Monument record MHG356 - Stone Working Site, Cul na Croise

Summary

Stone working site containing a considerable number and variety of lithics alongside beaker and later pottery.

Location

Grid reference Centred NM 6228 6967 (422m by 644m) (Buffered by site type)
Map sheet NM66NW
Old County ARGYLL
Geographical Area LOCHABER

Map

Type and Period (1)

Full Description

Centred 622 698.

The material from Drynan Bay is predominantly of quartz, but contains a variety of flint implements including parallel-sided and leaf-shaped blades, scrapers, pebble- choppers and several microlithic blades and cores.
Artifacts from here, including fragments of All-Over-Corded Beaker and later pottery, are in the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge (Acc No: 51.1047); the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow (Acc No: B.1951, 258-83); and the NMAS (Acc Nos: ACA 29-40, 309-11).
Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1963; 1978; J N G Ritchie 1973; RCAHMS 1980.

Drynan Bay is the local name for Cul na Croise (NM 622 698) and the bays to the SW as far as Camas an Lighe (NM 623 690) an area of shifting sands; otherwise no further information.
Visited by OS (R L) 28 May 1970.

Sherds of beaker pottery, leaf-shaped and barbed-and- tanged arrowheads, minute round scrapers, and many small pointed narrow blades, and a few microliths were found in the sand dunes behind Cul na Croise (NM 622 698) by Lethbridge in 1924.
Lacaille (1954) also notes that large quantities of flints found in the sand dunes of Drynan Bay indicate the presence of a flint-knapping site there. The finds included Obanian flakes, blades and scrapers, pick-like tools and other artifacts of a Larnian type, and some flints retouched in a characteristic Bronze Age way, while other blades had been worked by micro-burins in the Tardonensian manner. Lacaille concludes that these finds, which cannot pre-date the Bronze Age, indicate a survival of mesolithic traditions into that period, by a coming together of descendants of the Obanians and those of a later stage of development.
T C Lethbridge 1925; A D Lacaille 1954.

Sources/Archives (6)

  • --- Text/Publication/Volume: Lacaille, A D. 1954. The Stone Age in Scotland. 291-5; illust.
  • --- Text/Publication/Article: Lethbridge, T C. 1925. 'Battle site in Gorten Bay, Kentra, Ardnamurchan', Proc Soc Antiq Scot Vol. 59 1924-5, p.105-8. Proc Soc Antiq Scot. 105-8. 106.
  • --- Text/Report: RCAHMS. 1980. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Argyll: an inventory of the monuments volume 3: Mull, Tiree, Coll and Northern Argyll (excluding the early medieval and later monuments of Iona). . 4, 15.
  • --- Text/Publication/Article: PSAS. 1963. 'Donations to and purchases for the Museum and Library', Proc Soc Antiq Scot Vol. 94 1960-1, p.327-35. Proc Soc Antiq Scot. 327-35. 327.
  • --- Text/Publication/Article: PSAS. 1978. 'Donations to and purchases for the Museum and Library', Proc Soc Antiq Scot Vol. 107 1975-6, p.333-40. Proc Soc Antiq Scot. 333-40. 333, No. 5.
  • --- Text/Publication/Article: Ritchie, J N G. 1973. 'Excavation of the chambered cairn at Achnacreebeag', Proc Soc Antiq Scot Vol. 102 1969-70, p.31-55. Proc Soc Antiq Scot. 31-55. 43, 51-2.

Finds (13)

Protected Status/Designation

  • None recorded

Related Monuments/Buildings (0)

Related Events/Activities (0)

Record last edited

Mar 21 2017 3:11PM

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