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Pitglassie

Stone Circle

Miscellaneous

In Alistair Moffat's book "Before Scotland" Pitglassie, which means "patch of green" is a place of historical note.

Page 118

",early farmers worked a place called Pitglassie. The name translates as "patch of green land" and might remember a cleared area of woodland. Between 3750 and 3500 BC the farmers lifted the turf, cleared away the stones from a roughly circular area and built a funeral pyre in the middle. They buried the resulting cremations in the same place. This circular area was marked by a ring of 11 or 12 timber posts. A ring cairn was thrown around the site, probably making use of the cleared turf and stones. Pitglassie is significant because it prefigures the wood and stone circles of a later period, and may be the particular forerunner of the recumbent stone circles found in North Eastern Scotland."

On Page 138 he continues concerning remains, bones etc.

"What was done with the majority of the bodies? How were they disposed of? There is no evidence of mass graves, or indeed of anything else, and only speculation is possibe. It may well be that cremation of the sort that went on at Pitglassie provides an answer. Perhaps bones were defleshed and burned to dust, and that dust strewn over the ground that those people had farmed. And when it rained their remains went back into the land. This means of burial is undetectable."
drewbhoy Posted by drewbhoy
6th April 2009ce
Edited 13th July 2009ce

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