Limefield

NS 924 315.

Mr MacLaren [RCAHMS] discovered and partly excavated a cairn at Limefield. About one-third of the cairn was exposed, and the finds included beaker, food-vessel and cinerary urn pottery, together with several cremated burials. The excavation will be continued in 1967. Publication will be in Volume I of the Lanarkshire Inventory.

DES 1966, 46

Mr A. McLaren [RCAHMS] completed the excavation of the cairn at Limefield (cf. Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 1966, 46). The cairn measured about 35' in diameter and 2' in greatest height, and its perimeter was defined by an informal kerb of large boulders. A total of thirteen burials were found, eight of them cremations, and the rest probably inhumations. Sherds of eleven different vessels were recovered, mostly in a very fragmentary condition, including at least two Beakers, five Food Vessels and two Cinerary Urns. The primary burial was a cremation accompanied by a Beaker and a V-bored jet button lying on the ground surface at the centre of the cairn. Two of the Food Vessels came from small cists near the perimeter and a second Beaker from one of three stone-lined pit-graves (4' x 2' x 1' 6" deep) situated in this quadrant. A second pit-grave yielded sherds of either a Beaker or a Food Vessel together with a small flint knife and two flint cores, while the third pit-grave was empty. The two Cinerary Urns lay inverted, one near the perimeter and the other just outside it; each contained a cremation and one of them had in addition a small flint knife. The finds will be deposited in the National Museum of Antiquities and publication will be in Volume I of the Lanarkshire Inventory.

DES 1967, 59

Cairns, Limefield.

About 1·5 km SW of Burnhouse of Wiston farmhouse, and 300 m WNW of Limefield cottage, there are two cairns situated on relatively low-lying rough grazing close to an extensive spread of disused limestone-quarries (for (2) see NS93SW 7).

(1) The first cairn was excavated in 1967, and the following account is a summary of the published report.

Roughly circular on plan (RCAHMS 1978 Fig. 19), and measuring 11.0m in mean diameter, the cairn was composed of medium-sized stones of local origin from both igneous and sedimentary formations. It rose to a maximum height of only 0·5 m and there was no indication that it had ever been appreciably higher; the perimeter was defined by a band of boulders disposed at random except for an arc, about 3.0 m in length, on the SW, where there was a short stretch of kerbing. The cairn material was found to be covering or incorporating a variety of burials, numbering at least twelve individuals. Both inhumations and cremations were present, the former in cists and the latter either in Cinerary Urns or unaccompanied, and the grave-goods included Beakers, Food Vessels and Cinerary Urns, together with one jet button and several flint artifacts.

One of the earliest burials, if not the primary one, on the site, had been deposited in a shallow pit (I on Fig.19). Of irregular outline and situated in the centre of the cairn, it was 0·3 m in greatest depth and contained a cremation (I) accompanied by a Beaker and a V-bored jet button. The next interments were probably represented by the three large cists (2, 3 and 4), each of them constructed by sinking a sub-rectangular or oval pit into the sandy subsoil and then lining it with a combination of thin slabs and rounded boulders. These cists were 1'2 m in average length, between 0'5 m and0·8 m in breadth and up to 0'5 m in depth, and in each case the lower half was filled with a loose mixture of sandy soil and smallish stones, while the upper filling consisted of a tightly-packed layer of larger stones. They had not had cover stones like normal slab-built cists. The floors of cists 2 and 4 were crudely paved, but the floor of cist 3 consisted merely of the natural subsoil. No skeletal remains were discovered in these graves, but analysis of soil samples taken from cists 3 and 4 revealed sufficient phosphorus content to indicate that they had almost certainly contained inhumation burials. Cist 2 yielded no grave-goods, but a Beaker, with an unworked flint flake close beside it, was found on the floor of cist 3, and sherds, probably from a Beaker or a Food Vessel, a flint knife and two flint cores came from the lowest filling of cist 4.

The two small cists (5 and 6) were slab-built and situated near the perimeter of the cairn material on the E and W respectively. Cist 5, measuring 0.5 m by 0.4 m internally and 0'3 m in depth, was covered by a single large slab of conglomerate. The upper half of the interior was filled with loose black soil and the lower half with grey-yellow sand, and standing upright on the floor in the NW corner there was a small Food Vessel; there were no other grave-goods. Cist 6 measured 0'7 m by 0'4 m internally and 0'4 m in depth, and had two cover-slabs, one above the other. The upper filling consisted of black soil, which changed to a mixture of sand and gravel near the bottom. Standing inverted on the floor in the SE corner there was a small Food Vessel. As the E side-slab of this cist was found to have dislodged the SW corner of cist 2, there can be little doubt that cist 6, and presumably cist 5 also, were constructed later than cists 2, 3 and 4. The absence of cremated remains from cists 5 and 6 suggests that they probably held inhumations.

The rest of the burials were all cremations. Immediately NW of cist 3 a Cinerary Urn stood inverted on a flat stone within a small cist-like protective structure (7), composed of four upright slabs and a cover slab. The urn, severely damaged but probably of Collared type, contained cremated bones (IV) and a calcined flint knife, Resting on the surface of the natural subsoil just outside the perimeter of the cairn material in the SE quadrant, a Cordoned Urn was found inverted over the cremated remains (V) of an immature female. Close beside the urn, also on the subsoil, lay a small unworked flint flake, Near the centre of the cairn, at the edge of the central pit (I), on the same level as the upper surface of its filling, some 0'3 m above cremation I, there was another cremation (II), which may have been associated with a scatter of Beaker and Food Vessel sherds which, with one exception, were found just outside the perimeter of the pit on the S side. Cremations III and VI-X, all of them unaccompanied, were situated in the N half of the cairn as shown on Fig, 19, Cremations III, VI, VIII and IX rested directly on the surface of the natural subsoil. Cremation VII, however, which lay immediately outside the limit of the cairn material on the NW, was 50 mm above the subsoil and, likewise, cremation X was within the body of the cairn material at a height of 130 mm above the level of the subsoil. In addition to the burials just described, three pottery vessels were discovered in the cairn material, not in association with either burial remains or other relics; these comprised a Food Vessel from the SE quadrant, a Cinerary Urn from the SW quadrant and another Cinerary Urn from the outer edge of the cairn on the NW, not far from cremation VII. Finally, six sherds of pottery, a scraper and three flakes of flint, and a small shale ring were recovered from the layer of turf that covered the cairn.

The sequence of events that brought the cairn to its final form was probably as follows, First, a circular area some 7 m in diameter was enclosed by a low stony bank up to 2'0 m thick. Second, what was probably the primary burial, a cremation (I), was deposited in a shallow pit in the centre of the enclosed area, Next came cists 2, 3 and 4, It may have been at this stage that the central area, which until then had been open, was covered by a layer of stones to the level of the top of the stony bank, to produce the low cairn with the flat-topped profile that it subsequently retained, The order in which the remaining burials took place cannot be established with certainty, but cists 5 and 6, together with cremations II-X, could all have been, and V, VII and X certainly were, deposited after the central area had been filled with stones, The period during which the site was in use as a cemetery lies somewhere within the first half of the second millennium BC, with a central date around 1750 BC most likely.

RCAHMS 1978, visited September 1975

NS 9237 3163. A grass-covered cairn as described by the RCAHMS. It was reinstated after excavation and is well-defined.

Surveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (BS) 27 December 1978.

NS93SW 6 9237 3163.

NS 923 316. A cairn is situated 300m WNW of Limefield cottage, on relatively low-lying rough grazing close to an extensive spread of disused limestone quarries. It was excavated by the RCAHMS in 1967. Roughly circular on plan and measuring 11.0m in mean diameter, the cairn was composed of medium-sized stones, and rose to a maximum height of 0.5m. There was no indication that it had ever been appreciably higher; the perimeter was defined by a band of boulders disposed at random except for an arc, about 3.0m in length, on the SW, where there was a short stretch of kerbing. The cairn material was found to be covering or incorporating a variety of burials, numbering at least twelve individuals. Both inhumations and cremations were present, the former in cists and the latter either in cinerary urns or unaccompanied, and the grave-goods included beakers, food vessels, and cinerary urns, together with one jet button and several flint artifacts. (See RCAHMS 1978 for full description). The material found during the excavation is now in the NMAS.

Information from OS.

(RCAHMS 1978, visited 1975).