More information : NZ 0010 3971 and NZ 0012 3979 Mounds and Tumuli. (1) Situated at NZ 0009 3979 is a heather covered cairn 6m in diameter and 0.6m high. Two stones on edge in the SW are probably the remains of a kerb. The NE of the cairn has been mutilated by an excavation, the debris being dumped outside in the NNE. The centre is still intact. Surveyed at 1:2500. At NZ 008 3982 is a heather covered stony mound, 4m in diameter and 0.5m high; this along with a few probable stone clearance heaps to the SE represent the remains of a slight field system though no other traces are evident. (2)
NZ 0010 3971. Crawley Edge. Twenty seven mounds ranging in size from 8.50m diameter and 0.75m high to 1.8m diameter and 0.22m high. (3) NZ 0010 3971 Crawley Edge. One large slightly damaged cairn (NZ 0009 3972) and one small cairn, excavated from at least 27 cairns, all around 330m OD, and ranging in diameter from 0.74m to 8m. Excavation of the large cairn revealed a basal layer of boulders and a kerb 4.8m E-W by 4.2m N-S. A disturbed cist was found in the SW quadrant, to the E of which was grey loamy soil containing charcoal, 3 small tubular shale beads (late Neolithic/ early Bronze Age) and several fragments of bone (tentatively animal but some possibly human). In the centre of the sub-circular stone setting was a sub-rectangular pit about 0.7m in each direction, slab-lined on the S and W sides and containing an upright urn with clay packing. A broken saddle quern was also found in the mound and a scatter of charcoal on the soil surface below the cairn may suggest clearance prior to its building. Several flint implements and flakes from the cairn and surrounding soil surface were also found. The second small cairn to the north, a separate entity, was excavated down to the mineral soil but no features were observed in or beneath it (4a-b). (4) The 'large' cairn at NZ 0009 3979 has been completely excavated revealing a complex structure (see GPS) consisting of (a) a kerb of boulders on the natural surface (apparently not earthfast) giving an external diameter of 5m ENE-WSW by 3.8m transversely (see sketch). There is now no trace of internal features. The original cairn was extended by adding another kerb (b) onto its S side thus giving overall dimensions of 6.4m NNW-SSE by about 5.5m transversely. A 'cist' (c) made from about 8 boulders is set up against the outside of the original kerb in the SE of the extension and possibly another (d) where the two kerbs join (with a definite kink) in the SW.
(See GPs from the W and NE) There is no trace of the 'small' cairn excavation which was almost certainly a clearance heap and nowhere could a 'cairn' be found answering to the largest dimension of 8m. The mound at NZ 0008 3982 is untouched. Situated at NY 9974 4017 is another similar, partly heather covered, stoney mound (see GP), 5.5m diameter 0.5 maximum height, slightly 'howked' in its centre but apparently undisturbed. It is possible that this is a burial cairn but most probably it is no more than a larger clearance heap as several similar but smaller mounds are evident about 20-30m to the south of it. From here, SE along the ridge to the cairn at NZ 0009 3979, are traces of a field system with occasional stone clearance heaps about 1m to 4m diameter, though no fields, walls or lynchets. Published survey (1:2500) Revised. Field System delineated on 1:10 000 trace. (5)
The cairnfield, centred at NZ 000 397, was surveyed at 1:1000 by RCHME in 1984. The cairnfield lies on the gentle S and SE-facing slopes of a hill-spur in open moorland. Forty-two heather-covered cairns were identified, two of which had been excavated by Young and Welfare in the 1970s. The cairn at NZ 0009 3979, in which the cist and pit containing an enlarged food vessel were found, is still exposed. About 3m to the N, the site of the other excavated cairn, which contained no structural remains, is marked by the top of a large earthfast boulder. The remaining mounds of stones vary from about 1.5m to 7.5m in diameter and from 0.1 to 0.7m in height; almost all are roughly circular and none have a definite kerb. They appear to be no more than stone clearance heaps. It is possible, however, that four of the largest mounds may be sepulchral; two appear to have been robbed, but no internal features are evident. Full information is available in the NMR Archive. (6)
The site was re-visited by RCHME in 1991. There was no sign of any change since the survey of 1984. (7)
A full excavation report with plans, sections and photographs has been published. (8)
|