf extending from NJ 636 337 to NJ 634 337.
Visited by OS (NKB) 1 April 1969.
(Location cited as NJ 636 337 to NJ 634 337. This site could not be located precisely in June 1988. The pronounced shelf that is indicated falls on the boundary between forestry and rough grazing at an altitude of 285m OD.
NMRS, MS/712/62.
(Reclassified as Flint Flakes; Flint Arrowhead: Barbed-and-Tanged; Flint Arrowheads: Leaf-Shaped; Flint Tools). On the date of visit the area in which these flints were found had recently been ploughed and reseeded. No flints were observed in the disturbed soil. Two leaf-shaped flint arrowheads and two flint scrapers from the Hill of Skares are in the collection of Marischal Museum, Aberdeen. They are:
ABDUA: 14621. Leaf-shaped flint arrowhead 31mm in length by 23mm in width and two flint scrapers
ABDUA: 17262. Leaf-shaped flint arrowhead, bifacially worked.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS), 14 June 1996.