Reasons for Designation
Platform cairns are funerary monuments covering single or multiple burials and dating to the Early Bronze Age (c.2000-1600 BC). They were constructed as low flat-topped mounds of stone rubble up to 40m in external diameter. Some examples have other features, including peripheral banks and internal mounds, constructed on this platform. A kerb of edge-set stones sometimes bounds the edges of the platform, bank or mound, or all three. Platform cairns occur as isolated monuments, in small groups, or in cairn cemeteries. In the latter instances they are normally found alongside cairns of other types. Although no precise figure is available, current evidence indicates that there are fewer than 250 known examples of this monument class nationally. Despite partial disturbance through the erection of a field boundary, the platform cairn 190m SSE of the Nine Maidens Stone Circle survives well and will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction, longevity, territorial significance, social organisation, funerary and ritual practices and overall landscape context.
Details
The monument includes a platform cairn situated on a prominent ridge with extensive views to Carn Galva. The cairn survives as a circular flat-topped stony platform, with a low central mound, measuring up to 21m in diameter and 0.8m high with an almost continuous arc of protruding stones forming the retaining kerb The southern periphery has been cut by a field boundary. The cairn was first recorded by Pool.
Other archaeological remains in the vicinity are the subject of separate schedulings.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
CO 655
Legacy System:
RSM - OCN
End of official list entry
