Lochhill

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Coordinates: 54 ° 56 ′ 9.1 ″  N , 3 ° 40 ′ 51.7 ″  W.

Map: Scotland
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Lochhill​
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Scotland
Lochhill Cairn was to the left of the lake

The chamber tomb at Lochhill, which was destroyed by excavations by Lionel Masters between 1969 and 1971, was located north of Loch Kindar (lake) south of New Abbey in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland .

Lochhill, long thought to have no stone chambers, is a Longcairn that has been completely eroded. Before the excavation, the densely overgrown 1.7 m high hill appeared roughly trapezoidal in plan, was about 25.0 m long and 14.0 m wide. The excavation revealed a slightly concave exedra to the northeast; behind it was an approximately 2.0 m long chamber. The chamber and atrium areas were carefully blocked off after use. The cairn was surrounded by a wall of dry stone , which was twice as wide in the northwest.

The Longcairn is a multi-phase construction. In the first phase there was a shallow trench with three large pits and four massive posts. The structure was burned and covered with a trapezoidal cairn. The cairn was later provided with a megalithic exedra. The cairn is superimposed on a wooden chamber with a facade. The first chamber consisted of a recessed rectangular area of ​​7.5 × 1.4 m, its sides were lined with stones. Three large pits for wooden posts lay on the main axis of the structure. Between two (A and B in the floor plan) lay the remains of a burned oak floor, on which and in the stone filling of which lay several deposits of cremated human bones. Master believes that four of the later chamber's orthostats belonged to this earlier phase and that the construction of the cairn took place shortly after the bodies were cremated.

An uncalibrated radiocarbon date from 3120 BC. BC (old half-life) comes from a plank in the wood structure. Using the Bristlecone Pine Correction, the structure appears to have been built in the early 4th millennium. Fragments of Neolithic pottery were recovered from the chamber and from an earlier looting pit. Shards of Late Northern British (after Clarke) cupware were found under the stones near the top of the Cairns.

literature

  • Frances Lynch: Megalithic Tombs and Long Barrows in Britain (= Shire Archeology. 73). Shire Publications, Princes Risborough 1997, ISBN 0-7478-0341-2 .
  • Lionel Masters: The Lochhill long cairn. In: Antiquity. Vol. 47, No. 186, 1973. pp. 96-100, doi : 10.1017 / S0003598X0003489X .
  • Lionel Masters: New Abbey, Lochhill, unchambered long cairn. In: Discovery and Excavation in Scotland. 1973, p. 32, ( digital version (PDF; 2.83 MB) ).
  • James Williams: Neolithic, Lochhill, New Abbey. In: Discovery and Excavation in Scotland. 1968, p. 25, ( digital version (PDF; 1.95 MB) ).

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