Image © AOC
South Yarrows North Chambered Cairn
a Summary
One of a pair, this chambered cairn was built 5000 years ago and used for burying different members of the community over centuries. The cairn had different compartments - the largest visible at one end. Walk along the cairn to identify the distinctive horns at the east and west ends. Ceremonies and rituals may have taken place here before the bodies were placed in the tomb. Like many sites in the area, the cairn was excavated in the 19th and early 20th centuries by Anderson, Shearer, Barry and Nicolson. They found pottery and flint tools along with human remains - offerings for the afterlife.
A bit more...
This cairn is thought to be from the Neolithic period, ie 5000 years old. Originally excavated by Joseph Anderson and Robert Shearer in 1865, it has been visited and recorded by a succession of Scotland's most significant archaeologists since then - Francis Tress-Barry, Joanna Close-Brooks, Audrey Henshall, Roger Mercer, etc.
This 5000 year old burial tomb was used for burying important members of the community. In 1865 Joseph Anderson, then editor of the John o'Groats Journal, and Robert Shearer, factor at Thrumster Estate, recovered human and animal bone, some burnt, from the chambers. Later, a cist was built on the site - a pot and jet beaded necklace placed beside the deceased as an offering. Like many sites across Caithness the cairn had been used as a quarry before the 19th century excavations and since that date the monument continues to decay.
the full details
This is the northern of a pair of chambered cairns at South Yarrows, lying 250m north of its neighbour to the south. The cairn stands on the crest of a broad, heather-grown ridge that slopes gently down from south to north and falls more steeply to the east and west. The cairn measures about 52m by about 17m, increasing to 24m across the horns at its east end and about 11.3m across the horns at the west end. The cairn material rises up to 1.6m in height at the east end, where an axial burial-chamber is visible.
The chamber was originally accessed by way of a passage that ran back into the body of the cairn from the centre of the concave forecourt. This passage measures about 3m in length by 1m in width; its east end has been blocked by crude walling, but at the west end there is a pair of portal stones framing an entrance 0.4m wide into an ante-chamber. The ante-chamber measures 1.6m in length by up to 1.8m in width and at its west end there are a thicker and taller pair of portals stones forming the entrance into the main chamber. The main chamber is constructed of edge-set slabs and drystone walling up to 1.2m in height. According to Joseph Andersonm, the original 1865 excavator, the main chamber was once divided into two compartments by another two upright slabs, but no trace of these are visible today.
The visible remains of this cairn and the documentation that relates to the history of its 'exploration' strongly suggests that the east end of the cairn was originally a free-standing chambered round cairn with its chamber and passage aligned east-west. Later this cairn was extended to the west to form a long cairn, but the axis of the latter is at least 10 degrees to the north of that of the chamber and passage. The difference in height between the E end of the cairn and its tail has been accentuated by erosion in recent times, caused by a trackway that is used by wheeled vehicles crossing the cairn from north to south. The footings of a wall about 35m in length lie immediately east of the cairn.