tiompan
Stuart Piggot and Derek Simpson did an exemplary excavation in 1965 , influenced by contemporary research on English stone circles they concluded the sequence at the site was a timber setting and shallow ditch was replaced by two successive stone settings. Pottery associations were dated to the Neolithic . A recent paper by Richard Bradley and Alison Sheridan , “Croft Moraig and the Chronology of Stone Circles ” has transformed the earlier thinking. Thanks to the “Dating Cremated Bones Project” from the National Museum of Scotland 26 sherds of the 29 finds are now thought to be of a Late Bronze Age date , Similar sherds have been associated with cremated bone from the stone circles at Kintore and Old Keig and ring cairn at Gownie all giving a date of approx. 2800 BP. The pottery that was previously dated from the Neolithic probably relates to an episode of activity at the site but before any monument building .
The revised structural sequence is now .Phase 1)Outer stone circle Phase 2) Central post circle . Phase 3) Shallow ditched enclosure on site of the earlier post circle. Phase 4) The oval stone setting . All of the above phases have parallels elsewhere e.g. timber settings inside existing stone circles are found at Stannon Down Cornwall , Ogden Down Dorset and Strichen RSC . One of the implications of these findings is that we may have to rethink the Burl suggestion that the last stone circles were built around 1500 BC and abandoned by 1200 BC .
Snow and thick frost are not the best conditions for looking for new rock art ,so I was pleased to come across this rock , 8 m from one of those victorian obelisks set atop the only outcrop in the area . I’m confident that the rock was removed in the construction of the platform for the monument.
The rock with multiple cups is 120 m North of the other carvings , it is composd of very soft sandstone and many of the cups are probably natural.
In 1909 Fred Coles mentions two stone circles and two standing stones on Broad Moss . Subsequent visits by the OS and RCAHMS failed to follow up “local information ” that the stones had been dumped “in a den to the N.”
About five years ago I noticed the stones and this is the first visit since . Fortunately Coles had left measurements and drawings of the stones so comparison was easy . The two standing stones are obviously the same . As most of the stones of the circles were still in the ground comparing heights is a wee bit more problematic but width and depth and a guess at potential height show very close fits to the other stones. The area is improved pasture and virtually “stone free” so the stones are quite obvious .They lie in a den NO 19627 47671 .A final irony is on the site of one of the circles is a a present day circle ,but only the result of being where a straw feeder had been left and the cattle had wandered round creating the circle.
As well as small family sized stone circle , there is also a cup marked rock on Faire na Paitig . The cups are very shallow and require the best of lighting for a pic , not the iron grey ,below freezing all day , conditions .
Balendune – Barrow & Cupmarks
Another new find from Glen Quaich . This stone has 40 cups and is only 120 metres South of the Amulree to Kenmore road and 380 odd meteres South East of Caisteal Dubh , a homestead .
This stone was found in 1933 . Originally flush with the ground the finder set it upright . The immediate area has many small cairns at least three times the dozen quoted in Canmore.
