<< Our Photo Pages >> Battle Moss Stone Rows - Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue in Scotland in Caithness

Submitted by Andy B on Tuesday, 04 July 2006  Page Views: 10349

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Battle Moss Stone Rows Alternative Name: Loch Of Yarrows
Country: Scotland County: Caithness Type: Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue
Nearest Town: Wick  Nearest Village: Ulbster
Map Ref: ND3128644027  Landranger Map Number: 11
Latitude: 58.379261N  Longitude: 3.176645W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 2 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 5

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SandyG visited on 2nd Sep 2016 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 2 Car parking is available at ND 30598 43565. This car park serves the Loch of Yarrows Archaeological Trail. Follow the path downhill towards the loch passing a broch on your left at ND 30831 43495. Follow the side of the loch to ND 31275 44000 where a gate provides access to the stone row. There are several broadly contemporary archaeological sites in the area which are all worth visiting.

SolarMegalith visited on 21st Jul 2011 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 3

Andy B have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3 Ambience: 4 Access: 2.5

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SolarMegalith : One of the eight stone rows at Battle Moss - view from the west (photo taken on July 2011). (Vote or comment on this photo)
Multiple Stone Rows in Highland. Located on the eastern shore of the Loch of Yarrows, 100m from the modern loch edge (ND 312440). It is one of only 23 such monuments known in Scotland and they are unique to Caithness and Sutherland. It comprises eight roughly parallel rows of small upright stone slabs (no more than 50cm high), and originally total at least 160 stones. Perhaps only 100 survive today.

The site is located around 7km to the north of the most famous of these monuments, the Hill O’Many Stanes, at Mid Clyth (ND 295384). This site is on a larger scale to Battle Moss, containing several hundred stones arranged in two adjacent ‘fan-shaped’ settings. Over 200 stones still survive on the small hill, with the settings tapering towards the top of the slope. This monument is under the guardianship of Historic Scotland and is signposted from the A99.

Update September 2019: These stone rows are recorded as Canmore ID 9021, which includes extensive notes about the sites, and also gives details of the 2006 excavations.

The rows are also featured on the Stone Rows of Great Britain website - see their entry for Battle Moss, Loch Of Yarrows, which includes a description, photographs, plans of the alignments, a discussion about their landscape context and the visual changes that take place as you walk along them, plus access information.

The SRoGB also includes a separate page which discusses and illustrates the sea views, which extend as far as the Orkney Islands; see Sea Views at Battle Moss, Loch of Yarrows.

Note: New excavations announced, see comment
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Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SandyG : View from above and north (Scale 1m). 2 September 2016. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SandyG (Vote or comment on this photo)

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SandyG : Limited, but very helpful clearance of the vegetation made it possible to see some of the tiny stones (Scale 1m). 2 September 2016. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SandyG : Most of the stones within the rows are tiny (Scale 1m). 2 September 2016. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SandyG : This is one of the largest stones. Many of the stones within the rows are edge set slabs (Scale 1m). 2 September 2016. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SandyG : Looking northward along one of the rows towards the associated cairn (Scale 1m). 2 September 2016.

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SandyG : Looking south along one of the rows (Scale 1m). Someone had kindly cut away some of the rushes. 2 September 2016.

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by dodomad : The dig at Battle Moss stone row this summer. Photo Credit: Joseph Anderson 150 Festival

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by dodomad : A spectacular end to the 2015 prehistory festival. More photos here. Photo Credit: Joseph Anderson 150 Festival

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by dodomad : The reconstructed Bronze Age stone row being built for last Saturday's Prehistoric Festival at the Loch of Yarrows. More details of the festival here. Photo Credit: Joseph Anderson 150 Festival

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by durhamnature : Plan of the stone rows, from "Scotland in Pagan Times" via archive.org

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SolarMegalith : Battle Moss stone rows and Loch of Yarrows with a broch visible in the background - view from the NE (photo taken on July 2011).

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SolarMegalith : Clearly visible two aligned stone rows - view from the north (photo taken on July 2011).

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by SolarMegalith : Stone rows at Battle Moss - view from the SW (photo taken on July 2011).

Battle Moss Stone Rows
Battle Moss Stone Rows submitted by Andy B : Very difficult to find, even with a map. Realising I was on the wrong side of the loch, and the other side was very marshy, I took this above telephoto shot of the row and gave up. Unless you are very dedicated, stick to the more impressive Hill O' Many Stanes nearby. (1 comment)

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 191m NW 313° Loch of Yarrows Crannog* Crannog (ND3114944161)
 701m S 172° Battle Moss Cairns* Cairn (ND31374333)
 701m SW 219° South Yarrows Broch* Broch or Nuraghe (ND3083043492)
 738m SSE 153° McCole's Castle* Chambered Cairn (ND3161243364)
 888m SSW 200° South Yarrows round house* Ancient Village or Settlement (ND30964320)
 971m SW 233° South Yarrows Chambered Cairn* Chambered Cairn (ND3049343462)
 979m SSE 158° Whiteleen Standing Stones* Standing Stones (ND3163743111)
 1.0km SSE 158° Whiteleen Cairn* Cairn (ND3165743081)
 1.2km SW 223° South Yarrows Long Cairn* Chambered Cairn (ND3048343193)
 1.2km ESE 117° Brounaban* Broch or Nuraghe (ND3231243478)
 1.7km ESE 106° Borrowston Broch* Broch or Nuraghe (ND3288143536)
 1.8km S 178° Watenan West* Stone Row / Alignment (ND31324218)
 1.9km SSW 201° Warehouse North* Chambered Cairn (ND3056742276)
 2.0km SSW 205° Yarrows Fort* Hillfort (ND3041342265)
 2.0km SSE 167° Watenan East* Stone Row / Alignment (ND31724204)
 2.0km SSW 203° Warehouse Standing Stone* Standing Stone (Menhir) (ND3046242147)
 2.1km SSW 201° Warehouse West* Cairn (ND3050742107)
 2.1km SSW 199° Warehouse South* Chambered Cairn (ND3057342081)
 2.2km ENE 61° Thrumster Mains* Broch or Nuraghe (ND3319545059)
 2.4km E 80° Gansclet Broch Broch or Nuraghe (ND3362744415)
 2.6km SSE 168° Watenan North Broch Broch or Nuraghe (ND3180441456)
 2.6km ENE 73° Gansclet Standing Stone* Standing Stone (Menhir) (ND33824473)
 2.6km S 180° Garrywhin Fort* Hillfort (ND3125341377)
 2.7km SSE 147° Heatherquoy Broch or Nuraghe (ND3271341714)
 2.7km S 177° Garrywhin Multiple Stone Rows* Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue (ND3138241291)
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Caithness Archaeology: Aspects of Prehistory

Caithness Archaeology: Aspects of Prehistory

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Re: Loch Of Yarrows (Battle Moss) Stone Rows to be excavated by Andy B on Tuesday, 13 March 2018
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The Multiple Stone Rows of Northern Scotland Project (MSRNSP) ran between 2003 and 2007 with objective of offering an archaeological explanation for the role, date and development of these monuments. The project offered a combination of traditional and innovative field approaches to these monuments, beginning with the first ever formal excavation of one these monuments in 2003-2005. Excavations and geophysical survey at Battle Moss investigated the standing stones themselves, and also revealed a previously unknown kerb cairn just to the north of the rows.

As well as this work, site visits and new surveys were carried out, and a comprehensive site list was compiled. Much of the fieldwork was explicitly phenomenological, while aspects of landscape setting, and the materiality of the rows, were considered. Attempts have also been made to discover the sources of the standing stones themselves. Although the project was unable to demonstrate the exact date of the Battle Moss rows, we have been able to argue that these monuments were significant and evolving communal memorials in the Bronze Age, very much fitted in the distinctive landscapes within which they sit. The discovery of the multi-phase Battle Moss cairn, with a fine pottery assemblage, has added another dimension to our understanding of the rows, and the Bronze Age of Caithness.

The project was directed by Kenneth Brophy, Andrew Baines and Amelia Pannett, who have jointly authored a monograph on the project entitled Megalithic Overkill [to be] published by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 2012.

More at
https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/research/archaeologyresearch/projects/multiplestonerows/
[ Reply to This ]
    The transmission of an idea: multiple stone rows beyond Scotland by Andy B on Tuesday, 13 March 2018
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    It is one of the great mysteries of multiple stone rows that such sites, which are so remarkably similar, occur in such isolated and distant locations within Britain – indeed it would have been almost impossible to find two locations within the mainland that are further apart than Dartmoor and Caithness. Yet the multiples in these locations (largely in the form of triple rows in SW England) have many similarities in terms of form, landscape location and Bronze Age associations. The next phase of research into multiple stone rows will be to consider some very simple questions that may have complex, and important, answers:

    • Why do such similar monuments occur within this peculiar distribution?
    • Are the MSRs in northern Scotland and SW England contemporary?
    • Is this a product of diffusion, coincidence or the transmission of an idea?
    • Can we explain the origins of these monument styles in different ways?
    • Can monument styles evolve, and if so, what from, and how?
    • How are monument styles transmitted? As ideas, or through the movement of people?

    Some of these questions are the subject of current PhD research by Alex Carnes in Glasgow, and form the basis of a developing research project.

    https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/research/archaeologyresearch/projects/multiplestonerows/
    [ Reply to This ]
      Re: The transmission of an idea: multiple stone rows beyond Scotland by Andy B on Tuesday, 13 March 2018
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      From longhouse to stone rows: The competitive assertion of ancestral affinities. Carnes, Alexander (2012) PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.
      Due to Embargo and/or Third Party Copyright restrictions, this thesis is not available in this service.

      The centrepiece of this thesis is a comparative study of the stone rows of Dartmoor and northern Scotland, a rare, putatively Bronze Age megalithic typology. It is argued that these should be defined as cairn-and-rows monuments that ‘symbolise’ long mounds, and avenues in the case of Dartmoor — a circumstance that ‘explains’ the interregional similarities; other aspects of their semantic structures are also analysed using rigorous semiotic theory. An evolutionary approach is taken, drawing on biological theory to explain the active role of these monuments in social evolution, and to understand the processes at work in producing long term change in monument traditions. New theory is developed for analysing such archaeological sequences, and for understanding and explaining material culture in general. The concepts of adaptation and environment in archaeological theory to date are criticised, and environmental construction theory, and aspects of the Extended Phenotype theory, are forwarded as alternatives. The local sequences are contextualised by examining European megalithic origins, tracing the long mound ‘concept’ back to the Bandkeramik longhouses. The question of diffusion or convergence is tackled by examining the mechanisms at work during the transitions from longhouse to long mound and then to the cairn-and-rows; the explanations forwarded for the social function of the monuments is integrated with mechanisms for explaining their spread (or ‘diffusion’). It is argued that all of these related forms — longhouses, long mounds, and the cairn-and-rows — are implicated in a process of competitively asserting ancestral affinities, which explains the constraint on cultural variation, and thus the formation of remarkably stable monument traditions, and the convergence between Dartmoor and northern Scotland in the Early Bronze Age.

      http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3803/

      The Evolution of Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscapes: from Danubian Longhouses to the Stone Rows of Dartmoor and Northern Scotland, Alex Carnes. ix+165 pages; illustrated throughout in black and white. 2014. Available both in printed and e-versions.

      At the heart of this book is a comparative study of the stone rows of Dartmoor and northern Scotland, a rare, putatively Bronze Age megalithic typology that has mystified archaeologists for over a century. It is argued that these are ‘symbols’ of Neolithic long mounds, a circumstance that accounts for the interregional similarities; other aspects of their semantic structures are also analysed using rigorous semiotic theory. The research presented here takes an evolutionary approach, drawing on biological theory to explain the active role of these monuments in social evolution and to investigate the processes at work in the development of prehistoric landscapes. New theory is developed for analysing such archaeological sequences, and for understanding and explaining material culture more generally. The local sequences are contextualised by examining European megalithic origins, tracing the long mound concept back to the LBK longhouses. It is argued that all of these related forms — longhouses, long mounds, and stone rows — are implicated in a process of competitively asserting ancestral affinities, which explains the constraint on cultural variation, and thus the formation of remarkably stable monument traditions, that led to the convergence between Dartmoor and northern Scotland in the Early Bronze Age.

      http://www.archaeopress.com/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id=%7BFFEEA83C-B19D-4FF6-8A40-7DBCE6627E94%7D
      [ Reply to This ]

Yarrows Prehistoric Festival and Joseph Anderson 150 project by Andy B on Wednesday, 31 August 2016
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The 2016 prehistoric festival took place on Saturday 27th August at North Yarrows, on the northern side of the Loch of Yarrows and in the centre of the Yarrows Prehistoric Landscape.

The festival was a showcase of traditional skills and techniques, including flint knapping and copper smelting by James Dilley of Ancient Craft http://www.ancientcraft.co.uk , pottery, spinning and dyeing, and wicker basketry with skilled craftspeople doing demonstrations and impromptu workshops for anyone interested in trying their hand at something new. There was also storyteller, Bob Pegg http://www.bobpegg.com who entertained all with tales of mysterious creatures and prehistoric lives, accompanied by the sounds of traditional musical instruments . For food lovers there was food foraged from the local landscape and cooked in a traditional way by Rosie from Wild Rose Escapes http://www.wildrose-escapes.co.uk

The event included a display of experimental archaeology and experimental ceramic sculpture. A reconstructed Bronze Age stone row and sculpture kiln cairn provided the focus for the festival. The stone row was built by the excavators of nearby Battle Moss stone row and attempted to replicate construction techniques not tried in 3000 years. The kiln cairn was built by Jenny MacKenzie Ross of Northshore Pottery and mimiced the burial cairns often associated with stone rows – see Jenny’s blog for more details. https://northshorepottery.co.uk/2016/07/26/the-kiln-cairn-a-sculpture-event-for-pre-history-festival/

The culmination of the festival was a nighttime spectacular centred on the firing of the kiln cairn and a performance of a traditional story by Bob Pegg and the children of Thrumster Primary School.

Catering was by the Whaligoe Steps Cafe, and visitors enjoyed Karen’s delicious food and soaked up the prehistoric atmosphere!

More details here
http://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/anderson150/
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Battle Moss by Andy B on Saturday, 12 March 2011
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Image an plan at
http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/search_item/index.php?service=RCAHMS&id=9021
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2003 Excavations by Andy B on Tuesday, 04 July 2006
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The stone rows at Battle Moss, Yarrows (ND312440) comprise 8 stone rows, 6 of which are almost complete for a distance of about 40 metres. The rows are aligned almost due north and south and are generally parallel. The site may once have been larger, some stones perhaps removed during agricultural activity. A plan made in 1871 shows the easternmost alignment of this setting reaching northwards some 120m beyond the present extent of the setting.

The site was excavated in 2003. Seven stones were fully excavated, and it was determined that each had been set into a socket dug through the natural glacial till. The stones were packed into their sockets using a combination of smaller stones and soil, and were remarkably firmly set. Several of the stones were deliberately aligned off-axis, demonstrating that the monument had never been designed as a series of completely parallel lines. Unfortunately, no dating evidence was recovered from the stone rows, however, it is likely that they were constructed during the Bronze Age period.


http://www.caithnessarchaeology.org.uk/moss.html
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Excavate Overlay 2003 by Andy B on Tuesday, 04 July 2006
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An artist-led project in a number of locations on the east side of Caithness. Bringing art, archaeology and anthropology together through the investigation of selected archaeological features at the Yarrows and at Dunbeath.
http://www.caithness.org/community/arts/excavateoverlay/index.htm
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Re: Loch Of Yarrows (Battle Moss) Stone Rows to be excavated by Andy B on Tuesday, 04 July 2006
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Difficult to find, even with a map. Realising I was on the wrong side of the loch, and the other side was very marshy, I took the above telephoto shot of the row and gave up. Unless you are very dedicated, stick to the more impressive Hill O' Many Stanes nearby.
[ Reply to This ]

The Excavation of Battle Moss Stone Row – August 2003 by Andy B on Tuesday, 04 July 2006
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http://www.caithness.org/history/archaeology/battlemoss/battlemossbackground.htm
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Loch Of Yarrows (Battle Moss) Stone Rows to be excavated by Andy B on Tuesday, 04 July 2006
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At Battle Moss, a team from Glasgow University will be looking an original Bronze Age cairn and associated stone rows. Earlier investigations in 2003 and 2005 focussed on a set of multiple stone rows and a multiphase cairn that they appear to align on. It was discovered that the cairn underwent at least three phases of use during the early and middle Bronze Ages (c2500-1700BC).

http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/archaeology/art38231
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