(no subject)

It's Burns Night, so naturally I have to post about something Scottish or Scots-related.  No Burns Supper for us tonight - we had our veggie haggis, neeps and tatties on Sunday, and very tasty it was too...

Inspired by the forthcoming Scottish adventure of nobleplatypus , I thought I'd wax lyrical about the Clava Cairns.  They're a peculiar bunch of prehistoric monuments found almost exclusively in north-east Scotland - though I think it's been argued that the famous Temple Wood Stone Circle in Argyll may also be included in the Claxa Cairn category. 

They are located near Fort George, and are just down the road from Culloden, too.  They're not the easiest monuments in the world to photograph, as they're located in trees and form quite a compact group:-

 

The assumption was that these monuments date to the Earlier Bronze Age.  For decades, there's been a general assumption that the Earlier Bronze Age was the time of monument building, when imposing sites like Stonehenge, the Clava Cairns, and the many pond, disc, saucer and other barrows were built in the landscape.  The Later Bronze Age, by contrast, was a time when domestic architecture came to the fore - there was the first appearance of hillforts, etc.

The situation in north-east Scotland isn't quite as straightforward as that.  Recent excavations by that illustrious and renowned prehistorian Prof. Richard Bradley (one of my Gurus of Theoretical Archaeology) has revealed that the Clava Cairns were much later in date than had previously been supposed, dating in fact to the later Bronze Age.  He has written a weighty tome about these monuments, The Good Stones, which is unfortunately out of print....
 
The Clava Cairns don't look anything like Stonehenge, but they be organised on similar principles.  They begin as simple structures, which become increasingly elaborate as they are altered and modified by successive generations.  These alterations serve to obscure the sacred spaces at the centre of the monuments, emphasising the divisions between those who are qualified to intercede between the living and the dead Ancestors, and those who look on from the outside.

Some more views now:-
 

 

There are some cup-marked stones built into these monuments, but unfortunately my photos of these were blurred.  Clava Cairns are unusual in that they have an external and internal kerb, with the area in between infilled with stones.  There's a central space accessed by a long passage, and in their final phases, the whole structure was covered by a larger mound.  It's the excavated and reconstructed monument that we see today.

(no subject)

It's Burns Night, so naturally I have to post about something Scottish or Scots-related.  No Burns Supper for us tonight - we had our veggie haggis, neeps and tatties on Sunday, and very tasty it was too...

Inspired by the forthcoming Scottish adventure of nobleplatypus , I thought I'd wax lyrical about the Clava Cairns.  They're a peculiar bunch of prehistoric monuments found almost exclusively in north-east Scotland - though I think it's been argued that the famous Temple Wood Stone Circle in Argyll may also be included in the Claxa Cairn category. 

They are located near Fort George, and are just down the road from Culloden, too.  They're not the easiest monuments in the world to photograph, as they're located in trees and form quite a compact group:-

 

The assumption was that these monuments date to the Earlier Bronze Age.  For decades, there's been a general assumption that the Earlier Bronze Age was the time of monument building, when imposing sites like Stonehenge, the Clava Cairns, and the many pond, disc, saucer and other barrows were built in the landscape.  The Later Bronze Age, by contrast, was a time when domestic architecture came to the fore - there was the first appearance of hillforts, etc.

The situation in north-east Scotland isn't quite as straightforward as that.  Recent excavations by that illustrious and renowned prehistorian Prof. Richard Bradley (one of my Gurus of Theoretical Archaeology) has revealed that the Clava Cairns were much later in date than had previously been supposed, dating in fact to the later Bronze Age.  He has written a weighty tome about these monuments, The Good Stones, which is unfortunately out of print....
 
The Clava Cairns don't look anything like Stonehenge, but they be organised on similar principles.  They begin as simple structures, which become increasingly elaborate as they are altered and modified by successive generations.  These alterations serve to obscure the sacred spaces at the centre of the monuments, emphasising the divisions between those who are qualified to intercede between the living and the dead Ancestors, and those who look on from the outside.

Some more views now:-
 

 

There are some cup-marked stones built into these monuments, but unfortunately my photos of these were blurred.  Clava Cairns are unusual in that they have an external and internal kerb, with the area in between infilled with stones.  There's a central space accessed by a long passage, and in their final phases, the whole structure was covered by a larger mound.  It's the excavated and reconstructed monument that we see today.