Clava
Burial chambers of the Neolithic
In the Neolithic - the New
Stone Age, the older you were, the more important you were, and thus
logically the dead were the most important of all. Ancestor worship
became the centre of people's lives, and great emphasis was placed
on the burial of the dead.
Magnificent tombs where therefore
built as houses for the dead. Some of the finest of these are the
Clava cairns, in North East Scotland, near Inverness.
Here stone chambers were built, and
then stones were built up around them to form a mound, and a long
passage was constructed so that the tombs could be entered again and
again. But when were they built, and what was their meaning?
Professor Richard Bradley has been excavating there to find out ...
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The north-east chamber
The best idea of a chambered tomb can perhaps be obtained from this
high-level view of the northern-most tomb, here stripped by the
excavators. The passage can clearly be seen leading into the
circular chamber at the centre.
Note that the cairn is surrounded by a platform which has been
partly excavated. There is also a ring of standing stones around the
cairn, some of which can be seen in the background
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Stone circles are generally considered to be 'Bronze Age' rather
than 'Neolithic' so perhaps this suggests that these tombs are very
late in the Neolithic. |
The south-western cairn
At the other end of the Clava complex is another chambered
tomb, like the first, also open to the public. This view looks
down the passage from ground floor level, into the central
circular chamber.
Note the ring of large stones round the cairn, holding it in
position. This is very similar to the first cairn, which is just
in front of the trees in the background. |
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Plan of Clava
The two cairns at Clava, with the ring cairn between them
At Clava, two main tombs are laid out,
open to the visitor, one at each end of the complex. Both have
their entrance passage pointing in the same direction, so that on
Mid-winter's day, the rays of the setting sun point right down the
passage.
Between
the two main cairns is a monument of a rather different type
known as a ring cairn. Here there is no entrance passage, and at
the centre, instead of a closed chamber there is an open unroofed area
where ceremonies could take place.
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The ring cairn
The ring cairn at Clava under
excavation. The second stone in from the bottom left has
some 'cupmarks'
near the bottom, small circular depressions, laboriously carved out for some ritual purpose.
The recent
radiocarbon dates show that the tombs were much later
than expected: instead of being at the very
beginning of the Neolithic, they come right at the very
end, at around 2,000 BC.
They also confirm that the whole cemetery was built
at much the same time, in a single operation.
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This is based on a fuller account in
Current Archaeology 148.
Created: 30th March 1999 |