10 April 2014
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Bronze Age burial cist discovered on Isle of Arran cliff face
A special news report on work carried out by Guard Archaeology at Sannox on the Isle of Arran, where Bronze Age artefacts were recovered from a cliff face. ...
Bronze Age burial cist discovered on Isle of Arran cliff face Images
A special news report on work carried out by Guard Archaeology at Sannox on the Isle of Arran, where Bronze Age artefacts were recovered from a cliff face.
In March 2012, a short stone cist was spotted in the cliff face of a disused quarry at Sannox on the Isle of Arran. The West of Scotland Archaeology Service were alerted, which prompted Historic Scotland to commission Guard Archaeology to undertake a rescue excavation.
The team, led by Iraia Arabaolaza, was working in difficult conditions, and their first job was to clean the exposed section of the eroding face of the sand cliff using a mechanical cherry-picker. This revealed not just one but two cists.
A window into the Bronze Age world
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The subsequent excavation of the cists required the archaeologists to wear harnesses and be tied to a fixed point at all times. However, the team successfully recovered and recorded the archaeological remains and brought them back to Guard's laboratory in Glasgow for specialist analysis, which has now been completed and which provides a window into the complex and varied mortuary practices of early Bronze Age Scotland.
Only one of the cists contained a human cremation, which yielded a radiocarbon date of 2154 - 2026 BC, placing the cist burial in the early Bronze Age. Analysis of the cremated bone, by Iraia, who is also one of Guard Archaeology's Osteoarchaeologists, revealed that it belonged to an adult of indeterminate sex.
The cremated bone was accompanied by a tripartite Food Vessel and scale-flaked flint knife. Bronze Age cremation burials in Scotland are often accompanied by a pottery vessel and a flint knife. Analysis of the knife revealed that this was made from flint from Yorkshire and had probably been used for cutting/sickling grasses or cereals.
One of the questions that the east coast associations of the food vessel and flint knife pose is why they were buried here on the west coast of Scotland? The exact nature of this association is unclear. It could be related to the exchange of materials and objects as well as ideas or immigration.
This work was funded by Historic Scotland, under the terms of their Human Remains Call-off Contract, which was established to provide a rapid response for the recovery of archaeological human remains discovered by members of the public in Scotland. The full results of this research, ARO10: The cliff hanging cists; Sannox Quarry, Isle of Arran has just been published and is now freely available to download from the ARO website.
All images © GUARD Archaeology Ltd
![]()
In March 2012, a short stone cist was spotted in the cliff face of a disused quarry at Sannox on the Isle of Arran. The West of Scotland Archaeology Service were alerted, which prompted Historic Scotland to commission Guard Archaeology to undertake a rescue excavation.
The team, led by Iraia Arabaolaza, was working in difficult conditions, and their first job was to clean the exposed section of the eroding face of the sand cliff using a mechanical cherry-picker. This revealed not just one but two cists.
A window into the Bronze Age world
The subsequent excavation of the cists required the archaeologists to wear harnesses and be tied to a fixed point at all times. However, the team successfully recovered and recorded the archaeological remains and brought them back to Guard's laboratory in Glasgow for specialist analysis, which has now been completed and which provides a window into the complex and varied mortuary practices of early Bronze Age Scotland.
Only one of the cists contained a human cremation, which yielded a radiocarbon date of 2154 - 2026 BC, placing the cist burial in the early Bronze Age. Analysis of the cremated bone, by Iraia, who is also one of Guard Archaeology's Osteoarchaeologists, revealed that it belonged to an adult of indeterminate sex.
The cremated bone was accompanied by a tripartite Food Vessel and scale-flaked flint knife. Bronze Age cremation burials in Scotland are often accompanied by a pottery vessel and a flint knife. Analysis of the knife revealed that this was made from flint from Yorkshire and had probably been used for cutting/sickling grasses or cereals.
One of the questions that the east coast associations of the food vessel and flint knife pose is why they were buried here on the west coast of Scotland? The exact nature of this association is unclear. It could be related to the exchange of materials and objects as well as ideas or immigration.
This work was funded by Historic Scotland, under the terms of their Human Remains Call-off Contract, which was established to provide a rapid response for the recovery of archaeological human remains discovered by members of the public in Scotland. The full results of this research, ARO10: The cliff hanging cists; Sannox Quarry, Isle of Arran has just been published and is now freely available to download from the ARO website.
All images © GUARD Archaeology Ltd
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