Monument record 53 - BHALTOS, Uig, Lewis

NB03NE 11 0995 3639.

The cairn at Cnip was noted by R B K Stevenson in 1972 and again by W F Cormack in 1973 (see NB03NE 14). It may be one of the sites seen "near Berie Beach" in 1936 by Lacaille (1937), but his directions are vague. In 1972 only part of the cairn showed through the sand as an irregular oval of boulders, and this led Stevenson to suggest that it might be a Viking grave, and to recommend excavation before it eroded further.
It was excavated in 1976 and 1978 and proved to be a Bronze Age cairn of three periods, each associated with a burial, overlying a ploughed soil. The first burial was an inhumation in a short cist under an unusual D-shaped cairn with a well-defined kerb. This cairn was disturbed when a hole was dug through it for a small corbelled cist containg a cremation urn. Finally a kerb cairn with two concentric kerbs was built over the earlier structures. Within the central ring of the kerb cairn was an un-urned cremation burial.
J Close-Brooks 1995

no. 2
This is the site of a small Bronze Age kerb cairn excavated in 1976 and 1978 by Dr Joanna Close-Brooks and shortly to be published (Close-Brooks forthcoming). The ciarn was found to contain three burial phases. It overlies a buried organic soil which contained ard marks. The site was originally exposed in the eroding sand dune section which is presently progressing up Cnip headland. In the fifteen years since excavation, the erosion face has progressed rapidly in the surrounding area and has moved by an estimated 10m. At the same time, the cairn has been uundercut by sand deflation and the kerbstones are now collapsing . In 1992 a further Bronze Age burial in a corbelled cist, which was not exposed during the 1970s excavations, was excavated by the Centre for Field ARchaeology (Dunwell forthcoming).
Armit 1992, 39hh

60: NB 0998 3636
Kerbed cairn
Remains of the kerb cairn excavated by Close Brookes and the 1970s. Erosion is occurring at all points (sand deflation) and at present th eedge of the eroding scar is 15m west of the kerb.
Burgess & Church 1996, 35

A D Lacaille, 1936-7a, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 279-82 (Bibliographic reference). SWE3582.

J Close-Brooks, 1976, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 56-7 (Bibliographic reference). SWE13564.

PSAS, 1978-80, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 535 (Bibliographic reference). SWE8442.

J Close-Brooks, 1978c, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 34 (Bibliographic reference). SWE13565.

J Close-Brooks, 1978d, Proc Prehist Soc, 446 (Bibliographic reference). SWE13566.

Ian Armit, 1992, Archaeological Field Survey of the Bhaltos (Valtos) Peninsula, Lewis (Bibliographic reference). SWE41031.

I Armit, 1994, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, No.2, 74, 75, 91 (Bibliographic reference). SWE34817.

A J, T and T G Dunwell, Neighb, 1995, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 279, 287 (Bibliographic reference). SWE36228.

Joanna Close-Brooks, 1995b, Proc Soc Antiq Scot (Bibliographic reference). SWE36227.

Christopher Burgess and Michael Church, 1996, Uig Landscape Survey: Interim Report 1 (Unpublished document). SWE41181.