Cairns of Orkney

 

The Cairns of Orkney, (and Britain)

What were Neolithic cairns built for, and why do we think that?

The story of the first migrants to Orkney in the neolithic age is recorded in the archaeological sites and monuments in the archipelago that have survived, and in the scientific research that has allowed an understanding of the dating sequence of their construction and use.

By far the commonest monuments on Orkney are the cairns. There are 60 or so of these, and they were one of the monument types that most attracted curious antiquarian archaeologists.

In pursuance of their interest in finding artefacts, i.e. treasure, these people, perhaps rightly, did not think they would find much by investigating the stone circles of Orkney, but they were very keen to explore the cairns.

The earliest archaeologists in Orkney, had experience and connections with their peers working in England and Scotland, and they as a group, have had a profound influence on our current understanding of “The Stone Age”.

They were almost working in the dark, defining our prehistory, and gradually developing techniques that would inform future generations. They even created the language with which our earliest understanding of prehistory was described.

I have found their descriptions of the excavations they undertook to be highly coloured and detailed. Their reports give a very personal account of their experiences, and a strong sense of being present with them in the darkest recesses of the cairns of Britain.

Those who wrote their views for publication in the annals of the Society of Antiquaries, and other authoritative organisations, drew their inspiration for the findings of the archaeological work that they were undertaking from classical literature and from their knowledge of earlier civilisations elsewhere.

An early investigation of a cairn in England illustrates the attitude in which the purpose of these monuments was viewed at the onset of archaeological investigations in the 19th century. The excavation was carried out by John Thurnam, at the West Kennet Long Barrow in Wiltshire, before 1861, and published in the proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London in that year.

Thurnam describes the monument he excavated as one “of those remarkable sepulchral mounds, known as long barrows, which as yet remain the crux and problem of the barrow-digger and archæologist. Many of the long barrows of South Wiltshire were examined at the beginning of this century by Mr. Cunnington and Sir Richard Colt Hoare, but with so little return for the pains bestowed on them, that, though Sir Richard was satisfied of their high antiquity, he was utterly at a loss to determine the purpose for which such immense mounds had been raised.”

In discussing the pottery finds John states that, “The quantity of coarse native pottery was very remarkable. At first it was thought that the heaps in the angles of the chamber would prove to be the fragments of vases, deposited entire when the funeral rites were completed. This, however, was not the case, and whence the fragments came, and why here deposited, must be matter of conjecture. They at least remind us of the “shards, flints, and pebbles,” which our great dramatist connects with the graves of suicides (Hamlet, v. 1), and the use of which in mediæval times may have been a relic of paganism. That the fragments found in the chamber were those of domestic vessels required for the funeral feast, is by no means clear; for in such case, had the mass of fragments been deposited, it would have been possible to have reconstructed at least some of the vessels. As it is, the variety of form and ornament, of colour and texture displayed by them is even more remarkable than their number. In hardly more than three cases were two or more fragments of the same vessel met with. In stating that there were parts of not fewer than fifty different vessels, we shall probably be very much within the truth.”

“It has been already suggested that some of the skeletons in the chamber, on the skulls of which marks of violence are evident, are those of slaves or dependants, immolated on the occasion of the burial of their chief. That this was the custom of the Celtic tribes at one period, cannot be doubted; as Cæsar tells us that, only a little before his time, the Gauls devoted to the funeral pile the favourite slaves and retainers of the dead. Mela even speaks of these immolations as being voluntarily performed, with the hope of joining the dead in a future life. These remarks apply to cremation, the usual though perhaps not universal concomitant of burial among the Gauls in the times of Cæsar and Mela.”

It is clear from John’s account that he had decided that the Long Barrow, and other such structures were burial monuments, and his work was used as a reference by others in the same century who were also enquiring about their purpose.

One of these was Joseph Anderson, Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, who in 1868 published the result of his research and excavation of a group of horned cairns in Caithness in an article that he entitled the “Horned Cairns of Caithness “. Interestingly he references John Thurnam, and his reporting is more informative for these cairns than for some of his earlier work.

In the process of that work he found a small number of partial skeletons, a lot of fragmentary, both animal and human bones, some flints, stone tools and quantities of pottery from numerous different vessels though none of those were complete.

He writes that “Whether these horned cairns, and, indeed, all the chambered cairns, were originally constructed as sepulchres or as dwellings is another question, on which there may be some difference of opinion. For my own part, I have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that their original purpose was rather that of honourable mansions for the dead than of serviceable dwellings for the living. I cannot conceive of the expenditure of the enormous amount of labour implied in the construction of a building (as a dwelling) in which the chamber should occupy only about a hundredth part of the capacity of the structure; while, if shelter or defence, or both, had been the object, the chamber (which is the primary object of a building for habitation) could have been made stronger and more serviceable with less than a hundredth part of the toil. If these chambers were ever occupied as habitations, we have found no household implements on their floors, such as are obtained in the brochs—nothing but weapons, ornaments, and pottery, and the common accompaniments of the funereal rites. But, on the other hand, the desire to honour and perpetuate the memory of the mighty dead is motive sufficient to account for the expenditure of any amount of laborious toil, and only those who have seen these enormous cairns and their situations can have any idea of the vast amount of labour expended upon them.”

 And.....“Wherever, among the revolving centuries, the date of these mighty monumental structures may be found, the people that reared them were no despicable barbarians. They are the work of a people possessed of no inconsiderable constructive skill, ingenuity, and resource,—a people numerous, united, and energetic,—and a people, too, of strong reverential feelings and sentiments regarding the sacredness of the remains and memories of those who were dear to them in life, and who may also have been in their day “ the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.””

Perhaps as a result of the isolation of Orkney, many cairns here have remained undisturbed internally, and little trespassed upon since prehistoric times.

One such cairn, that was found to be more or less intact was the Unstan Cairn which is situated on the shore of Stenness Loch.

Unstan Cairn, exterior

Unstan Cairn, interior

Unstan Cairn, plan

 

It was excavated in 1884 by Robert Stewart Clouston, who declined to comment on the purpose of the structure. He wrote that:-

“In the (entrance) passage were found a flint scraper and a barbed arrowhead, also some fragments of pottery. The passage leads, into a large chamber 21 feet long, and averaging about 5(?) feet broad. This is subdivided by large flagstones into five compartments, off the middle one of which is a small side chamber. These compartments of the chamber will be referred to in their numerical order, counting from the southern to the northern end of the chamber, or from left to right in the plan.

In the first compartment were found a considerable quantity of bones, partly human, a curious black substance which appears to me to be a mixture of peat and charcoal, the bottom of a small flat-bottomed urn, and some other fragments of pottery. This compartment was much freer of soil than any of the others, most of it being more easily cleared by the hand than the pick.

At the side of the S.W. flagstone in the second compartment there was a small space, not covered with white clay, and in this we found several fragments of different urns. A more striking instance of how the relics must have been scattered is the fact of a piece of pottery, found in the fourth compartment, fitting into an urn, the rest of which was dug here.. By far the greater portion of the relics found in the chamber were in this compartment. Overlying its clay floor was a stratum of black ashy or earthy matter, largely composed of charcoal, in which great quantities of pottery, and several flint chips and flakes were found.”

“The black stratum which covered the floor of the second compartment extended a couple of feet or so into (the third) compartment, and also into the first compartment and the passage. Upon it were laid several burials in the contracted posture.”

“A large quantity of bones were found in the third compartment, among which, close to the door of the side chamber, opening off it, there were several large vertebrae. A flint implement, 3 inches long, of the class styled by Mr Evans as “fabricators or flaking tools,” was the only relic discovered here, with the exception of a few fragments of pottery.”

“The side chamber opens off the third compartment on its west side.....There were two distinct burials here, in the contracted posture, one of the skulls being the most complete of any of those found, though scarcely half remained. A tooth, which has been pronounced by Dr Garson to be that of a small dog, was found near the door. A stone pounder lay under the bones of one of the skeletons, and this, with two flakes, comprised the whole of the relics found.”

The fourth compartment measures 5 feet 7 inches from east to west and about 4 feet from door to door. Only a few fragments of pottery and a quantity of bones were found here.

The fifth compartment, at the northern extremity of the chamber, is the smallest of the chambers. A small and rudely formed arrow-head was found here. Some burials, and several small fragments of pottery, were also found; also, at a higher level than any other relic, a small piece of ornamented pottery of different pattern from all the others.” (Clouston)

*

The excavation of several cairns in Orkney was carried out in the early 20th century by Charles Calder, and a report on his excavation of a cairn on the Calf of Eday in 1937, observed .....

“When Mr Calder made his trial examination of the (Calf of Eday) cairn, in 1935, and discovered the hoard of Neolithic pottery, it was expected that a complete excavation of the monument would be rewarded by the discovery of more vessels and human remains of the period, but this hope was doomed to disappointment, as very little more pottery was recovered and skeletal remains were scanty and in poor condition. However, if the results in the matter of finding such relics were not what was desired, there arises the question why so much broken pottery should be concentrated in one spot.

We know from Mr Walter G. Grant’s excavations of stalled cairns in the island of Rousay that these tombs had been entered after the time of the first burials, possibly when later ones took place. It would appear that pottery previously deposited had received scant attention from newcomers, as not only did vessels get broken but fragments of them were tramped into the floor.

Certainly the pottery found in the cairn must have been heaped together before the roof of the chamber collapsed, and, as the greater part of most of the vessels was wanting, it looks as if most of the pottery had been thrown out of the chamber altogether. It might be suggested that the vessels had been removed from their original positions to make way for the reception of later burials. If this were so, it would seem to indicate a want of reverence, if not for the dead, for the grave furnishings that had been deposited with them. But we have no indication of how many bodies were buried in the cairn, nor of how they were placed, although more than thirty urns were represented by the shards, and so we cannot offer a satisfactory explanation for such treatment of the pottery.

Portions of at least thirty-four vessels of clay have been...... collected..... from...... compartment No. 2, the other compartments, cleared later, were disappointingly barren.

 Calf of Eday, plan and sections

It seems that the whole lot had been gathered together and thrown in a heap, where it was found below the sand amongst black, greasy, peaty humus and peat ash. Along with the pottery were found two leaf-shaped arrow-heads, one broken, and a possible third one damaged, a short knife, two scrapers, and several unworked flakes, all made of flint. The presence of fire in the mixture was attested by the peat ash, carbon, small pieces of calcined bones, and the calcination of all the flints, while soot and ash adhered to the pottery. Two axes of sandstone were found on the shelf above the skeletal remains in compartment No. 4 “

Another pile of broken pottery was found at the Midhowe cairn on Rousay, when it was excavated by Graham Callander, the Director of the National Museum of Scotland, assisted by Walter Grant. They write:-

“At the floor-level on the east side of each of the seven cells, Nos. 5 to 11, is a low bench or shelf, from 9 inches to 18 inches high. These shelves had been disturbed and badly broken when the roof fell. On every one of them except that in Cell No. 11 were the remains of from two to four human skeletons. On the west side of the chamber there were no shelves, and only one deposit of human remains was found, this coming from Cell No. 8......

Midhowe, plan and sections.

Most of the pottery was found in the stall on the west side of Cell No. 7,...... It is difficult to understand why the great bulk of the pottery should have been placed in one cell and on the side of it opposite to that on which all the bodies except one were found, and why such small fragments should have survived. It is possible that when later burials were taking place the pottery vessels deposited earlier had been broken, some of the pieces being thrown aside and others trampled underfoot.”

The same team Callander and Grant, excavated the Knowe of Yarso, on Rousay, finding evidence of burning within the chamber:-

“All the long bones and many of the human skulls had been smashed and displaced, human and animal bones being mixed up promiscuously. In one place where there were two broken skulls lying near each other, with animal bones between and around them, a deer tooth actually lay within the brain-pan of one. Nowhere was it possible to detect where a single body had been placed, as no limb bones occupied the relative positions of a skeleton either in a crouched or extended position

 

Knowe of Yarso, plan and sections

......... No less than seventeen adults were represented by skulls usually very much broken, vertebrae, fragments of eight femurs, other leg bones, and two humeri. Nine of the skulls were placed in juxtaposition along the foot of the western wall, six along the opposite side, and two about 15 inches from it. In no case was the lower jaw present. A very fine skull was found in the south-west corner of the cell, touching the divisional slab, which doubtless accounts for its good state of preservation.

Although some of the skulls arranged along the foot of the wall had suffered from disturbance, it seemed that they had been placed cranium upwards facing the centre of the chamber.

The quantity of animal bones found was considerable, and consisted almost entirely of red-deer, many being of the size of the best animals existing in Scotland to-day. Bones from thirty-six of these animals were identified. Ox and sheep were just represented, and there were a few bones of a good-sized dog. The bones were distributed throughout the relic bed of the chamber, but, as already mentioned, were more numerous in the inner half. They were much broken, and included teeth, ribs, and many articular ends and splinters of leg bones. The latter presumably had been deliberately split to get at the marrow. Many of the Yarso animal bones showed distinct marks of scorching and burning......

Pottery was extremely scarce, and what we did find seems to have been deposited at a time later than the original burials.

We have seen that many of the flint implements and some of the animal bones found were calcined. There are also distinct indications of fires burning within all the cells of the chamber, and on both sides.

Many of the stones in the walls are reddened and cracked by fire, and bear traces of soot, from a height of 1 foot 6 inches to 3 feet above the floor. At the same time, quite a lot of pieces of charred wood and ashes were observed in the deposits on the floor. No signs of fires were seen outside the entrance.

One of the skulls........ shows evidence of having been in contact with fire. This would seem to show that the fires had been kindled within the chamber after some of the skulls had been deposited.”

The dating for the bones of the people who died, and we’re laid into cairns in Orkney has been carried out, but the sample is heavily biased, in that it depends on people laying their dead in the structures. In a sense, then, these skeletons are self or kin selected as it is the choice of kin to decide what to do with the body of the deceased.

Of the 70 samples of individuals tested, from 9 Orkney cairn excavations, 56 were found to pre-date 3000BC (80%). A further 9 died between 2995BC and 2800BC (13%).

2 died in the 24th century BC (3%), and 2 in the 15th century BC (3%)

In between the 29th century BC, and the 24th century BC, only one person died, and was laid in a cairn, and that was in 2680BC.

*

Studies of skeletons laid in cairns have allowed us to understand how these people might have lived and died.

At Isbister, David Lawrence studied a group of skeletons who represented a group of 85 people, half of whom were younger than 25 years old, and half older.

In those that he could establish a gender, 15 were probably female, and 28 probably male.

The most striking feature of David’s and other studies of Orkney skeletons is the high prevalence of evidence of violence.

Around 20% of surviving skulls at Isbister had suffered head injuries due to being struck by a blunt object. For some people this was a death blow, but for others the victims survived and were able to live on, dying of some less obvious cause.

Another fracture wound which was present in 10% of little finger bones that were found was thought to be caused by a poorly delivered fist punch.

There were two or three vertebrae which were found to have angular cuts penetrating deep into the body and exposing the trabeculae. These injuries may have occurred at the time of death. If this is the case then the original injury was most likely caused by an arrow, or spear wound, which must have penetrated the thorax, causing further injury.

The weight of tradition hangs heavy over these monuments. They contain skeletons, after all, and they have pottery in them, and 19th century antiquarian investigators drew the conclusion that the pottery vessels would have contained food for the afterlife of the people laid in the cairn.

In later funerary customs, something like this no doubt happened, and elsewhere evidence has been found that people did indeed lay offerings to ease the passage of those who pass away into the afterlife. This is the sort of thing that people who mourn still do.

But were any of these structures built with the sole intent of housing the dead?

 At this point I need to declare an interest. As a callow youth I directed the excavation of a Dorset Bronze Age Round Barrow, near Poole in Dorset. This was a significant event, more so than I had known, as the site was visited by Geoffrey Wainwright, one of the most influential archaeologists of the time. In spite of this, and the excellent condition of the monument, the excavation found nothing but a turf mound surrounded by a berm, bank, and deep ditch. I had expected to find something to indicate that this was a funerary monument, but we found nothing. There were no bones, no pots, no ashes, nothing.

This was a bit of a blow for me, and I have since researched other barrows to see how common it is that barrows either have no evidence of human funerary activity at all, or where the evidence of inhumation is subsequent to the creation of the structure, rather than part of its foundation.

In the report that Myra Shackley produced, concerning my excavation work, she wrote:-

“……….. it is the complete absence of any primary secondary or satellite burials that is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the excavation. When searching the literature it is not too difficult to find other examples. However with so few of them being excavated under modern scientific conditions one cannot depend upon the negative evidence that sometimes presents itself, especially on the acidic soils of the Dorset heath. Such is the case with the three round barrows at Kinson (Knocker, 1958) where at least one appeared to have no primary burial. Ashbee’s excavation 1954 of another Canford Heath round Barrow revealed evidence of a timber mortary(?) structure surrounding a central pit over which the mound had been raised. A phosphate test on the fill of the pit, originally thought of by the excavator to be a grave proved negative. Of the three turf barrows excavated at Hurn(Piggott, 1943) the mound of Barrow 1 sealed an oval pit filled with clean gravelly sand like the natural subsoil which was interpreted as a grave, Barrow 2 had a small triangular stake hole as its only primary feature below the mound in neither case was there any direct evidence for either a primary cremation or inhumation. At Simon’s Ground, Hampreston, two of the barrows excavated by White (RCHM 1975) had no interment but urn fields to the South. A better example of a Barrow not covering a burial is at Brenig site 47 in North Wales (Selkirk, 1977,230) where a low mound was set on a promontory at the edge of a Barrow Cemetery, this barrow gave a C14 determination of 2100 BC, i.e. 1000 years earlier. In discussing the example at Brenig, Lynch draws attention to a number of similar examples and classifies them into two groups – those without any primary features as at Brenig and those with a primary feature but no interment as here with this Canford Heath Barrow.

It is clear that some barrows were not constructed as simple burial mounds. The botanical evidence from this example at Canford Heath surely hints at an element of ritual rather than a purely mechanical process of ground clearance. If the fill of the primary pit, F26 was not exclusively from the clearance of the old ground surface and contained no interment then one is left to question the pits’ purpose and indeed that of the Barrow itself.” (Shackley)

I have been skeptical of the definition of barrows as burial monuments ever since, and by extension, I am also skeptical of cairns as being constructed for housing the dead.

If we were to ignore the persistent idea that cairns are funerary monuments, we might begin to understand them as places where particular activities took place, that were aligned to important human behaviours and needs, in a hostile environment.

These are generally very solid structures in an era when habitations are relatively light. They are among the first structures that survive in Great Britain, from people who were effectively nomadic shepherds.

There is evidence that human skeletons were placed into cairns, but there is also evidence elsewhere that not all cairns were used in this way. Some cairns remained almost empty. It may be an odd statement to make, but there is also no actual evidence that the people who were laid into the structures were actually dead when they entered it.

There is evidence that people entered the cairns with the intention of cooking and eating food, and there is also a strong possibility that those people who found shelter within them also found skeletons arranged around them which they moved around to either tidy the place, or with playful intent.

Moreover, there is no evidence that the pottery vessels were left in the structure as offerings for the dead.

Although the structures may not have been built as funerary monuments, they were certainly seen as such by succeeding generations, and were frequently dug into by cists and other human interments.

In an environment that was very different to our own, the people who built the cairns may have had much more pressing concerns driving them in the construction of these buildings.

Those concerns may been about protection from wild animals, wolves, wild pigs, and aurochs, all of which are known to have inhabited Orkney. Child birthing, wound recovery, and shelter from extreme weather would also be important uses for this sort of structure, as Orkney is remarkably beautiful, but savage in its exposure to the elements.

The ultimate purpose of cairns remains a mystery, but there is certainly no firm evidence that they are constructed as funerary monuments.

This is, in effect, a plea that an understanding be reached that a difference may exist between the purpose for which cairns were built, and the way they were used.

I would also hope that we could find some other way of naming them, other than “Chambered Tombs” and “Burial Chambers”. This naming as definition has successfully blocked more lucid and analytical research into what really happened in Neolithic Britain.

Sources :-

(Anderson) On the Horned Cairns of Caithness: their structural arrangement, Contents of chambers l, &c. BY Joseph Anderson , COR. MKM.. S.A. SOOT. (PLATES LX.-LXOrkne

(Calder) , Proceedings of The society of Antiquities Scotland, Neolithic Double-Chambered Cairn Of The Stalled Type And Later Structures On The Calf Of Eday , Orkney . By Charles S. T. Calder.

(Callander) , Proceedings of The society of Antiquities Scotland, A Long Stalled Chambered Cairn Or Mausoleum (Rousay Type ) Near Midhowe , Rousay , Orkney . BY J. Graham Callander, And Walter G. Grant , 1934

(Callander) Proceedings of The society of Antiquities Scotland, A Long , Stalled Cairn , The Knowe Of Yarso , In Rousay , Orkney . By J. Graham Callander, Director Of The National Museum Of Antiquities , And Walter G. Grant , F.S.A.ScoT.

(Clouston) Notice of the Excavation of a Chambered Cairn of The Stone Age , at Unstan , in the Loch of Stennis, Orkney. By Robert Stewart Clouston.

(Lawrence.) Orkneys First Farmers, Reconstructing biographies from osteological analysis to gain insights into life and society in a Neolithic community on the edge of Atlantic Europe. David Michael Lawrence

(Shackley) The Excavation of a Bronze Age Round Barrow on Canford Heath, Poole Dorset. By Myra Shackley and Ian Horsey. Dorset Natural History and Archaeology Society, Volume 102, 1980

(Thurnam) , Examination of a chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by John Thurnam , ESQ ., M.D. , F.S.A.

*

Index

The rich history of archaeology on Orkney provides source material for the following observations.

"Neolithic Migrants to Orkney" The story of the First, Founding Immigrants to Orkney 

"A Bizarre Idea" What's the Story, then?

"Walkable land in the North Sea" describes evidence that walkable land was present between Norfolk and Holland at a time when prehistoric people were occupying northern Europe. 

"Archaeology in the North Sea" looks at the elusive evidence that people could have walked from Caithness to South Ronaldsay. 

"3000BC" gives detailed evidence of tsunami events on the Norwegian Coast.

 "A Brief Guide to the Last Glaciation" How did the North Sea develop?

"Mainland Settlements" discusses and dates the early settlements across mainland Orkney.

"Barnhouse" describes this "Neolithic Village" a substantial group of Neolithic structures on the shore of Harray Loch. 

"Barnhouse Sweat Lodge" describes Structure 8, the Sweat Lodge at Barnhouse.

"Modern Sweat Lodge Practices" describes present day Sweat Lodge ceremonies.

"The Stones of Stenness" describes anomalies in the settings of the stones that formed the stone circle.

"The Ring of Brodgar" discusses just how many stones are there, or are not there, at the Ring of Brodgar. 

 "A Custom Among the Lower Class of People" , about 18th century Orkney people and the Stones at Brodgar. 

"Maeshowe, a Wonder of the Neolithic World" is the personal account of the excavation of the Maeshowe Cairn by the man who excavated it. I include it because it is so personal, not because it adds anything to our understanding. 

"Cairns of Orkney" is the commentary of several antiquarian archaeologists writing in previous centuries as they excavated Cairns in England, Scotland, and Orkney. Although these cairns may not have been excavated to a high standard, the commentary provided in these reports is, in my view, very personal, and highly approachable. 

"Cairns and the People in them" examines the bones of the people who were laid in cairns, and tells their stories.

"The Westrays" describes the Knap of Howar settlement, and the desolation of the islands that were found by the people of the Links of Noltland when they settled there at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. 

"Skara Brae, RCAHMS" is the official description of the Neolithic "Village"

"Skara Brae, Excavation", is an account of the excavation of Hut 7 in 1927. This is an interesting personal account of the Gordon Childe's Excavation by J Wilson Paterson.

"Dating Skara Brae" gives detailed dating evidence for Skara Brae 

"The Ness of Brodgar Excavation" and account of the excavation , before 2020, by Nick Card. 

"Dating the Ness of Brodgar" gives Dating evidence for the Ness of Brodgar 

"The Ferriby Boats" The first seafaring vessels? 

"The Orkney Vole" discusses the evidence that the Orkney Vole migrated from Europe to Orkney without setting foot on mainland Britain. 

Bere Barley, a Neolithic grain derivations of Bere Barley. 

"Concluding" , some simple remarks in conclusion.

"Finally" closing remarks.

Sources

All views and opinions expressed are my own, but it remains a work-in-progress for which positive criticism and comment is welcomed.

Jeffery Nicholls 

South Ronaldsay 

Orkney 

Jiffynorm@yahoo.co.uk