Clava Cairns
The Highlands of Scotland has a number of carins dotted around the landscape - ancient ceremonial sites later used for burials.
However, Clava Cairns is one of the most remarkable and accessible examples of cairns in Scotland.
The site was developed as part of a general Neolithic building program that gripped the UK between around 4000-3000 BC, with stone circles and burial mounds appearing in most areas.
The site at Clava Cairns - more properly known as the Prehistoric Burial Cairns of Balnuaran of Clava - is focused on 3 still relatively intact cairns lined along the a valley following the River Nairn south east of Inverness.
Two of the Cairns have entranceways, but intriguingly, one of them has no apparent entrance. There are also stone cricles built around some of these cairns.
Those with entrances are obviously aligned towards the rising of the sun above the valley for the Winter Solstice, and if you visit on a sunny Winter’s day and stand in the entrances you can begin to get some kind of feel for their effect.
Bearing in mind the fact that the inside of the cairns were lined with quartz and it becomes easy to envisage these being used for a unique birthing ceremony - that of the birth of the sun renewed in mid-Winter.
The cairns themselves are set in a shallow valley, and a viaduct for the Inverness railway strides the setting behind the stones.
There are a few cairns we’ve visited in Scotland so far, but Clava Cairns is not simply the most extant we’ve seen so far - but also the most atmospheric.
Stone cricles surround some of the cairns:
The cairns themselves are still relatively extant:
Inside the cairns shows a good level of preservation:
A low winter sun can make for a very effective viewing experience:
