Monument record 10004 - VS4 South Vatersay

VS4 (NL626946) A group of four, possibly five, circular cairns with substantial kerbs. A is 5.5 m diam. with kerbstones visible around the western perimeter. B is 7.7 m diam. with kerbstones visible around the entire western arc. C is 5 m diam. with occasional kerbstones visible around most of the circumference (Fig. 2.16). D is c. 4 m diam. with only three or four kerbstones visible and appears to have been extensively robbed. E is uncertain. Unlike A-D, which form a more or less straight alignment on a north-south axis, E is located west of A and B and is either much damaged and robbed or else perhaps disturbed and moved stone from the other cairns. If if is the remains of a carin it would be c. 4 m diam. Cairn B was excavated in 1995 and a report appears in Chapter 5.
Brannigan and Foster 2000, 50

NB Cairn B was excavated. Demonstrated that the cairn is certainly a funerary structure, with the construction of the cairn to cover pyre debris, including human bone. Pollen analyses suggests the cairn was constructed in a landscape of mature grassland. The material culture that appeared to have been deliberately incorporated into the cairn included a rubber, an imitation axe, an ard rough-out and possibly a small quantity of chipped stone. Also joining fragments of a bronze cloak fastener was found in the cairn debris, and fifteen sherds of pottery, probably from the same vessel, were found in the deposit immediately below the pyre material. Ian Bailiff of Durham uni carried out an Optically Stimulated Luminescence date on pot sherd - resulted in a date of 3050 years BP =/- 400. The cairn had a remarkably complex sequence of construction with 16 phases represented. RCB 25/4/03

Keith Branigan & Patrick Foster, 2000, From Barra to Berneray: Archaeological Survey and Excavation in the Southern Isles ... (Bibliographic reference). SWE41033.