A Survey of Prehistoric Monuments in the Black Isle

The Black Isle is in fact a peninsula, 18 miles long by 8 miles wide, bounded on the N. by the Cromarty Firth and on the S. by the Moray Firth.For the purpose of this survey the neck of the peninsula is being taken approximately as the line of the main road joining Dingwall and Beauly.Geologically the Black Isle consists almost entirely of a ridge of Middle Old Red Sandstone, its rounded backbone called the Millbuie running the length of the peninsula and attaining a height of over 800 ft.The region contains some of the best agricultural land in the Highlands and is renowned for both crops and cattle.Situated directly at the N. end of the Great Glen, the importance of such a fertile region in prehistoric times must have been quickly recognised, and we have in fact abundant evidence of its habitation from the Neolithic Period onwards.The fact that the Black Isle is the meeting-place of the Clava group of chambered cairns and the Orkney-Cromarty group, marks it at once as deserving of the closest attention.In addition, the recognition within the region of two single-entrance henge monuments emphasised the necessity for a thorough study of the peninsula as a whole.In view of the foregoing the paucity of published work on the Black Isle came as rather a surprise.Apart from two somewhat scrappy papers by Mr Angus Beaton in 1881-3, and brief descriptions of a few of the larger chambered cairns by Professor Childe in 1943-4, the Proceedings contains only the report on the final excavation of the Callachy Hill cairn by W. MacKenzie in 1907.Recorded finds are likewise rare.Many of the cairns, for example, have been robbed and their contents lost.The great Carn Glas at Kilcoy was opened in the presence of Lord Abercromby in 1906 but no report of the excavation is extant to my knowledge, and the only hint of it came from the presentation to the National Museum of Antiquities many years later of an arrow-head found therein.The fertility of the soil in the peninsula, which has already been referred to, has ensured that agricultural operations have been carried on in the Black Isle from the earliest times, and must have entailed considerable loss to the archaeologist.The removal of stones in order to clear fields for cultivation and to provide material for field drains, dykes and buildings has VOL.LXXXVIII

Archaeology · Art · Geography · Prehistory · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · History

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