‘This record comprises a general overview of the prehistoric archaeological material, held in Glasgow Museums’ collections, from Balevullin, in north-west Tiree, Argyll. The objects are all from the Ludovic McLellan Mann Collection, bequeathed to Glasgow Museums in 1955, and were collected/excavated from the sand dunes at Balevullin in 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1910, and 1912. Apart from those items collected/excavated by Mann himself, some were excavated by Mungo Buchanan, and others were excavated/collected by Arthur Henderson Bishop. Collections of archaeological material from Balevullin are also held by the Hunterian Museum of the University of Glasgow (Bishop Collection), An Iodhlann (Tiree’s Historical Centre), and National Museums Scotland.
The material held by Glasgow Museums generally comprises: over 260 items categorised as ‘worked stone’ or ‘possibly worked stone’, 40 scrapers, 28 pounders, 26 potsherds, 9 pounder/anvil stones, 3 stone discs, 3 cores, 1 stone anvil, 2 stones with use-wear, 2 stone arrowheads, 2 possible Food Vessel potsherds, 1 pounder/pivot stone, 1 reconstructed cordoned urn, 8 worked bone items (4 points, 2 awls, and 2 other worked bone objects), 1 antler object, 1 flint bladelet, 1 animal tusk, and 1 shell fragment. In addition, there are 45 bone fragments, which may relate to the cordoned urn. These objects derive from Mann and Bishop’s excavations in 1910 of a ‘hut’ site, from the Bishop/Buchanan/Mann excavations of a further ‘hut’ site in 1912, and from surface collection from the sand dunes in the general vicinity of these settlement sites. Collectively, this material dates from (at least) the Neolithic, the Early Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. For further information about these sites and finds, see Mann, L M. (1908) ‘Notices (1) of a pottery churn from the island of Coll, with remarks on Hebridean pottery; and (2) of a workshop for flint implements in Wigtownshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, vol. 42, 1907-8. Page(s): 328; Mann, L M. (1906) ‘Notes on – (1) a drinking-cup urn found at Bathgate; (2) the exploration of the floor of a a prehistoric hut in Tiree; and (3) a group of (at least) sixteen cinerary urns found, with objects of vitreous paste and of gold, in a cairn at Stevenston, Ayrshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, vol. 40, 1905-6. Page(s): 372-8; and MacKie, E W. (1965c) ‘A dwelling site of the Earlier Iron Age at Balevullin, Tiree, excavated in 1912 by A. Henderson Bishop’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, vol. 96, 1962-3. Page(s): 155-83.
In addition, of especial interest and importance are the group of human remains from the exceptionally rare Middle Neolithic flat inhumation cemetery at Balevullin. One of this group of at least four burials was initially discovered by Mann and his sister, Mrs Farquhar, and the burials were subsequently excavated in 1912 by Buchanan, Bishop, and Mann. The human remains from one of these burials are preserved in the collections of the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow, and at least two other sets of human remains (and possibly more) from this site are held in the collections of Glasgow Museums. Unfortunately, the researchers who recently studied the human remains held by the Hunterian Museum were not aware of the presence of further human remains from the site within Glasgow Museums’ collections, and as a result the human remains held by the latter have not as yet been fully analysed or published. See Armit, I et al (2015) ‘Difference in Death? A Lost Neolithic Inhumation Cemetery with Britain’s Earliest Case of Rickets, at Balevullin, Western Scotland’, Proc Preh Soc, vol. 81, 2015. Page(s): 199-214 for further information about the inhumation cemetery, and the study of the human remains held by the Hunterian Museum (published as ‘Balevullin 1’).
Collection dates 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1910 and 1912