Images

Image of Crarae Garden (Chambered Cairn) by Chris

About the longest view of the tomb you can get now.

Image credit: Chris Lodge
Image of Crarae Garden (Chambered Cairn) by Chris

Looking toward the ‘entrance’.

Image credit: Chris Lodge
Image of Crarae Garden (Chambered Cairn) by greywether

General view.

The entrance faces just N of E.

S of the entrance, one stone of the facade remains – 2.6m high and max 1.7m wide.

It is now difficult to distinguish the extent of the cairn amongst the landscape garden features. When excavated in the mid 50s, trenches were dug which suggested it was 34m long and at least 22m wide at the entrance.

Some evidence of activity in the forecourt. A pit containing 2,500 marine shells was found. A further 2,500 were found in the chamber.

Image of Crarae Garden (Chambered Cairn) by greywether

The facade and the entrance.

The drystone walling is a modern reconstruction.

The entrance has a double set of portal stones. The outer pair has one surviving to 2.5m. The inner pair are about the same height as the chamber walls (2m).

Image of Crarae Garden (Chambered Cairn) by greywether

The chamber.

4.2m long, around 1.6m wide and 2m deep.

Divided into three compartments by two septal stones. Human remains found in the central compartment.

Articles

Neolithic Scots prefered steak to seafood

theherald.co.uk/news/archive/13-2-19103-0-27-44.html

John McEarchran – The Herald
PREHISTORIC Scots snubbed the seafood which has since become world famous, it was revealed yesterday in the results of tests on 5500-year-old human bones. Neolithic settlers on the banks of Loch Fyne, Argyll, turned up their noses at the area’s legendary oysters, mussels, herring, and mackerel to dine on sheep, cows, and pigs.

The results have surprised scientists who examined the remains from a National Trust for Scotland archaeological site at Crarae on Loch Fyne which have been in storage for 50 years. Derek Alexander, an NTS archaeologist, said: “It is very exciting. It’s incredible what the re-examination of old excavations can still tell us using modern techniques.”

The bones from the chambered tomb at Crarae Garden were dug up in the early 1950s. New tests can determine different types and levels of carbon and nitrogen in bone, showing whether the long dead human ate meat or fish. Analysis of bone collagen from Crarae has now revealed that prehistoric dinner consisted mainly of beef, mutton, and pork.

Dr Rick Schulting of Queen’s University, Belfast, and Dr Michael Richards, of Bradford University also found that the early inhabitants of Scotland changed from being hunter-gatherers to farmers more rapidly than was previously believed. Dr Schulting said: “The shift from hunting and gathering to farming is one of the most important and interesting periods of prehistory. “New results from sites like Crarae are changing the way we think about this shift.”

Crarae Garden

A pleasant surprise to find this tomb while having a look around the gardens. Manicured yes, but equally in no danger of being ploughed up, or having rubbish dumped in it, so I’ll take what I can get.

It’s not worth paying the entrance fee to see it, and in some respects nor are the gardens given what NTS charge. I’d always advise joining, because no matter what your views on the organisation, you get ‘free’ entry to all the properties, throughout the UK. Nice places for picnics on the way home, and for finding hidden gems like this one.

Crarae Garden

This is a good example of a Clyde chambered cairn.

It is situated in the National Trust for Scotland’s Crarae Gardens which has its good and bad points. On the positive side, it is well cared for even if it is a little over-manicured for my tastes. On the negative side, if you arrive between 10 and 5 from April to October, you may be asked to pay the £5 entrance fee. Outside these times there is an honesty box and the gardens are open dawn to dusk all year round.

Interesting features at this cairn are: the flat facade; the size of the orthostats on the facade; the dry stone walling (reconstructed). More details with the photo captions.

This is a site which many will pass on the road to Kilmartin and it’s well worth stopping to have a look at if your schedule permits.

The gardens are well signposted off the A83, north of Minard.

Visited 24 March 2004

Folklore

Crarae Garden
Chambered Cairn

East of the chambered cairn is a round cairn, known as the Fairy Knowe, due to its one-time? otherworldly inhabitants.

(Grinsell – ‘Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain’)

Link

Crarae Garden
Chambered Cairn
Martin Powell's Prehistoric Sites in Scotland

A picture of the cairn on this site – with the rather strange statement that:
“During excavation in 1963, some 5,000 seashell remains were found in the chamber, representing 15 different species. All had been eaten.”

I’m not sure how you know if a long deposited seashell had been used for food or not. But more interestingly, why were the shells in the cairn chamber? Did the seashells had some other significance than food? or were they for the dead to eat? Or was the chamber just being used as a shell tip (surely not?)

Sites within 20km of Crarae Garden