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Cairn(s)
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Went to Mine Howe for the open day and was delighted to hear they were also excavating a Bronze Age cist on Long Howe. Though the general area has possibly suffered damage from livestock it is a little beauty, 50x20 by 50cm deep, atop the barrow at the end nearest Round Howe. I imagine this to be the known cist mentioned in the NMRS.
There is a small area excavated around it and a bigger area downslope, mostly to the left of the cist, in which are exposed several (what for the moment I'd call) flags contiguous in a circular manner. The young lady said they found flint chippings on the cover slab and on the inside, but nowhere else in the vicinity. No human remains have been found as yet, though as the bottom is a bit smashed up they believe these could be in a pit further down still.
What marks the cist out as unusual is that there is no back slab. I was minded on the Nev Hill round cairn. However on re-reading Davidson and Henshall I find that there it was the back slab to a chamber which was absent and an arc of drystone walling thereabouts apparently continues as part of a semicircular rear wall.
Most of the exposed stones are unseen from the road as they are at the back, so I was glad of a chance to finally see them. I don't know aboot kerbed but it certainly feels a little 'terraced' and the lines of stonework, if we may deign to call them that, seem to bear this out. The stones become more obvious as you near the Mine Howe end. In 2005 terracing on the geophysics proved to be from medieval farming.
At HY51010599 they are especially big and present a structured appearance. Two stones are one above another at an obtuse angle, though not fully overlapping, and visible of the top one on the left is 1.8x0.9x0.2m and of the lower one 1.5x0.2x0.2m. There is a space of about half a metre beneath them but no void to be seen, only comparatively smaller stones. To the right of this 'overhang' are yet more stones, though I could not tell whether these were in connection with or seperate or perhaps more of that 'terracing'. P.S. 2005; Though Nick Card said these are more likely to do with the boulder clay there are attached to Long Howe stories of subterranean chambers, so we'll probably never know for certain.
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Posted by wideford
22nd August 2004ce
Edited 26th June 2007ce
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