The region hosts a variety of Neolithic funerary and allied monuments: the non-megalithic round barrow at Pitnacree (MPK1714), several long mounds some of which have chambers, the chambered tomb at Cultoquhey (MPK859) whose cairn may have been round, and rare rectangular ‘mortuary enclosures’ such as at Inchtuthil (MPK6939). The enormously long (342m) ‘bank barrow’ at Auchenlaich (now in Stirling), the 1.8km long bank barrow-cum-cursus monument the Cleaven Dyke (MPK6611; Canmore IDs 28473/73146) and the cursus monuments of Perth and Kinross may represent aggrandised versions of the long mound and mortuary enclosure monument types respectively. They were probably built during the second quarter of the fourth millennium BC. These sites may have used for the commemoration of the dead even if they did not house human remains.
The non-megalithic round barrow at Pitnacree (MPK1714), which is associated with Carinated Bowl Neolithic pottery, could date as early as the 37th or possibly late 38th century BC. Sadly, attempts to locate and date the cremated human remains from its initial period of use have so far been unsuccessful (Sheridan 2010b). Excavations here in the 1960s (Coles and Simpson 1965) showed that this earth and stone mound covered a rectangular mortuary structure which, in its earliest phase, was constructed using two massive split-trunk posts. It may be that this had initially stood as a free-standing mortuary structure, allowing the decomposition of the small number of people placed on or in it. Similar rectangular timber mortuary structures are known from early Carinated Bowl Neolithic contexts elsewhere in Britain. A subsequent phase of construction involved the erection of a horseshoe-shaped, low stone cairn around the mortuary structure and the deposition of the cremated remains of an adult male plus a second adult, probably female, and a child on the old ground surface in the area of the mortuary structure. The whole was then covered by a turf mound (Coles and Simpson 1965; Kinnes 1992a). Pitnacree is one of only six definite and probable Neolithic round barrows in Scotland (Sheridan 2010b). There are other large round mounds located in Strathtay and beyond, several are represented in the cropmark record, which might prove to be of Neolithic date if excavated (Barclay 1999; Brophy 2010). However, an Early Bronze Age date is equally, or arguably, more likely.
It is unclear whether any non-megalithic long mounds were constructed in Perth and Kinross, even though Kinnes listed two long cairns at Cairn Wochel (MPK807) and Fortingall (MPK460) in his review of the non-megalithic long mounds of Britain (Kinnes 1992a, 18; 1992b). Two candidates for earthen long barrows are known from cropmarks: at Thorn (MPK7175) near Auchterarder and Haugh of Grandtully (MPK7851). While another two are largely known through antiquarian accounts. Herald Hill (MPK5460) near Blairgowrie is an example of a possible Neolithic long barrow or cairn augmenting a natural mound. Trapezoidal in plan and around 70–80m long and 15–20m across, test-pitting, during the Cleaven Dyke project, confirmed that it was at least partly constructed by humans (Barclay and Maxwell 1997). It is located just over one kilometre east-south-east of the visible traces of the Cleaven Dyke. It has also been suggested that the north-west end of the Cleaven Dyke itself is a long barrow, possibly adjacent to an oval barrow (Barclay and Maxwell 1998, 20). One of the two long cairns listed by Kinnes in his corpus of non-megalithic long mounds in Britain, that at Fortingall, is almost 40m long and is located on the valley floor. It was proposed to be a possible Neolithic monument by Henshall (1972, 478). The example at Cairn Wochel (MPK807), north of Braco, was destroyed and is only known from an antiquarian account of 1726 which reported that it was around 55m long (Henshall 1972, 478). Neither has been excavated but an 18th century account notes the discovery of a ‘stone coffin, in which there was a skeleton 7 feet long’ at Cairn Wochel.
Richard Bradley (pers. comm.) has raised the intriguing question of whether the monument excavated at Castle Menzies Home Farm (MPK1044; Halliday 2002) in Strathtay, normally described as a post-defined cursus (eg in Millican 2016a, Fig. 8.2), is actually a large, ploughed-out non-megalithic long barrow that has been converted into a cursus monument by the addition of an unknown length of post-lines. Such an interpretation would account for the concave façade at one end, which contrasts with the straight ends characteristic of cursus monuments, and the multiple phases of construction that are evident (Halliday 2002). The dimensions (c 130x36m to the end of the first stretch of roughly parallel posts) and its early fourth millennium BC radiocarbon dates (albeit from oak charcoal, and thus with a possible ‘old wood’ effect) are also consistent with such a hypothesis. Some long mounds are apparently edged by ditches or post-lines, for example at Dalladies, Aberdeenshire (Kinnes 1992a, Fig. 2.4.2) and Eweford West and Pencraig Hill, East Lothian (Lelong and MacGregor 2007, 20, 34). These enclosing features may have defined pre-barrow mortuary enclosures surrounding non-megalithic mortuary structures.
Chambered long cairns are known at Clach na Tiompan (MPK955; Henshall 1972, 468–72), Kindrochat (MPK348; Henshall 1972, 472–5), Rottenreoch (MPK908; Henshall 1972, 475), Middleton of Derculich (MPK1081; Henshall 1972, 478) and Carie (MPK17072). All are located in the upper valleys of the rivers Almond, Earn and Tay and none have been excavated in the past 50 years.. The example of Carie, on the north side of Loch Tay, was recorded as recently as 2000 through a RCAHMS field survey undertaken during the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project (referred to as Kiltyrie in MacGregor and Toolis 2016, 9, 29). Like the monuments at Clach na Tiompan, Kindrochat and possibly also Rottenreoch, the chambered cairn at Carie can be related to the Clyde group of chambered cairns, whose distribution focuses on south-west and west Scotland. The chambered tomb at Cultoquhey (MPK859), which may have had a round cairn, has also been classified as a further eastern outlier of the Clyde group (Henshall 1972, 475–7). A fragment of an unburnt human bone from Cultoquhey was radiocarbon dated to 4680±40 BP (GrA-26922, 3628–3366 cal BC: Sheridan and Schulting 2020). This is in accordance with the broader picture of Clyde cairn chronology in which this style of chambered tomb seems to have emerged between 3765–3645 BC (Sheridan and Schulting 2020, 203). Clyde cairns are a regional development that appears to represent a translation into stone of the earliest Neolithic non-megalithic funerary structures that are associated with the Carinated Bowl Neolithic. The presence of these eastern outliers of this monument tradition in Perth and Kinross shows that there were contact between the highland part of this area with the west and south-west of Scotland.. The first phase of the trapezoidal monument at Auchenlaich, near Callander, can be added to this list of chambered cairns. This monument, with a chamber aligned on its shallow façade and a lateral chamber, was subsequently enlarged to be transformed into a massive 322 metre-long bank barrow.
The rectangular ‘mortuary enclosure’ at Inchtuthil (MPK6939), within the Roman legionary fortress, was found to be of Early Neolithic date when it was excavated (Barclay and Maxwell 1991). It consists of a ditch enclosing a roughly rectangular area 53.9m long by 8.4m to 10m wide in which two fence-like structures supported by substantial upright timbers had been built, one after the other. The later of the two was subsequently burnt down. The continuous fence would have blocked visual access to the interior although some kind of entrance presumably existed. Analysis of fragments of the burnt timbers at Inchtuthil revealed all samples to be of mature oak, including posts and radially-split planks (Mills 1992). This latter technology contrasts the tangentially-split oak planks that have been excavated at the part-waterlogged Early Neolithic long barrow at Haddenham in Cambridgeshire (Morgan 1990; Evans and Hodder 2006). It shows the potential for recovering information on Neolithic woodland use, character and technology even from burnt remains. While no human remains were found in the Inchtuthil enclosure, the resemblance of this structure to the post- or ditch- enclosures found surrounding mortuary structures and/or long mounds elsewhere for example at Dalladies, Aberdeenshire (Kinnes 1992a, Fig. 2.4.3) and Eweford West and Pencraig Hill, East Lothian (Lelong and MacGregor 2007, 20, 34) has led to the idea that Inchtuthil could have been used as an area for laying out the dead for exposure. Other candidates for Early Neolithic mortuary enclosures in Perth and Kinross are known from cropmarks, where they are generally defined by timber posts. A post-built rectangular mortuary enclosure is known at Douglasmuir in Angus (Kendrick 1980; note that Millican 2016, Fig. 8.2 classes this as a cursus), but in general these monuments are rare in Britain (Kinnes 1992a, 19).
In Scotland, cursus monuments have mostly been found in Tayside and Fife, East Lothian and the eastern part of Dumfries and Galloway (Brophy 2015) but an example was also found on Arran in 2020. All but one of the region’s cursus monuments are known only as cropmarks. They are broadly defined as long, rectangular monuments and although their function remains unclear, rituals involving procession would undoubtedly have taken place along their length. In the case of some post-built examples, deliberate fire setting to create a dramatic conflagration is also likely (Thomas 2007). They look like significantly elongated versions of the Early Neolithic rectangular mortuary enclosures discussed above and could have been associated with commemorating the dead at a societal, possibly ‘tribal’, level. It is unknown whether the dead would have been interred within them but there are sites in England where human remains have been found in cursus monuments (Bradley 2019, 74). As noted above, the likely conversion of an Early Neolithic long barrow into a cursus monument at Castle Menzies Home Farm (MPK1044) is consistent with the idea that there is some element of commemorating the dead at these sites. The dating of Scottish cursus monuments, and the style of Carinated Bowl pottery associated with the examples excavated at Holywood North and South in Dumfries and Galloway, suggest that they are likely to have been constructed during the second quarter of the fourth millennium BC (Thomas 2007).
Like the earthwork cursus at Broich in Strathearn (MPK893; Cachart and Perry 2009), the Castle Menzies Home Farm cursus/long barrow was excavated in advance of development. Other excavated cursus sites in the region show variety in monument form and context. Milton of Rattray cursus (MPK6975) near Blairgowrie was defined by pits instead of posts (Brophy 2000), while Blairhall by Scone (MPK5480) was an important hybrid timber-earthwork cursus (King 1992). Blairhall sits amidst a rich cropmark complex including a parallel linear barrow cemetery of presumably much later date. It is a good example of the potential for cropmarks to broaden our understanding of these sites (Brophy 2015).
The unique monument known as the Cleaven Dyke (MPK6611/Canmore ID 28473/73146), near Blairgowrie (Barclay and Maxwell 1998), appears to combine features of a cursus monument (a long pair of parallel ditches) with that of a bank barrow (a long mound, running centrally between the ditches). It survives to a length of 1.8km and may originally have been longer. It is one of the most spectacular Neolithic earthworks in Europe. It has been excavated at least four times during the 20th century. The latest and most conclusive work carried out in the 1990s demonstrated that the monument was Neolithic and not Roman as previously believed (Barclay and Maxwell 1998). Barclay and Maxwell concluded that the monument was likely to have been built in the 4th millennium BC; its construction was not single-phase but involved successive additions and continually extended to the south-east (Barclay and Maxwell 1998). As noted above, it may have been built onto a pre-existing Early Neolithic non-megalithic long barrow at its north-westerly end.
Another example of a bank barrow is the 322 metre-long rectangular mound at Auchenlaich (Foster and Stevenson 2002). It started off as an up to 48m long trapezoidal chambered mound; the act of aggrandising the mound will have involved an enormous input of communal labour by a large number of people. It may well be, then, that as with cursus building and the Cleaven Dyke, this was a way for an entire community, or ‘tribe’, to commemorate its dead. Bank barrows are rare in Scotland and are scattered from Dumfries and Galloway to Moray (Brophy 2015); a few have been found elsewhere in Britain (Bradley 2019, 71–6).
The longer ditch- or pit-defined cursus monuments found in Perth and Kinross, elsewhere in Scotland (Brophy 1998; 2015; Brophy and Millican 2015) and indeed in the rest of Britain (Bradley 2019, 71–6) may constitute aggrandised versions of rectangular mortuary enclosures. Similarly, bank barrows ,and the hybrid bank barrow and cursus monument at the Cleaven Dyke, may be augmented versions of long mounds. The Cleaven Dyke may have been built onto a pre-existing Early Neolithic long barrow at its north-west end, while the Auchenlaich bank barrow seems to have been built on a pre-existing chambered long cairn. This points towards a function in commemorating the ancient dead. The communal effort required to construct funerary mounds, and the much more significant exertion involved in constructing cursus monuments and bank barrows, offers hints as to the nature of Early Neolithic social organisation (cf Sheridan and Schulting 2020). Memorialising small numbers of individuals inside non-megalithic round and long barrows, effectively inaccessible for subsequent interments, may have portrayed them as ‘founding ancestors’ and the task of constructing the mound would have involved several households. By the time that cursus monuments and bank barrows were constructed, these acts of memorialising the ancestors seem to have involved the entirety of the broader community, or ‘tribe’, which strengthened the identity and cohesion of this larger social grouping.
