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Creag Na Caillich
Ancient Mine / Quarry
Archway – PSAS

From the 2002 Proceedings – a 36 page essay on the axe ‘factory’ at Creag Na Cailleach. The stone is a hornfels – it was created where the schists were metamorphosised by a hot (very hot) igneous intrusion, and created this hard, fine-grained rock. Since the late 1980s various axes found in Scotland and the east side of England have begun to be (re)attributed to this location. The axes were probably ‘roughed out’ on site, and finished elsewhere; the article suggests the source was used over a few centuries, intermittently, and on a small scale – and that the economic and social significance of the mountain can only be guessed at as yet.