Monument record MHG33474 - Burial Cairn - Loch Borralie

Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD) undertook an archaeological evaluation of the find spot of a human skull from a cairn at Loch Borralie, Sutherland. Excavation recovered the remains of two burials beneath the cairn and established that the cairn was multi-phased. One individual was an adult male (skeleton 1), while the other was immature and of undeterminable sex (skeleton 2). Both individuals showed signs of ill health, and dogs and/or rats appear to have gnawed their bones. A ring-headed pin was recovered close to skeleton 1 during the excavation. A radiocarbon date was obtained from the left humerus of skeleton 1 of 40 cal BC - cal AD 210 at 2 sigma (OxA-10253).
Excavation revealed that the cairn, broadly subrectangular in form, had a maximum height of 1.2m and was composed of large, sub-angular and sub-rounded rocks (including quartz and quartzite) and occasional rounded cobbles within yellow - orange sand. One inhumation, skeleton 2, lay within an irregular grave, cut through the red brown sand that was sealed by the cairn and into the natural gravel sand below. The other inhumation, skeleton 1, was sealed by the red brown sand and had been placed on a low primary cairn of stone and earth, the full extent and depth of which remains unknown. <1> <2>