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

Including Report on the Pottery

Abstract

A Neolithic burial cairn contained two separate but contemporary chambers, one above the other. Each chamber had a separate entrance-passage at its floor-level, the openings to them being placed diametrically opposite one another on the circumference of the cairn in a line running east and west. The lower chamber is entirely subterranean, and the upper has been constructed in the mass of the superstructure above the natural level of the ground. Pottery sherds, flints and a broken axe were recovered. A second circular cairn covered a central chamber and passageway. Pottery and stone tools were recovered along with evidence of later Iron Age activity. A third cairn was poorly preserved and had been investigated in the 19th century.