Re: David's Cairn | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

David's Cairn

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StoneLifter Sep 30, 2005 12:55:36

Replying to fitzcoraldo

Yes, it does beggar belief that these two cairns could predate this wall - which I would estimate at circa 1875, give or take fifteen years. I have excavated one of these cairns and it does go rather deep into the peat. Quite nearby there is a seam of eroding peat and, within that, a bed of tree fragments (Scots Pine). Many of these bits of Original Forest bear cut marks and, as the depth of this seam and the base of the cairn is at the same depth, I judge them to of a similar date - give or take two hundred and fifty years, say.

Rather than knock these strange cairns I would be grateful if someone could identify other similar ones. It is wrong to entirely dismiss the old drystone walling gangs as savage brutes. Probably you have to be there. From the given map reference find the trackway below - it's called the Warded Way - and use that to get from the built road to the site. It's under the Right To Roam access agreements.

StoneLifter Sep 30, 2005 13:05:22

Replying to StoneLifter

Please give them their correct name ...

I've also considered whether the stones have been worked - I've been active at this site for five years now - and suggest that they have simply been selected, rather than shaped. I built a copy of one of them on another hill, a couple of miles away, and this was the conclusion I came to. A year, or so, later I demolished the modern copy - there's a few photographs somewhere. I have also considered that the curricks were formerly ordered cairns, like these, and the pile of stones left is some kind of folk memory of same. (There's no way to test that theory).

An interesting factor that I discovered this summer is that the flat stones that make up the cairn have peculiar fossils. I've brought a couple of pieces of these rocks back to town and I had two of them in my briefcase - that rainy day near the Haymarket. I'll photograph them over the winter using my Praktica extension tubes, but the fossil shape is pretty exactly also the shape of the cairn ...

fitzcoraldo Sep 30, 2005 13:16:02

Replying to StoneLifter

"Rather than knock these strange cairns"

I ain't knocking your strange and beautiful cairns matey, whatever their age, they are things of beauty. I'm just curious as to how you arrived at your estimation of antiquity
Could it not be possible that the cairn has simply sunk into the peat under it's own weight? Me and physics are relative strangers, but would a couple of tons of cairn with a relatively small base would exert rather a lot of force onto the underlying, and I presume, often waterlogged peat? I left a paving slab on my garden tip a couple of years ago, it's now flush with the compacted soil, all under it's own weight.

What happened to the stone from the wall behind the cairn?

PeterH Oct 3, 2005 12:39:48

Replying to StoneLifter

Probably I should not comment on this at all, but what really does bother me is this line from Stonelifter:
"I have excavated one of these cairns and it does go rather deep into the peat. Quite nearby there is a seam of eroding peat and, within that, a bed of tree fragments (Scots Pine). Many of these bits of Original Forest bear cut marks and, as the depth of this seam and the base of the cairn is at the same depth, I judge them to of a similar date - give or take two hundred and fifty years, say."

Perhaps I have misunderstood, but is Stonelifter a qualified archaeologist? Is he admitting to excavating a site that he believes to be ancient? If that is the case, does TMA condone amateurs scrabbling about beneath "ancient" sites? That would make Mike's crystal burying look pretty harmless in comparison. Why does Stonelifter call himself that? How many stones does he lift and what is the potential/actual damage to the archaeological record?

We do have to push the envelope sometimes if genuine, unknown sites are to be found, properly investigated and acknowledged. Nothing wrong in that, but then we come up aginst the reluctance of archaeologists to take seriously any suggestions from amateurs. That leads to frustration and DIY digging. As regards Davids Cairn - I can only agree with everybody else. Its very well made but only slightly older than Foamhenge!