Ardnamurchan Transitions Project - 2

In the years they have been working at Swordle, the team has found some 30 archaeological sites, but the main site is the chambered cairn to the east of Swordle Bay House - pictured. This dates back to the Neolithic, perhaps 5,500 to 6,000 years ago - much older than the great pyramid at Giza near Cairo, which is about 4,600 years old.

The oldest event seems to be a cremation, dated at about 3,700BC, which has left blackened earth onto which stones have been piled. In a later event, two 'box chambers' formed of slabs of local stone were found to contain human bones. These were not complete skeletons, but suggested that the bodies had been allowed to decompose, perhaps by being left out in the open in the manner of some North American Indian burials, the remains then being collected together, wrapped, and placed in the tomb. Finding bones in any British burial of this period is unusual - but these are also remarkably well preserved.

A further, complete skeletal body has also been found, buried crouched in a stone box with some Beaker pottery and the claws of a bird of prey, the pottery suggesting that this is Bronze Age. Also of Bronze Age is a 7m diameter kerb cairn faced off with flat, vertically placed rocks, with an entrance and another stone box containing human remains. With this are four beads made of jet, a mineral mined near Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast, evidence of the complexity of trade that was established by this time, some 4,300 years ago.

The team reckons that the site contains almost 2,000 years of Scotland's history. As if this isn't enough, they are hoping to obtain some exceptionally accurate dates from the organic materials they have found. If this happens, then the Swordle Cairn will take a prominent place in Scotland's archaeological history.

The cairn is arrowed in this map