The Border of Farming and the Cultural Markers - Nordlige Verdener

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The heel shaped cairn with its concave
façade did not represent the end of the
building sequence. Subsequently a large
long cairn was added to the heel-shaped
cairn, with a slightly different orientation
(Fig. 12). The long cairn in its final
appearance then looks like a typical
Caithness long cairn.
The Cairn Tulloch of Assery A not far
from Tulach an t-Sionnaich provides an
example of a round cairn with a passage
grave chamber that has been incorporated
into a cairn of partly heel-shape,
or a horn-shaped cairn, here even a double
horn-shaped cairn (Corcoran 1966;
1972).
Some of the long cairns of Caithness
should hide similar building sequences:
The primary round cairns with their
chambers often being higher than their
long cairn extensions, and the concave
facades or horns with platform arrangements
belonging to subsequent building
phases. The great majority of the long
cairns seem to be composite structures
(Davidson & Henshall 1991: 47 & 55-59).
As an example the long cairn of South
Yarrows North could be mentioned. The
monument appears as two distinct elements,
in the east a pear-shaped cairn
with a complex passage grave chamber,
to the west a long cairn extension. Between
these two elements a gap is visible,
and even though some robbing of stone
material has taken place, the gap is considered
as a possible original feature
(Davidson & Henshall 1991: 140). This
might indicate that the long cairn is a
later addition. At Warehouse South, not
far away from South Yarrows, a steepsided
mound with a complex passage
grave chamber constitutes the northeastern
part of the monument. A rectangular
long cairn extends 37 m southwest
of the chamber. By an early investigation
of the monument remains of a double
wall were found, which seem to
have surrounded the round mound. This
may indicate that the long cairn was a
later addition. A similar situation seems
to be represented at Na Tri Shean, where
a wall face is visible at the edge of the
round cairn element, also indicating that
the long cairn is a later addition (Ibid.:
154-155 & 128-129).
Another arrangement is seen at Camster
Long where two round cairns originally
covered two passage grave chambers.
Later these two round cairns were
incorporated in a horned long cairn with
‘false’ façades. When the two round
cairns with their chambers became enclosed
in the long cairn, access to the
chambers was still required, and the
chamber passages were consequently
extended to the line of the new outer revetment
(Corcoran 1972: 43; Davidson &
Henshall 1991: 96-102).