Memsie Cairn is an ancient
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 ...
in
Memsie, near
Fraserburgh
Fraserburgh (; ), locally known as the Broch, is a town in Aberdeenshire (unitary), Aberdeenshire, Scotland, with a population recorded in the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census as 13,100. It lies in Buchan in the northeastern corner of th ...
,
Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire (; ) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland.
It takes its name from the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Aberdeenshire (historic), Aberdeenshire, which had substantial ...
, Scotland. It is the last remaining cairn of the .
The
burial 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 ...
was constructed during the
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 ...
and finds from the site suggest it was used up into the
Medieval period
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...
.
It is a
scheduled monument
In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...
managed by
Historic Environment Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland (HES) () is an executive non-departmental public body responsible for investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment. HES was formed in 2015 from the merger of government agency Historic Sc ...
.
[
]
Archaeological Finds
Prior to 1780 a cairn was dug into with human bones found at the centre. Several of the stones had been burnt and almost vitrified
Vitrification (, via French ') is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, that is to say, a non- crystalline or amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses possess a higher degree of connectivity ...
. In 1790 it was reported that a stone cist
In archeology, a cist (; also kist ;
ultimately from ; cognate to ) or cist grave is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the Dead body, bodies of the dead. In some ways, it is similar to the deeper shaft tomb. Examples ...
, flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...
dart-head and a block of flint were found within one of the large cairns.urn
An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape ...
containing calcined bones, several human skulls
The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate.
In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...
, and an iron short sword
The English language terminology used in the classification of swords is imprecise and has varied widely over time. There is no historical dictionary for the universal names, classification, or terminology of swords; a sword was simply a single- ...
with wooden scabbard
A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, dagger, knife, or similar edged weapons. Rifles and other long guns may also be stored in scabbards by horse riders for transportation. Military cavalry and cowboys had scabbards for their saddle ring ...
. The whereabouts of the sword are unknown and may no longer exist.postholes
This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains.
A
B
C
D
E
F
...
, hearth
A hearth () is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial ...
/fire-pit, pit, prehistoric
Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...
pottery sherds
This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains.
A
B
C
D
E
F
...
, and several pieces of struck quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
and flint.
Cairns Of Memsie
The Cairns Of Memsie was a cemetery of burial cairns including three large cairns separated by about 100 metres and contained many smaller cairns.[
Since then two of the cairns have been destroyed and the Memsie Cairn has reduced in size. The robbed stones were likely used as building materials for field boundary walls.][
]
See also
* House of Memsie
* List of Historic Environment Scotland properties
References
{{Scheduled monuments in Scotland
Bronze Age sites in Scotland
Buildings and structures in Aberdeenshire
Archaeological sites in Scotland
Cairns in Scotland
History of Aberdeenshire
Historic Environment Scotland properties in Aberdeenshire
Scheduled monuments in Aberdeenshire