>> Arty boredom of shepherds?

This can certainly be seen in the Burren, Co Clare, but in a slightly different form. There they stand up slabs of limestone in the cracks in the limestone pavements to form wonderful weather worn sculptures.

Cairns - certainly rough cairns - were built in pairs near the top of a hill where they would appear on the horizon from a stone circle or other ceremonial site below. This is well known and fairly mainstream. The moon at the northernmost setting place could have a pair of cairns to 'frame' the calendrically important place. The moon just gets there once every 18 years eg. These little cairns are very prominent on the horizon, from lower down, but there are sink holes and a fairly new valley where a small stone circle or row might have been.

There's also a very low standing stone about twenty yards away, on the low side of the cairns. (I'd forgotten about that). I only found it this summer. It 'points' at the lower cairn. Practically shepherds are lacking in imagination. They make sheep folds well but would need an active tradition of this-kind-of cairn building to be able to build a pair with such fluidity. The only time such a tradition existed, I would argue, was in the Neolithic/Early Bronze Age. (You could also try and persuade me Iron Age, perhaps contemporary with the Romans, but certainly no later than that). The shape is reminiscent of turned shield bosses, perhaps ?

Rhiannon,
>But for what other reasons have cairns been built? Landmarks to find your way in the snow? Something for sheep to cuddle up to? Arty boredom of shepherds?.....
.....Also, isn't it possible or likely that cairns get robbed for walls then built up again from the fallen down walls that robbed from them etc according to local whim or to further the (to me, mysterious) purposes wot cairns have.<

In high places modern cairns were built as directional markers, e.g. to mark a safe way off a ridge into a valley. They were also built to mark summits. The natural surrounding rocks were used. Unfortunately, on the more popular mountains the masses of brainless peak-baggers have constructed new cairns every few yards or so, thus rendering meaningless the directional cairns, which are now lost amongst hundreds of others.

The ancient cairns were obviously built for different purposes. Some of these have been built on grassy summits, so the rock would have to have been quarried, or carried up from a convenient source. Grassy hills generally don't (or didn't used to) have summit cairns, unless they are ancient. Some of these cairns have been rearranged into shelters from the harsh mountain weather.

Any posts I add to TMA regarding cairns are ones I know to be prehistoric from the various archaeological sources available. There are a few I suspect to be prehistoric, which I have not recorded on TMA, but no archaeological records exist. Therein lies the problem.

The prehistoric cairns I am familiar with in Cumbria tend to have tell-tale signs. The first is that the base is wider than the height. Where these cairns are visited by many walkers and climbers they tend to have stones added to them to increase the height, but the base is still of greater diameter than the height is tall. Also, the base usually has a "footing", i.e. it seems to be buried. The lowest visible stones are usually partially overgrown, with stone below forming a foundation. The rocks are generally weathered, especially those at the bottom.

Ancient cairns have been robbed to build walls, and walls have been robbed to add to modern and ancient cairns, at least in Cumbria.

On the face of it Stonelifter's cairn appears modern, and the stone dressed. However, I am not familiar with the geology of that area. To make a proper judgement you need to know what the natural "boulders" look like. In some areas of Cumbria, particularly in the Skiddaw slate areas of N and NW Cumbria, the natural tendancy is for the rock to fracture and break off in rectangular blocks, usually fairly thin. Other areas of Cumbria have round boulders, whilst others have chunky square-ish blocks.

Stonelifters cairn could be a prehistoric cairn that has been reconstructed recently, or it could be modern. Should it be included on TMA? I think it shouldn't, unless there is "official" archaeological suspicion or evidence.

So, I don't think it,s possible to judge a cairn by its picture.

Regards,
TE.