Lewis, Barvas Sands

NB35SW 4 348 518.

'Small scale excavations were carried out following the discovery by Mr P McFarlane of an eroding burial in a sizeable deflation area towards the N edge of Barvas Sands. The very tightly crouched, unaccompanied inhumation of a female lay in the remains of a shallow oval grave. The grave had been scooped into windblown sand and midden deposits, the latter apparently lying to one end of, and probably associated with an eroding structure only a few metres from the site of the burial. Finds recovered from the exposed surface of the midden include fragment of Beaker, undecorated coarse pottery and a small lithic assemblage'.

T G Cowie, M Ponting and P McFarlane 1986.

Further excavation revealed the remains of an eroded structure, with evidence of several phases of occupation and rebuilding, associated with midden deposits producing domestic Beaker pottery, worked quartz and bone. Following erosion of both the structure and the middens in antiquity, the site had apparently been used as a burial ground. Three unaccompanied crouched inhumations were discovered, one, like that excavated in 1986, had been placed in a pit scooped into the windblown sand and eroded midden surface, one lay in a very shallow scoop on the line of the wall of the earlier domestic structure, and the third had been deposited, apparently in a decomposed condition, within that structure.

T G Cowie 1987.