page_title: Chambered cairn
section_title: Clyde-Carlingford court cairns
hierarchical_section_title: Chambered cairn / Scotland / Clyde-Carlingford court cairns
caption_attribution_description: Cairnholy II Chambered Cairn
context_page_description: A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves. They are found throughout Britain and Ireland, with the largest number in Scotland.
  Typically, the chamber is larger than a cist, and will contain a larger number of interments, which are either excarnated bones or inhumations. Most were situated near a settlement, and served as that community's "graveyard".
context_section_description: The Clyde or Clyde-Carlingford type are principally found in northern and western Ireland and southwestern Scotland. They first were identified as a separate group in the Firth of Clyde region, hence the name. Over 100 have been identified in Scotland alone. Lacking a significant passage, they are a form of gallery grave. The burial chamber is normally located at one end of a rectangular or trapezoidal cairn, while a roofless, semi-circular forecourt at the entrance provided access from the outside (although the entrance itself was often blocked), and gives this type of chambered cairn its alternate name of court tomb or court cairn. These forecourts are typically fronted by large stones and it is thought the area in front of the cairn was used for public rituals of some kind. The chambers were created from large stones set on end, roofed with large flat stones and often sub-divided by slabs into small compartments. They are generally considered to be the earliest in Scotland.
  Examples include Cairn Holy I and Cairn Holy II near Newton Stewart, a cairn at Port Charlotte, Islay, which dates to 3900–4000 BC, and Monamore, or Meallach's Grave, Arran, which may date from the early fifth millennium BC. Excavations at the Mid Gleniron cairns near Cairnholy revealed a multi-period construction which shed light on the development of this class of chambered cairn.
caption: Cairnholy II – a chambered cairn near Newton Stewart.
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix F455", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix F455    Ver1.00", "Image DateTime": "2007:08:10 16:54:29", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "294", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9701", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/420", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:08:10 16:54:29", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:08:10 16:54:29", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "87/10", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "7", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1146", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "4545", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "4545", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}