lanarkshire-1978/03_039

Transcription

INTRODUCTION : THE BRONZE AGE

barrow at Lanark Race Course (No. 73). At Cairny (No. 26), excavations of what appeared
to be a barrow showed that the mound consisted in fact of an inner core of boulders and
earth capped by an outer casing of turf. This type of composite structure, while as yet only
rarely encountered in Scotland, has, for example, been recorded at Broughton Knowe,
Peebleshire ¹ and at Macrihanish, Argyll. ² The three excavated cairns mentioned so far
covered single central inhumations or cremations, but in the fourth case, at Limefield (No.
77), excavation revealed a total of at least twelve burial-deposits, including both cremations
and inhumations, as well as a wide range of Early Bronze Age pottery.
Comparatively few barrows have been recorded, and only four (Nos. 12, 20, 73 and 101)
exceed 10 m in diameter. In many cases the material for the mound does not seem to have
been excavated from a ditch, but a series of barrows at Muirhead (No. 91) belong to a class
in which the ditch forms an integral part of the structure. Barrows of this kind normally occur
in groups and in Scotland they are confined to the Border counties; examples, sometimes
associated with outer banks, have been found in Peebleshire and Roxburghshire. ³ In the
case of the smaller ditched cairns and barrows the structural differences between them may
be due simply to the presence or absence of stone in the immediate vicinity, and the Muirhead
barrows may in fact be closely related to the cairns of Baitlaws (No. 7) or Fall Hill (No.55)
type.
Cist burials were found under seventeen cairns and barrows when they were dug into
during the 18th and 19th centuries. Many contained 'urns', now lost, but a fine Beaker and a
bronze armlet have been preserved from a cist within a cairn at Crawford (No. 35); the Beaker
contained cremated bone and can be added to the three other examples of this comparatively
rare Beaker-burial rite to be found in Lanarkshire (Nos. 26, 77 and 143). Besides burials in
cists, cremations accompanied by Cinerary Urns have frequently been recorded, the most
interesting discovery of this kind being at East Rogerton (No. 47), where a group of urns was
apparently disposed in a circle. ⁴
The enclosed cremation cemetery at Fall Hill (No. 55) is the only example of this type of
monument to be identified with some certainty in Lanarkshire, although it is possible that
enclosures at Wester Yardhouses-Hare Law (No. 113, 8) and Fall Kneesend (No. 56) may
belong to the same class, and even those at Horse Law (No. 64) and Windy Gate (No. 118).
Since the discovery of enclosed cremation cemeteries during the preparation of the Peebles-
shire Inventory, ⁵ several others have been excavated in Scotland, northern England, ⁶ and
Ulster. ⁷ These excavations have shown that this class of burial-site can vary considerably in
form, and have emphasised the difficulties of making a positive identification from fieldwork
evidence alone. At Weird Law, Peeblesshire, ⁸ the cremation-pits were covered by a low stony
mound and surrounded by an annular bank, whereas at Whitestanes, Dumfriesshire, ⁹ there
was an entrance in the bank and no mound in the interior, making the site indistinguishable
from a hut-circle before excavation. The grooves in the bank at Fall Hill are a feature which

1 Inventory of Peeblesshire, i, No. 4.
2 Inventory of Argyll, i, No. 42.
3 Inventory of Peeblesshire, i, Nos. 4-6, 36, 49 and 55; Inventory
of Roxburghshire, i, No. 259.
4 Cf. Westwood, Fife (PSAS, vi (1864-6), 388-91) and
Palmerston, Dumfriesshire (TDGAS, xvii (1930-1), 79-
94; xlv (1968), 114-15).
5 Inventory of Peeblesshire, i, pp. 15-16.
6 SAF, iv, 13-17.
7 Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 3rd series, xxxvi-xxxvii (1973-
4), 17-31.
8 PSAS, xcix, (1966-7), 93-9.
9 TDGAS, xlii (1965), 51-60.

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