| Type: | Orkney-Cromarty. Round cairn. Tripartite and Bookan-type chambers. |
| Location: | Map |
| Notes: | The Huntersquoy cairn is situated on the lower slopes of Vinquoy Hill, around 150 metres away from the Vinquoy cairn, which is prominent on the skyline. Like the Taversoe Tuick, Rousay, Huntersquoy was two-storeyed. The structure has been considerably reduced, however, with the only evidence of its upper chamber being two upright stones poking through the turf. Built into the hillside, the second, lower, chamber is complete. Huntersquoy was one of a number of Eday cairns investigated by Charles Calder in 1936/37. He recorded the diameter of the round cairn as c. 11m. Upper chamber In the 1930s, the upper chamber survived to only two or three courses. Its entrance was in the western side of the c11m diameter round cairn. This led to a three-metre-long passage, which was a mere 0.43m wide at the outer end but which widened to 0.66m at the chamber. Enough survived to allow Calder to estimate the chamber was c3.5m long and c2m wide and was divided into three compartments by two pairs of divisional orthostats. A third pair, against the inner wall face, framed the entrance. Between the divisional orthostats were low platforms (c. 0.2-0.3m) which were probably the bases for the bench-like features recorded in other Orcadian stalled cairns. Lower chamber Entirely subterranean, the well-built lower chamber was constructed in a pit cut into the hillside. Although it is usually inaccessible these days – filled with water/mud – its entrance is in the east side of the structure. A partially stone-faced trench, c. 2.58m long, cut through the external cairn material and led to the entrance and the c. 4.1-metre-long access passage. Measuring 0.6m wide at the outer end and 0.75m high, the passage ran at right angles to the chamber and enters the interior at the centre of its eastern wall. Aligned roughly north-south, the chamber is c. 3.9m long and 1.8m high. The natural rock floor of the chamber and passage had been levelled using a layer of clay. The chamber roof was formed by flat slabs and which formed the floor of the upper structure. Two pairs of orthostats project from the western and eastern walls, dividing the lower chamber into a central area and two end cells. The central area is further sub-divided into three, with recesses to the east and west. The western, eastern and northern compartments also had masonry features suggesting the presence of bench-like features. No human remains were found in either chamber, but a few pottery sherds were found in both along with two worked stone tools. Upon excavation the chamber and passage appeared to have been half-filled with stone and earth, implying blocking/decommissioning after use. The presence of a suspected Iron Age pot base on the floor of the lower chamber is intriguing, however, and suggests the infilling of the lower chamber took place some time after the structure went out of use. Some distance to the east of the cairn, beyond its edge and roughly aligned to the entrance, was a hearth associated with peat ash and burnt stone. How this feature relates to the Neolithic structure remains unclear. We have no dates for Huntersquoy. Although one small pottery sherd was suggested to have come from an Unstan Ware bowl [1], this does not necessarily mean an early date for the cairn’s construction and use. Unstan Ware was long thought to have been supplanted, around 3200BC, by Grooved Ware. However, a 2017 re-analysis of Orkney radiocarbon and luminescence dates now suggests that “round-based pottery […] and Grooved Ware […] were almost certainly in contemporaneous use during the thirty-first century cal BC, at the very least.” [3] |
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| References: | [1] Davidson, J. L. & Henshall, A. S. (1989). The Chambered Cairns of Orkney. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [2] Calder, C S T. (1938) Excavations of Three Neolithic Chambered Cairns-One with an Upper and a Lower Chamber-in the Islands of Eday and the Calf of Eday in Orkney. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Volume 72 (1937-38) [3] Bayliss, A., Marshall, P., Richards, C. and Whittle, A. (2017) Islands of History: The Late Neolithic timescape of Orkney. Antiquity, 91(359), pp. 1171–1188.) |
