Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Doonfoot, Dunure Road
Cemetery (Bronze Age), Cist(S) (Bronze Age), Inhumation(S) (Bronze Age)
Site Name Doonfoot, Dunure Road
Classification Cemetery (Bronze Age), Cist(S) (Bronze Age), Inhumation(S) (Bronze Age)
Canmore ID 41589
Site Number NS31NW 10
NGR NS 3233 1884
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/41589
- Council South Ayrshire
- Parish Maybole
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Kyle And Carrick
- Former County Ayrshire
NS31NW 10 3233 1884.
(NS 3233 1884). Three cists were uncovered by workmen in April 1936 excavating prior to the construction of buildings at Longhill Lane, Doonfoot. The site was visited by Davidson, L M Mann, and others on 18th April. One cist had been destroyed by then. It contained the skeleton of a child, which crumbled to dust on exposure to the air. A "small cup" lying nearby was broken and lost. The second cist was found while digging the foundations of a road between two houses, some 10 yards from the edge of the main road (NS 3239 1888). This cist, covered by a massive cap-stone, measured 3 1/2ft x 2ft x 1 1/4ft deep, with a floor of small, egg-sized pebbles. It contained a crouched inhumation, accompanied by an undecorated food vessel, now in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.
The area beneath this cist was excavated, revealing an area of slab paving, 4ft by 2ft running at an angle of 30 degrees to the axis of the cist and 1 1/2ft below it. At its southeast edge lay a broken food vessel and a flint knife.
Adjacent to the top stone of the second cist, at its southwestern corner, was a cist about 13ins square, bounded by three upright stone slabs, the fourth side being formed by the southern end of the main cist. Its depth was about 14ins, and it was floored by a stone slab. It contained a tripartite cordoned cinerary urn, inverted over calcined bones. Fragments of cinerary urns, food vessels and bones were recovered from a cartload of sand removed from the area, and it is suggested that one of these food vessels may have been the "small cup" referred to earlier.
There are some 57 sherds in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, but not all of the finds from this site are now recognisable in that part of Mann's collection which was bequeathed to the Museum, and it would appear that some of the finds, particularly the cordoned cinerary urn and flint knife, must have been lost.
J M Davidson and J G Scott 1967; D D A Simpson 1965; A Morrison 1968;
There has been no recent development in this vicinity.
Visited by OS (JRL) 29 September 1980
Field Visit (July 1985)
Doonfoot, Dunure Road NS 3233 1884 NS31NW 10
In 1936 a small Bronze Age cemetery was discovered in the course of house construction along the NE side of Dunure Road, Doonfoot. The first burial to be discovered, a cist containing 'the skeleton of a child' and a 'small cup', was destroyed shortly after it was opened. A second cist (1.07m by 0.61 m arid 0.38m deep), with a pebble floor, contained
a crouched inhumation accompanied by an undecorated Food Vessel (GAGM); a small cist which had been built against its S end contained a Cinerary Urn (now lost). About 0.46m below the slabs of the larger cist a broken Food Vessel (GAGM) and a polished flint knife (now lost) were discovered on a rectangular patch of paving measuring about
1.22m by 0. 36m. Fragments of bone and a group of sherds probably representing at least four Food Vessels and a Cinerary Urn (GAGM) were also recovered from a cartload of sand on the building site but it unclear from where it came.
RCAHMS 1985, visited (SH) July 1985.
(Simpson 1965, 38, no. 1 O; Davidson 1967; Scott 1967; Morrison 1968, 107, no. 34).
