The Border of Farming and the Cultural Markers - Nordlige Verdener

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incorporated in a short straight-sided
long cairn with a megalithic concave
façade at the northern end. A third
chamber, set between the oval cairns,
appears to have been built contemporaneously
with the long cairn (Corcoran
1972: 36). Here, apparently, a concave
façade is an addition to a chamber in a
round cairn.
A similar arrangement, though only with
one chamber, has been observed much
further north along the west coast of
Scotland, in the cairn at Balvraid near
Glenelg, West Inverness-shire (Fig. 10).
The original structure was a passage
tomb, enclosed in a circular cairn, to
which an almost square cairn with a
slightly concave façade had been added
(Corcoran 1972: 34-35).
Caithness, multi-period
construction
One of the most interesting megalithic
tombs showing multi-period construction
is the long cairn of Tulach an t-Sionnaich
at the northern Caithness coast,
excavated during 1961 (Corcoran 1966:
1-22; Corcoran 1972: 32-34; Henshall
1991:146-149). The primary structure
was a round cairn with a rectangular
passage grave chamber to which a heelshaped
cairn with a concave façade had
been added. The term ‘heel-shaped’ refers
to the shape of a shoe’s heel, the
oval/roundish cairn with its concave
Fig. 10: Balvraid, Inverness-shire, west coast,
Scotland. A small round cairn has been incorporated
in a larger cairn with a façade. After Corcoran
1972.
façade making this shape (Fig. 11). Corcoran
expresses himself as follows:
“There is nothing to suggest, however,
that the heel-shaped structure at Tulach
an t-Sionnaich was not added to a circular
cairn after the latter had already enjoyed
an independent, although possibly
short, existence. Without the heelshaped
structure the latter is a simple
Passage Grave, set in a circular cairn…”
(Corcoran 1966: 16). Naturally it should
be a matter of debate how much time
has elapsed between building the round
cairn and the subsequent addition of the
heel-shaped cairn with its concave
façade – 10 years, 50 years, 100 years,
or more – The multi-period construction
of the heel shaped cairn at Tulach
an t-Sionnaich might even consist of