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Rousay, Knowe Of Yarso
Animal Burial(S) (Neolithic), Chambered Cairn (Neolithic), Inhumation(S) (Neolithic), Arrowhead (Flint)(Neolithic) - (Early Bronze Age), Beaker (Pottery)(Bronze Age), Food Vessel (Pottery)(Bronze Age), Scraper (Tool)(S) (Flint)(Neolithic)
Site Name Rousay, Knowe Of Yarso
Classification Animal Burial(S) (Neolithic), Chambered Cairn (Neolithic), Inhumation(S) (Neolithic), Arrowhead (Flint)(Neolithic) - (Early Bronze Age), Beaker (Pottery)(Bronze Age), Food Vessel (Pottery)(Bronze Age), Scraper (Tool)(S) (Flint)(Neolithic)
Canmore ID 2623
Site Number HY42NW 1
NGR HY 4048 2795
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/2623
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish Rousay And Egilsay
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY42NW 1 4048 2795.
(HY 4046 2795) Brough (NR) (Site of)
"Knowe of Yarso", an Orkney-Cromarty stalled cairn situated on the very edge of a 50yd wide shelf which drops in a cliff to the terrace below. Before excavtions, in 1934, it was a low grass-grown mound from which some slabs protruded.
The cairn is more or less rectangular in plan, with rounded corners, the major axis lying NW by W and SE by E and measures 50' by 25' 6" with a maximum height of 6'. There is an outer and inner wall face encircling the cairn, the inner 2' 4" behind the outer. The roughly paved passage, 13' 2" long, enters the chamber from the SE. The chamber, 24' 1" long and 5' 5" to 6' wide, is divided into three compartments by upright transverse slabs. The cairn contained the bones of at least twenty-nine individuals as well as those of at least thirty-six reindeer, sheep and a dog. Finds included fragments of food-vessel and beaker pottery, four arrowheads and more than sixty other flint implements and five bone tools, which were donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) in 1934 by Walter A Grant.
A S Henshall 1963; J G Callander and W G Grant 1935; RCAHMS 1946.
'Knowe of Yarso' as described and planned by Henshall and now restored and preserved by DOE.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS(ISS) 9 October 1972.
Field Visit (1941)
Visited by Childe in 1941.
V G Childe 1942
Note (1982)
Yarso (ORK 32) HY 4046 2795 HY42NW 1
Stalled cairn in SOD guardianship. Finds in NMAS.
RCAHMS 1982
(Callander and Grant 1935; Wilson Portfolio f. 1; RCAMS 1946, ii, pp. 213-14, No. 575; Henshall 1963, 215-18; Ritchie and Ritchie 1978, 23-4; Switsur and Harkness in Renfrew 1979, 72 and 206; OR 559)
Publication Account (1996)
The builders of this tomb chose a terrace on a steep hillside with a superb view over Eynhallow Sound, regardless of the effort involved in carrying up the slabs used in its construction. It has a stalled chamber set within a sub-rectangular cairn, and a decorative effect was achieved in the outer wall-face by setting the slabs at an angle. The chamber is protected by a modern roof, and its walls are well preserved to a height of about 1.8m (see p41); it is divided into three compartments, the end one double-sized but nonetheless marked off into two areas by low upright slabs. Parts of twenty-nine individuals were found in the chamber, mostly in the innermost compartment, the skulls carefully arranged against the wall, and amongst the animal bones were remains of some thirty-six deer. There was also an unusually large number of flint tools, especially scrapers, which may perhaps be connected symbolically with the deer in the sense of being tools suitable for the preparation of animal skins for clothing and other articles.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Orkney’, (1996).
Note (2020)
Knowe of Yarso
This burial site in Orkney Islands was a focus for funerary practices in the Neolithic period, between 3650 BC and 2540 BC.
Prehistoric Grave Goods project site ID: 60076
CANMORE ID: 2623
Total no. graves with grave goods: 3
Total no. people with grave goods: 5
Total no. grave goods: 20
Prehistoric Grave Goods project Grave ID: 74016
Grave type: Chamber
Burial type(s): Inhumation, Inhumation
Grave good: Core; Materials used: Chert / Flint [Flint]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Knife; Materials used: Chert / Flint [Flint]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Animal Joint/Part; Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Animal Joint/Part; Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Antler], Coral/Shell [Shell]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Prehistoric Grave Goods project Grave ID: 74017
Grave type: Chamber
Burial type(s): Inhumation
Grave good: Scraper; Materials used: Chert / Flint [Flint]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Scraper; Materials used: Chert / Flint [Flint]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Scraper; Materials used: Chert / Flint [Flint]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Scraper; Materials used: Chert / Flint [Flint]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Scraper; Materials used: Chert / Flint [Flint]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Scraper; Materials used: Chert / Flint [Flint]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Animal Joint/Part (Unknown/Unspecified); Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Animal Joint/Part (Unknown/Unspecified); Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Prehistoric Grave Goods project Grave ID: 74018
Grave type: Chamber
Burial type(s): Inhumation, Inhumation
Grave good: Point (Unknown/Unspecified); Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]
Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Point (Unknown/Unspecified); Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]
Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Point (Unknown/Unspecified); Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]
Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Animal Bone (Other); Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]
Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Animal Bone (Other); Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]
Current museum location: Unknown
Grave good: Assemblage; Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]; Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Grave good: Shell; Materials used: Coral/Shell [Shell]; Current museum location: Unknown
Grave good: Animal Bone (Other); Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]; Current museum location: Unknown
Further details, the full project database and downloads of project publications can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5284/1052206
An accessible visualisation of the database can be found here: http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grave-goods/map/
Orkney Smr Note
Artefacts: RMS EO 393-484
Human rems: 1 skull in RMS, ref L 1945 7, 4 in Anatomy Dept,
University of Aberdeen
Animal rems: RMS
C14 date of 2275 +- 60 BC (calibrated to 2940 +- 110 BC) from red deer bone. [R5]
Information from Orkney SMR [n.d.]
