argyll-1971/01-052

Transcription

INTRODUCTION: THE BRONZE AGE

re-assessment (1) indicates that the cairn was in use as a burial place over a period of at least three
centuries during the middle of the second millennium B.C., and may have been re-used during
the Iron Age. At least eleven cists were discovered beneath the cairn material or just outside
the kerb defining its perimeter, and the grave goods accompanying the burials comprised one
Beaker, three Food Vessels and two Cinerary Urns, together with a varied assemblage of
objects of jet, flint, bone and bronze. In its sequence of burial deposits, and the richness of
associated small finds, it is one of the most important Bronze Age sites in Kintyre, and may be
compared with the cairn on Cairncapple Hill (West Lothian). (2) Multiple cist-burials under
cairns are also recorded at Trench Point (No 49) and Carn Ban, Gigha (No 19).
Three burial-monuments at Kilkivan are distinct from the other cairns in Kintyre in having
additional surrounding features; the cairn No 34 is enclosed by two concentric banks, the
outer of which incorporates a standing stone, and the cairn No 21A, by a single ditch with
external bank. Although this association of cairns and surrounding banks is unusual in
Argyll, the Kilkivan examples may be compared in general terms with the class II henge at
Ballymeanach (Mid Argyll) (3), which contains a low cairn in its central area, and with the round
cairn enclosed within a bank at Castle Farm, Barcaldine, in Lorn. (4) The small saucer-barrow
(No. 21B) is without local parallel.
At least forty other cists (Fig.2) have been discovered just below ground surface, ap-
parently never protected by any covering mound. Although they are normally found singly,
in several instances three or more cists are grouped together to form a small cemetery. The cist
cemetery at Kilmaho (No 77), consisting of a group of three cists, is of particular importance
since one of the cists contained two separate inhumations, while in another an inhumation was
accompanied by a remarkable assemblage of grave-goods comprising a Food Vessel, a riveted
bronze knife, a bronze awl and two flint knives. At Glenreasdell Mains (No. 70) one of a group
of five cists had its single surviving end-slab grooved at either end to receive the side slabs; this
jointing technique occurs rarely in cists and is found elsewhere almost exclusively in the
Kilmartin-Lochgilphead area of Mid Argyll.(5)
In addition to the Food Vessels already mentioned, others have been recovered from at
least four individual cists and there are three further unassociated examples. It may be noted
moreover, that a Food Vessel has been found in two instances in association with a secondary
burial in a chambered cairn (nos. 2 and 5). In the latter case (Brackley) the secondary burial
comprised a cremation accompanied by a Food Vessel, a plano-convex flint knife, a number of
objects of flint and pitchstone, and parts of two jet necklaces, one originally of crescentric form
and the other of the simpler two-strand type. Another jet necklace, said to have been found at
the head of Campbeltown Loch, is now preserved at Inverarary Castle (pl.5). There are ten
crescentric jet necklaces from Argyll and Bute, and there associations offer useful chronological
evidence for a number of the Kintyre monuments. On Inchmarnock, off the Island of Bute, (6) a
necklace of this type was found in a rebated cist, which is of a class allied to the grooved cist
from Glenreasdell (No.70). At Mountstuart (Bute), a necklace, a Food Vessel and a fragment
of bronze accompanied the crouched burial of a young woman;(7) the Food Vessel has recently

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(1) TDGAS, xliv(1967),8I ff. (4) PSAS, lxvii (1932-3), 324 f.
(2) PSAS, lxxxii(1947-8), 68 ff. (5) Ibib.,xciv(1960-1), 46 ff.
(3) Atkinson, R. J. C. et al., Excavations at Dorchester, Oxon. (6) TBNHS, xv (1963), 5 ff.
(1951), 99; PSAS, xcv (1961-2), II. (7) PSAS, xxxviii (1903-4), 63 ff.

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