Quanterness

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The Quanterness Cairn in the background on the left

The Passage Tomb of Quanterness, discovered in 1804, is located on the Orkney island of Mainland in Scotland . The Ramberry Cairn and Wideford Hill Cairn are nearby . Quanterness is the name of the neighboring farm and cannot be visited. The property is listed as a Scheduled Monument .

Dig

Quanterness was partially excavated by Colin Renfrew from 1972 to 1974. Renfrew decided that more of the contents should be left intact and available for future archaeologists to study. He only excavated one of the six side niches and about 80% of the main chamber.

Building

The approximately three meter high hill on the north flank of Wideford Hill is roughly level with the Wideford Hill Cairn and has a diameter of 30.0 m, which used to be significantly larger. In the middle is the rectangular chamber 6.1 m long and 1.6 m wide, which is typical for megalithic systems of the Maeshowe type . It can be reached from the east via a narrow corridor . It has six symmetrically arranged side niches, two on each long side and one on each of the two narrow sides, all of which have a cantilever vault that extends up to about 2.5 m in height.

Finds

On the floor of the chamber lay a thick layer of human and animal bones, fishbones, stones and earth. A layer of fire lies under these dumps. Three pits were sunk in the ground. The main chamber's bone layer expanded into the side niches and the aisle. One of the last landfills was in a shallow pit that was sunk into the bone layer opposite the entrance. Artifacts were strewn throughout the bone layer and included shards of at least 34 vessels of the Grooved Ware , flint blades , a hammer ax , club heads, and bone needles.

The excavation revealed the remains of 157 people. If the unexcavated areas contain a similar cluster, it becomes likely that the remains were from about 400 people. The number of people buried allowed a broader investigation of the age of death, and as in the Isbister Cairn there was an extreme shift towards infantile deaths compared to comparable places in Europe .

  • 0 to 2 years (6%)
  • 3 to 12 years (16%)
  • 13 to 19 years (23%)
  • 20 to 29 years (47%)
  • 30 to 39 years (5%)
  • 40 to 50 years (2%)
  • over 50 years (1%)

Round house

The early Iron Age round house ( English Round House ) provided in the edge region of Cairns the neolithischen system is built into it, it has been discovered unexpectedly. It was the first on Orkney and its discovery shed new light on the islands' Broch Age . The early founding date of the house, probably in the 6th or 7th century BC. BC, is supported by both C14 dates and associated pottery.

The round house, which measures around 7.0 m inside, was built by removing part of the hill material on the access side (still recognizable after 2000 years), partly on the old floor area and partly on the cairn material. The wall was originally about 80 cm thick and widened to 1.0 m on the access side in the southeast. The northwest wall overlaid the Neolithic entrance to the Passage tomb, but it is unclear whether this was open during the Iron Age. The remains of a fireplace were found on the northwest side. There have been various changes in the course of the use of the house, such as the installation of partition walls and the reinforcement of the wall.

Finds

Most of the pottery shards and other finds were made in the access area. The ceramic contained a piece with a strongly angled shoulder, analogous to the Early Iron Age material from Jarlshof and Clickhimin on the Shetland Islands . There were also some sandstone pavers and an ivory bracket. A number of animal bones were also found.

literature

  • Anna Ritchie: Orkney and Shetland (= Exploring Scotland's Heritage. ). Published for Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland by HMSO, Edinburgh 1985, ISBN 0-11-492458-9 .
  • James L. Davidson, Audrey S. Henshall: The chambered cairns of Orkney. An inventory of the structures and their contents. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1989, ISBN 0-85224-547-5 , pp. 150-154.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Scheduled Monument - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  2. ^ Rodney Castleden: The Stonehenge People. An Exploration of Life in Neolithic Britain, 4700-2000 BC. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London et al. 1998, ISBN 0-415-04065-5 , p. 198.

Web links

Coordinates: 58 ° 59 ′ 57.6 "  N , 3 ° 0 ′ 54.3"  W.