Mound Heanish
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HEANISH From Mr C F Tebbutt
NM038435. Inland of Heanish Bay, Isle of Tiree, about 80 yards from the shore is a circular grass covered mound about 100 feet across and 5 feet high. Part of the centre of the mound has been wind eroded to the depth of 14 feet exposing the underlying sand. Protruding slightly above the sand surface is an irregular semi-circle of large stones which appear to form part of a circle 30 feet in diameter the remainder of which is still covered by the uneroded part of the mound. After cleaning up the vertical face of the eroded area it was found that below the present surface of the mound an old turf line rose to the top of the stone circle but that the mound had been raised upon, and the stones dug into, an older shell midden layer. About 6 square yards of this midden, outside the stone circle, was cleared down to clean sand and found to contain animal bones (cow and sheep or goat have been identified), 3 finely worked flint thumb-nail scrapers, wood ash, and many pottery sherds. The pottery comes from shouldered handmade vessels in thick (c. 3/4 in.) coarse red. brown and black ware, probably of the Bronze Age. Much of it is decorated with wide horizontal or diagonal grooves on and below the shoulder and repeated on the rim. They will be placed in the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh. Tt is hoped to investigate the site further.
Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1962, pp. 21–2.
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