peeblesshire-1967-vol-1/03_051

Transcription

INTRODUCTION: THE BRONZE AGE

As regards their siting, twenty-one of the cairns stand in prominent positions on the tops
of hills or ridges, all of them at heights of over 1000 ft. O.D. and, in two cases, of over 2000 ft.
O.D. These hill-top cairns vary between 24 ft. and 45 ft. in diameter and are usually not more
than 4 ft. in height; since most of them are sufficiently remote to have escaped the attention of
stone-robbers, it seems likely that they were never appreciably higher than at the present time.
It has often been suggested that barrows and cairns which are placed on skylines represent the
burial-places of chieftains, and a possible instance of this is furnished by the cairn (No. 67)
that stands on the summit of White Meldon. From this conspicuous position it overlooks seven
other cairns (Nos. 24-27, 33 and 38) which are situated on good pastureland, and all within a
radius of two miles. Such a compact group of burial sites makes it reasonable to suppose that
their builders must have lived in the vicinity.
Thirty of the barrows approximate to the "saucer" type found at Whitfield, Roxburgh-
shire; ¹ they range from 9 ft. to 35 ft. in diameter and rise only 1 ft. 6 in. in maximum height.
Although this type of barrow has not been excavated in Peeblesshire, it is probable that, as
with the cairns, the earliest examples date to the first half of the second millennium B.C. The
majority of them are surrounded by a shallow ditch up to 5 ft. in width and seldom more than a
few inches in depth. In only four cases is a slight counterscarp bank visible. They survive now
almost without exception on moderately high ground which has been undisturbed by subse-
quent cultivation. The slight nature of these barrows renders them particularly liable to de-
struction by the plough, and it is likely that many more have been completely obliterated in the
areas of intensive agriculture.
Of the two examples of other types of barrows which were excavated by the Commission's
officers, one (No. 4) may have been of Iron Age date (infra, pp. 30 f.). The other (No. 18) yielded
no reliable evidence of date, but the central pit, in which small fragments of charcoal were
found, might suggest an unaccompanied cremation of the Middle Bronze Age.
In addition to the cists already mentioned, about forty others were found just below ground
surface without any kind of covering mound. There is a marked tendency for them to occur in
groups close together, forming as it were small cemeteries (e.g. Nos. 71-3, 75-6, 87, 98), but
only in a few cases is there any record of their contents. Two contained Beakers (Nos. 14 and
93), two yielded Food Vessels (Nos. 71 and 78), and unspecified "urns" are reported from three
others. Several burials not in cists have also been recorded. Of these, No. 96 was a cremation
accompanied by two bronze rings, and probably belongs to the Early Bronze Age, while the
cremations in Cinerary Urns (Nos. 82 and 83) are dated to the second half of the second mil-
lennium. In six instances cists or burials have been found inserted into natural mounds,
all situated near the River Tweed in the Rachan-Drumelzier area (Nos. 72, 79-81, 90,
98).
An important contribution has been made to our knowledge of the funerary monuments of
the Middle Bronze Age by the recognition and excavation for the first time in Scotland of a
particular type of monument for which the name "enclosed cremation cemetery" is used in
this Inventory. The work done by the Commission in this particular field has been corrobor-
ated by excavation in Dumfriesshire, ² and the results have been applied to the interpretation of

1 Inventory of Roxburghshire, No. 259.
2 T.D.G.A.S., xlii (1965), 51 ff.

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