|
Chambered Cairn (Destroyed)
|
|
|
At the end of the channel instead of crossing over to Eves Howe turned right and onto the beach. Owing to erosion there isn't enough cliff outside the fields to walk on at all, the fences and their 'standing stones' ready to topple over. A slab fence with barbed wire goes down to the low tide mark and I managed to clamber over a gap and continue on to where the headland is sufficient to climb onto. The mound with its various peaks runs from the field boundary to the very point, completely covered in grass. So I don't know whether the depressions at the seaward end are from excavation or robbing foundations. On the one hand at the cliiftop the smaller of the two looks more than 2m less, on the other I did see one white earth fast stone in the centre of the larger. I suppose whoever removed the structures could have dug unrecorded into archaeology below. And of course the Long Cairn on the Head of Work does have a later oval cairn inserted in one end which could parallel the sub-circular chamber excavated here. The two (post-mediaeval) boat nausts now look more alongside than into the mound.
In the nearer I could see the walls lining the long sides. The report describes it as walled on three sides with slabs along the bottom. It provided the only dating evidence for the mound, a single Grooved Ware sherd, and the excavator thought the noust built from mound material. Seems strange the sherd came too. So could the material be in situ, part or all of summat previously here? Certainly the fact that stones were found protruding about these two could relate to barrows being built over the sites of previous activity - pity Heritage Scotland hasn't AFAIK communicated the results of this headland's geophysics to RCAHMS, only that they exist.
|
Posted by wideford
15th September 2006ce
Edited 19th June 2007ce
|
|
Log in |
Register
Top of page