Cairnpapple Hill
Country:	Scotland
Area:	West Lothian
Translation:	(n/a)
Elevation:	312 metres (1023 feet)
Relative Height:	c. 173 metres
OS Grid Reference:	NS987711 (http://getamap.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/getamap/frames.htm?mapAction=gaz&gazName=g&gazString=NS987711)
OS Landranger Map(s):	65
Listing:	Marilyn

Cairnpapple Hill has a dominating position in central lowland Scotland with views from coast to coast. It was used and re-used as a major ritual site over about 4000 years, and in its day would have been comparable to better known sites like the Stones of Stenness. The summit lies about 2 miles (3 km) north of Bathgate, its height above sea level reaching 1023 ft (312 m). In the 19th century the site was completely concealed by trees, then in 1947-1948 excavations by Stuart Piggott found a series of ritual monuments from successive prehistoric periods. In 1998 Gordon Barclay re-interpreted the site for Historic Scotland.

Neolithic rituals began about 3500 BC with signs of small hearths, and precious objects left on the hill, presumably as offerings, including fine pottery bowls and stone axe heads imported from Cumbria and Wales.

Probably around 2500 BC major henge monuments were constructed with the hilltop being surrounded by a bank outside a ditch about 12 ft (3.5 m) wide cut over 3 ft (1 m) into the rock, with wide entrances from north and south. Inside this an egg-shaped setting of 24 uprights (thought to have been timber posts, or possibly standing stones) enclosed an inner setting of similar uprights.

Some time later a Bronze age rituals added a small stone and clay cairn just off centre inside the monument, with a 7 ft (2 m) high standing stone to the east and a setting of smaller stones. Also aligned to this cairn were sockets for three upright stones at the centre of an arc of seven small pits, six of which contained cremated bones and two contained remains of bone skewer pins. Under the cairn traces were found of at least one burial, with wooden objects (perhaps a mask and club) and beaker people style pottery which indicates a date around 2000 BC.

This cairn was later covered by a second much larger cairn about 50 ft (15 m) across and several yards (metres) high, with a kerb of massive stone slabs, which incorporated Bronze age burial cists, one of which contained a food vessel pot. Subsequently more stone was brought in to increase this cairn to about 100 ft (30 m) diameter, enclosing two cremation burials in inverted urns and now covering the original ditch and bank, making the whole site a tomb monument. Lastly, inside the ditch to the east four graves considered Iron age are now thought to be early Christian because of their east-west alignment, and are dated to around 500 to 1000.

The site is open to the public April to September (check opening times) and has a small visitor centre. The 1940s excavations have been partly covered by a concrete dome replicating the second cairn so that visitors can go inside what was once a solid cairn and see the reconstructed graves, and outside this the surrounding post holes and graves are marked by being filled with colour coded gravel like an archaeological plan.

References

• Scotland Before History - Stuart Piggott, Edinburgh University Press 1982, ISBN -07524-1400-3
• Scotland's Hidden History - Ian Armit, Tempus (in association with Historic Scotland) 1998, ISBN 0-7486-6067-4
• Guide to Prehistoric Scotland - Richard Feachem, B.T.Batsford Ltd. 1977, ISBN 0-7134-3264-0

External links

• Cairnpapple (http://www.mediterranean-archaeology.net/cairnpapple.html)
• Cairnpapple Hill on Undiscovered Scotland (http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/torphichen/cairnpapplehill/)
• Historic Scotland (http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk)