Balnabraid

A further excavation of the cairn was carried out by J N G Ritchie of RCAHMS in April 1966.

J N G Ritchie 1967

Balnabraid Cairn.

This cairn is situated about 90 m from the shore of the Firth of Clyde, and at a height of 10 m O.D., on a raised-beach platform which forms the left bank of the Balnabraid Water. It was first noticed in 1910 when erosion of the bank by the stream revealed a Cinerary Urn in an exposed face of the cairn material. Excavations were undertaken in 1910, 1913 and 1966, and the following description and the plan (Fig. 20) are based on the published reports (1).

At the present time the cairn measures about 14.5 m by 7.5 m, but the SW. part has been destroyed. Composed entirely of stone, it stood to a height of 3 m before excavation, and exhibited a kerb of large boulders on the NW. and SE., of which only a few indications are now visible. In the past the monument has often been referred to as a chambered cairn, but in a recent reassessment of the evidence it has been suggested that the setting of stones that runs W. from cist 3 is not in fact part of a chambered tomb, although its purpose remains unexplained. Eleven cists were discovered during the investigation. A tentative chronology of the burial sequence on the site is suggested below, but it must be stressed that this can no longer be proved stratigraphically.

The earliest burials on the site are probably represented by cists 6 and 4. The former contained an inhumation burial accompanied by a Beaker, two jet disc-beads and a flint knife, while the latter, which was slightly later in date, held a cremation burial with a Food Vessel. As both these cists are dug into the gravel subsoil they could antedate the construction of the cairn, at least in its present form. Cist 8 is presumably contemporary with cist 6, whose N. end-slab it shares. But it was already disturbed when the site was excavated in 1913 and its place in the sequence is uncertain.

Built at ground level under the cairn, cists 2, 3 and 7 seem to form the next group. Cist 2, the most central to the cairn, contained a cremation burial but no other finds can be attributed to this phase.

Situated outside the kerb on the SE. and NW. respectively, cists 9 and 12 each contained a burial accompanied by a Food Vessel; cist 12 also yielded a red sandstone rubber. Cist 9 is particularly interesting as it had been used on two separate occasions; the lower deposit was a cremation with which there was a flint flake, and, above a thin layer of clay, there was a crouched inhumation accompanied by a Food Vessel and two flint flakes.

The Cinerary Urn burials seem to form the latest Bronze Age deposits on the site. Against the kerb of the cairn, a cremation burial (5) with which a bone toggle, a number of tiny bronze fragments and a flint flake were associated, was covered by an inverted Cinerary Urn. The urn was protected by a setting of boulders but the slab-cist at present visible at this point does not correspond with the published description of the setting and it was probably built at the time of the 1913 excavation. Fragments of another Cinerary Urn were found near cists 10 and 11.

Finally several uncisted inhumations were inserted into the cairn material, and it is possible that these are of Early Iron Age date. The skeletal remains represent at least four adults and three children.

Cist 1, which contained a cremation burial and a number of quartz pebbles, and cist 10, in which a cremation was accompanied by a flint flake, cannot be assigned to any specific phase.

The Beaker probably belongs to the 17th century B.C., and the Cinerary Urn burial of cist 5 may belong to the 15th century B.C., or rather later. A bronze razor of a type now thought to date between 1400 and 1000 B.C. (2) was found on the site in 1966.

RCAHMS 1971, visited April 1966.

768 154 cclxiii

(1) PSAS, xlv (1910-11), 434 ff.; ibid., liv (1919-20), 172 ff.; TDGAS, xliv (1967),81 ff.

(2) PSAS, xcvii (1963-4), 120