Fall Hill

FALL HILL, CRAWFORD, LANARKSHIRE NS 964 217.

Examination by Mr G. S. Maxwell of a ring-ditched site on the shoulder of Fall Hill revealed the presence of a low cairn about 10 ft in diameter and attaining originally perhaps 2 ft in height within an annular ditch measuring 12 ft in internal diameter; the ditch was on average 16 in deep by 4 ft wide. The cairn had been constructed over a steep-sided subrectangular pit, but both cairn and pit had been extensively disturbed. In the loose, tumbled filling of the pit several fragments of crude pottery, a whetstone and two corroded iron objects were discovered. Evidence indicated that a pyre had been built on the site before the cairn was built or the ditch dug, but after a shallow grave had been hollowed out on the very margin of the excavated area. Publication will be in Volume I of the Lanarkshire Inventory.

Information from RCAHMS (DES 1967, 58-9)

NS 961 218. Cairn, Fall Hill: this cairn, which is situated on the SW shoulder of Fall Hill (280m OD) about 640m NE of Midlock farmhouse, was excavated by one of the Commission’s officers in 1967, and the following account is a summary of the published report (Maxwell 1974). Before excavation, the monument appeared as a roughly circular grass-covered stony mound, measuring 3.8m in diameter and only 0.2m in height, within a shallow ditch 1.2m in average width.

Investigation showed that the cairn, which consisted of boulders carefully packed together without earth, in fact measured only 3.0m in diameter and was separated from the inner edge of the ditch by a berm approximately 0.3m wide; it had covered a sub-rectangular burial-pit with vertical sides measuring 1.37m by 1.06m across its axes and 0.89m deep. Within the area enclosed by the ditch the old ground-surface, both beneath the surviving cairn material and on the narrow berm, was covered to a depth of 30mm with a layer of dark brown soil containing a considerable admixture of wood-ash and charcoal; similar material was found in pockets on the bottom of the central pit. Also, a shallow grave-like hollow, 1.83m long by 0.76m wide, which had been slightly cut into by the outer scarp of the ditch on the N arc, had been sealed by a band of brown charcoal-flecked soil, although the lower part of its filling consisted of loosely-packed stones and clean soil.

Unfortunately, the centre of the cairn had been seriously disturbed, presumably by treasure-seekers, who had driven a shaft down to the bottom of the burial-pit and rifled its contents. The loose fill of this intrusion yielded a minute fragment of calcined bone, eight very small sherds of coarse pottery (none of them certainly identifiable) and two extremely corroded iron objects. A small struck flake of chert and part of a whetstone were discovered in topsoil over the N perimeter of the cairn, the latter, like the fragments of iron, probably dating to the time of the disturbance.

The sequence of events revealed by the excavation thus appears to parallel that observed at the enclosed cremation cemetery at Weird Law (RCAHMS 1967, No. 109), and may be tentatively summarised as follows. The grave-like depression on the N arc was dug, possibly to receive the corpse, while the funerary preparations were proceeding. A large fire was then kindled to the S of the depression and its ashes subsequently used to seal the already partly-filled hollow, from which the corpse had now, doubtless, been removed, although not necessarily for cremation, for the single flake of burned bone cannot be taken to prove that incineration had taken place; the fire may simply have served a ritual purpose. The central pit was then dug and the remains deposited in it, accompanied by the appropriate grave-goods, which presumably included pottery vessels; the material subsequently used to back-fill the pit naturally contained flecks of ash and charcoal scraped off the old land-surface. A round cairn was constructed over the pit, and an external ditch dug to delimit the burial enclosure, but the loose soil thus produced does not appear to have been used to form a counterscarp bank, and most probably was cast on top of the completed cairn.

The significance of the site is discussed in RCAHMS 1978, p.6.

RCAHMS 1978, visited September 1975

This feature was relocated at NS 96201 21826.

Visited by HES Archaeological Survey (G F Geddes) 22 July 2021.