Achuvoldrach
Shell Midden (Period Unassigned), Unidentified Pottery (Neolithic)-(Bronze Age)
Site Name Achuvoldrach
Classification Shell Midden (Period Unassigned), Unidentified Pottery (Neolithic)-(Bronze Age)
Canmore ID 5327
Site Number NC55NE 21
NGR NC 5695 5868
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/5327
- Council Highland
- Parish Tongue
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Sutherland
- Former County Sutherland
NC55NE 21 5695 5868.
A shell mound on the W shore of the Kyle of Tongue, about 70 yards N of Ferry House, stands on the 25ft raised beach, and is exposed for about 20 yards. Examination indicated that the shells included oyster, mussel, limpet, whelk and cockle; and also produced a 'stone celt', of igneous rock, probably dolerite, incomplete, having been fractured at one end. Near it was a hammer-stone of basalt, 4 1/2ins long and about 2ins across, apparently a water-rounded beach stone. Scattered among the debris were fragments of five pots, closely resembling Neolithic and Bronze Age sepulchral pottery, but there was no indications of a burial. Pieces of long bones, evidently split for marrow, also occured, as did a quartzite flake, numerous burnt stones and a piece of slag.
A Neolithic date is tentatively suggested for the mound. The finds were donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS). Ferry House has not been located, but the W end of the ferry was at NC 5695 5868.
OS 6" map, Sutherlandshire, 1st ed., (1874); J Horne and B N Peach 1898
