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Culdoich, Clava

Ring Cairn (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age), Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)

Site Name Culdoich, Clava

Classification Ring Cairn (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age), Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)

Canmore ID 14268

Site Number NH74SE 2

NGR NH 75114 43779

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/14268

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Croy And Dalcross (Inverness)
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Inverness
  • Former County Inverness-shire

Archaeology Notes

NH74SE 2 7511 4378

(NH 7511 4378) Stone Circle (NR)

Standing Stone (NR)

OS 6" map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1906)

Ring-cairn, Culdoich: This cairn the most westerly of the Clava cemetery, lies like them in the flat fields of the valley floor. It has a somewhat irregular kerb, of both split stones and boulders; with a diameter of about 57 feet. It is complete but for minor gaps except on the south side where a small gravel pit has eaten into the side of the cairn. The kerb-stones are 2 feet 9 inches high on the south-west side opposite the monolith, dwindling at about 1 foot high on the other side. The interior circular setting has a diameter of about 22 feet and is of split stones which on excavation were found to stand up to 5 feet high. The cairn material has been removed except for the last foot or so.

A single stone of the surrounding stone circle remains an enormous slab 12 feet high, leaning outwards, set 27 feet from the kerb, on the southwest side. There are two cupmarks on the outer side of the monlith towards its base. One kerb stone on the east-south-east side also bears two cupmarks on its outer surface and another stone, on the west side, may possibly be marked but is too irregular and weathered to be certain (Jolly 1882). In the earliest record of the site (1857) the cairn is reported as "undisturbed" but there was then only one monolith (Innes 1862).

C Innes 1862; W Jolly 1882; J Fraser 1884; S Piggott 1956; S Lisowski 1958; A S Henshall 1963, visited 21 April 1958.

The remains of the cairn are as described above.

Revised at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (W D J) 24 April 1962.

Excavation at the fallen stone by the ring cairn of Cludoich, Clava, Inverness, which lies to the SW of the main group of clava cairns, produced no dating evidence. The orthostat was thought to have been the remnant of a stone circle which encircled the cairn, but a resitivity survey of the area failed to locate any other sockets. Limited excavation under a large slab near the cairn produced ard marks, post-holes and a sherd of pottery under c. 60cm of soil. This implies that a settlement, possibly associated with the cairns, lies protected beneath this layer.

J Barber 1982 (GAJ vol 9)

Sponsor: HS

Air photographs, taken by Jill Harden in 1989, are in Inverness Museum (8907.06-07 INVMG).

Information from J Harden 1989.

Ring Cairn [NAT]

OS (GIS) AIB, May 2007.

Activities

Note (1979)

Culdoich, Ciava (INV 21) NH 751 437 NH74SE 2

A single standing stone survives on the SW of this Clava ring-cairn which measures about 18.3m in diameter over a kerb of graded boulders. Part of the SE side of the cairn has been destroyed by quarrying. There are cup-marks on the standing stone and on a kerbstone on the ESE; what may be cup-marks can be seen on a kerb-stone on the W. Excavation in 1953 revealed cremated bone in the central area.

RCAHMS 1979

(Piggott 1956, 190-2; Henshall 1963-72, i, 371-2)

Excavation (1982)

Excavation at the fallen stone by the ring cairn of Cludoich, Clava, Inverness, which lies to the SW of the main group of clava cairns, produced no dating evidence. The orthostat was thought to have been the remnant of a stone circle which encircled the cairn, but a resitivity survey of the area failed to locate any other sockets. Limited excavation under a large slab near the cairn produced ard marks, post-holes and a sherd of pottery under c. 60cm of soil. This implies that a settlement, possibly associated with the cairns, lies protected beneath this layer.

J Barber 1982 (GAJ vol 9)

Sponsor: HS

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