Dig deeper: new archaeological visualisation in Galloway
An enormous pile of stones is all that remains of the ancient chambered cairn of Boreland in Knockman Wood, Galloway.
It was built around six thousand years ago by the Neolithic farming pioneers who made the area their home. Now an innovative new visualisation allows us to imagine what the cairn would have looked like in the past. A code on the interpretation panel links to the online video.
The Neolithic pioneers who arrived in the Atlantic-facing areas of south-west Scotland and the north of Ireland in the centuries around 4000 BC built megalithic monuments now known as Clyde cairns and court tombs respectively.
You can learn more about the story of these ancient, chambered cairns in our archaeological learning resource, The Bare Bones (2023). Writing and illustrating the booklet involved modern laser scan survey, innovative drone photography and creative archaeological visualisation. The reimagining of the Boreland chambered cairn is part of this ongoing work. Archaeologist Marcus Abbott first took hundreds of photographs of the site from the air using a drone. Using these photographs, he then created a 3D model to explain the construction of the site.
Learn more about The Bare Bones learning resource
“The architecture of these chambered cairns suggests their use as both a tomb for the dead, where people placed the deceased in the chambers within the cairn, and a space for the living, where people could pay their respects within the forecourt” explains our archaeologist, Matt Ritchie.
“Of those that survive, some remain clothed, their secrets hidden beneath huge mounds of stone, such as at Boreland in Galloway. Some bear the ravages of time, their features masked by rubble and collapse. Some have been disturbed by treasure-hunters, their chambers ripped open and exposed. Some have been robbed of stone from their covering cairns and survive only as skeletal outlines. And some have been rebuilt as ruins and presented to the public. However, many more have been lost over time, with only a handful recorded as ghostly plans in the pages of antiquarian journals or spectral sketches in the notebooks of their excavators.”
The archaeological study of these chambered cairns can reveal only the bare bones of their story, leaving much to the imagination. They were built by a vibrant ancient society with beliefs, traditions and practices that would seem very strange to us today. Were the ceremonies that accompanied the placing of the dead in these monuments small family affairs or large communal gatherings? Were there drums and chanting, dancing, and trance-like states? Perhaps there were grand fire-lit feasts with songs, speeches, and toasts? Or were there solemn torch-lit processions, arcane rituals, and strange incantations?
“Thinking about how people in the early Neolithic experienced life and death can help us better appreciate our own experience of space, place and community,” adds Matt.
“For while they may be far removed in time from our own ancestors, their lands are our lands, and we are not far removed in place. The chambered cairns of the North Channel remain an important connection between people and place across the millennia – markers of place, then and now.”
How to visit
You can see the new video online – and onsite the next time you’re in Galloway visiting Knockman Wood. This old oakwood is a haven for both wildlife and archaeological sites. The yellow Woodland Trail will take you through oak and hazel woodland toward the ancient, chambered cairn.