The so-called heel-shaped cairns of Shetland, with remarks on the chambered tombs of Orkney and Shetland

Abstract

In the Orkney Islands the chambered tombs, broadly speaking, fall into two classes, corridor tombs (so-called stalled cairns) and chambered tombs proper. All are passage tombs. In the Shetland Islands great funerary monuments such as occur in\r\nthe Orkneys are nowhere to be seen. Only a relatively small number of chambered cairns exist, and all exhibit, by comparison with the Orkney tombs, features which suggest degeneration, combined, however, with others which might be regarded as archaic. The surviving heel cairns peculiar to Shetland are in poor condition and there is an absence of relics. An account of these monuments is presented and their relationship to other types of chambered cairn is considered.