argyll-1971/01-051

Transcription

INTRODUCTION: THE BRONZE AGE

3. THE BRONZE AGE (c. 2000 - 500 B.C.)
Early in the second millennium B.C. the practice of collective burial in chambered tombs was progressively replaced by the ritual of individual burial in a cist or grave, sometimes under a round cairn or barrow. The introduction of this change in burial practice is associated with the arrival of immigrant colonists from the Low Countries and the Rhineland, who brought with them distinctive types of pottery vessels, termed Beakers. Among the earliest Scottish Beakers are those which are decorated over the whole of the outer surface with horizontal cord impressions; although not represented so far in Kintyre, vessels of this type have been discovered in the west of Scotland in sand-dune areas such as Sanna Bay (Ardnamurchan)1, and Luce Sands (Wigtonshire)2. Sherds of similar Beakers, and of others somewhat later in style, have been found in chambered tombs such as Nether Largie (Mid Argyll)3 and Cairnholy I and II (Kirkcudbrightshire)4; and in some cases they accompanied secondary burials, and this suggests that the adoption of the single-grave burial ritual may have been a gradual process. Nor is there initially any marked change in the agricultural and stone-using economies of the majority of the population, for although metal objects occur in association with Beaker burials in a very few instances, including two in Mull5, it was not until later in the second millennium B.C. that copper and bronze technology developed substantially. Only two Beakers are known in Kintyre, one (Pl. 4A) from gravel-pit at Campbeltown (No. 62,3), and the other from the Balnabraid Cairn (No. 14), where it accompanied what appears to have been the earliest burial deposit at that site.
As in the case of the Neolithic period, our knowledge of the Bronze Age in Kintyre is derived from funerary and ritual monuments or from stray finds. Forty-seven round cairns and one barrow (Fig. 1) are recorded in this volume. They range from about 4.5m to 30m in diameter and, apart from the burial cists which they are known to contain in more than a dozen instances, the only other structural features that have been observed are a kerb of boulders (eight examples) and, more rarely, a surrounding ditch and bank (two examples). As regards their siting, two-thirds of the cairns lie on low ground within one kilometre of the coast, and of the remainder only a very few stand in prominent positions on hill-tops or ridges. Being thus in many cases readily accessible, they have in general suffered severely from stone-robbing and other disturbance, eight of them being now completely destroyed. The majority of the cairns are built exclusively of stones, but eight of them can be seen to incorporate a mixture of stones, earth or turf. In two instances (Nos. 31 and 42) it is known that the body of the cairn consisted of at least two elements, an inner core of stones covering a burial cist, and an outer casing of sand, clay and turf; but without further excavation it is impossible to determine whether or not these elements imply two separate structural phases. At Balnabraid (No. 14), the only cairn in the peninsula which has been fully excavated, it is unfortunate that the reports of the original excavations6 fail to distinguish either the stratigraphy of the cairn material or the relationship of the numerous different burials that it was found to contain. However, a recent

1 Man, xxvii (1927), 173 f.
2 PSAS, xcvii (1963-4), 54 f.
3 Ibid., vi (1864-6), 341 ff.; xcv (1961-2), 11.
4 Ibid., lxxxiii (1948-9), 133.
5 Ibid., ix (1870-2), 537 f.; xvii (1882-3), 84 f.; Piggot, S. (ed.), The Prehistoric Peoples of Scotland (1962), 81.
6 PSAS, xlv (1910-11), 434 ff.; liv (1919-20), 172 ff.

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