The Clava cairn is a type of

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

circular

chamber tomb A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave (burial), grave. Built from Rock (geology), rock or som ...

cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

, named after the group of three cairns at Balnuaran of Clava, to the east of

Inverness Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. There are about 50 cairns of this type in an area round about Inverness. They fall into two sub-types, one typically consisting of a

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

led

passage grave A passage grave or passage tomb consists of one or more burial chambers covered in earth or stone and having a narrow access passage made of large stones. These structures usually date from the Neolithic Age and are found largely in Western Europ ...

with a single burial chamber linked to the entrance by a short passage and covered with a cairn of stones, with the entrances oriented south west towards midwinter sunset. In the other sub-type an annular ring cairn encloses an apparently unroofed area with no formal means of access from the outside. In both sub-types a

stone circle A stone circle is a ring of megalithic standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially Stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being ...

surrounds the whole tomb and a kerb often runs around the cairn. The heights of the standing stones vary in height so that the tallest fringe the entrance (oriented south west) and the shortest are directly opposite it. When Clava-type tombs still contained burial remains, only one or two bodies appear to have been buried in each, and the lack of access to the second sub-type suggests that there was no intention of re-visiting the dead or communally adding future burials as had been the case with

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

cairn tombs.

Balnuaran of Clava

At Balnuaran of Clava itself there is a group of three

cairns which lie close together in a line running north east to south west. The tombs at either end are of the

sub-type. The central cairn is of the ring cairn sub-type, and uniquely has stone paths or causeways forming "''rays''" radiating out from the platform round the kerbs to three of the standing stones. The cairns incorporate

cup and ring mark Cup and ring marks or cup marks are a form of prehistoric art found in the Atlantic seaboard of Europe (Ireland, Wales, Northern England, Scotland, France (Brittany), Portugal, and Spain (Galicia (Spain), Galicia) – and in Mediterranean Europe ...

stones, carved before they were built into the structures. The kerb stones are graded in size and selected for colour, so that the stones are larger and redder to the south west, and smaller and whiter to the north east. All these elements seem to have been constructed as one operation and indicate a complex design rather than ''ad hoc'' additions. *

References

* Scotland Before History – Stuart Piggott, Birlinn Limited (1995), * Scotland's Hidden History – Ian Armit, Tempus (in association with Historic Scotland) 1998, * Sun, Moon and Standing Stones – John Edwin Wood, Oxford University Press 1978, {{coord, 57.47367, N, 4.07435, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(NH757445), display=title 3rd-millennium BC architecture in Scotland Chambered cairns in Scotland Archaeological sites in Highland (council area) Archaeology of death Bronze Age Scotland Historic Environment Scotland properties in Highland