Aberdour

NT18NE 15 c. 19 85.

Cairn (site), near Aberdour: The Statistical Account (OSA 1792) records: 'Not far from the village of Aberdour, on a flat on the top of a hill, there is one of those cairns or tumuli so frequently met with in Scotland. The farmer on whose farm it is situated, when carrying away stones some years ago, discovered a stone coffin in which were found the skeleton of a man, the head of a spear made of copper, with the copper nails by which it had been fixed to the shaft, and a piece of clear substance, like amber, supposed to have been an amulet. The coffin, with a great part of the cairn still remain. The tumulus has been conical, the coffin being exactly in the centre of the base, from which to the circumference, it measures 20 paces. The height cannot now be ascertained. There have been found in the same cairn several earthen vessels containing human bones. The vessels were flat, narrower at the bottom than top, and without any covering. The farmer digging in the same field, in another place, found such a quantity of human bones that he was obliged to desist.'

OSA 1792; RCAHMS 1933

Henshall and Coles list the 'spearhead' noted by the RCAHMS as an Early Bronze Age dagger. Inquiries in 1854 failed to locate the exact site of this cairn.

Name Book 1854; A S Henshall and J Wallace 1965; J M Coles 1971.