Monument record 2097 - CUIALACHBEG, BARRA

NL69NW 68 631 994

T180: This megalithic structure is one of eight (possibly nine) similar sites located on the ridge seperating Brettadale from the valley above Dun Ban. Excavation (in 1992) confirmed a megalithic 'enclosure' 9.2m long and 2.8m wide at the W end narrowing to 2m at the E. No deposits or cultural material were found inside the structure which had been built directly on cleared bedrock and subsequently infilled by natural peat formation.
Calibrated radirocarbon dates obtained from samples taken from the base of the blanket peat that accumulated in the structure after its period of use are:
GU-3393 BP 3557-3411 (1608-1462 BC) and
GU-3394 BP 3887-3725 (1938-1776 BC).
These dates should provide a terminus ante quem for the use of the structure as a mortuary enclosure. It is not known what period of time elapsed between its last useage and the buildup of the first peat deposits, nor is there any indication as to how long the structure was in use before its abandonment. In general terms, on the basis of these dates, we can say that the structure was built and used in the late third and early second millennium BC, and is therefore broadly of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age date.
K Branigan 1992; K Branigan and P Foster 1995; NMRS, MS/595/8.

K Branigan, 1992b, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 87 (Bibliographic reference). SWE25416.

K. Brannigan & P. Foster, 1995, Barra: archaeological research on Ben Tangaval from the end of the Ice Age to the Crofting Commissio, 8, 46, 176-83, 201 figs. 5.11, 5.12 and 5.13 (Bibliographic reference). SWE33223.