Unstan Chambered Cairn

Unstan is a Neolithic chambered cairn dating from around five thousand years ago. Its rectangular burial chamber is divided into five compartments by upright slabs and reached through a narrow passage from the east. A separate cell opens from the central compartment, combining features of Orkney’s stalled cairns with those of tombs such as Maeshowe. Excavators found human bones in all five compartments and two crouched skeletons in the side cell. These discoveries indicate repeated communal burial, although proposed sequences for moving bones within the tomb remain interpretations. Nineteenth-century investigations also recovered flint objects and fragments of more than twenty pottery bowls. The vessels shared a distinctive design that was subsequently identified in other Orcadian tombs and became known as Unstan Ware. The cairn is consequently important both for its burial architecture and for the archaeological classification of Neolithic pottery. Period: Neolithic; approximately 3000 BC Grid reference: HY 2829 1172 Protection: Source: Historic Environment Scotland, https://www.trove.scot/place/1740 (Open Government Licence). Contains Historic Environment Scotland data licensed under the Open Government Licence; source compiler retained per record. Banner photo: "Orkney - Unstan Cairn (3720947803)" by Greg Willis from Denver, CO, usa, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.