The Chambered Cairn at Beacharra, Kintyre, Argyll

The burial chamber of the Clyde-Carlingford cairn at Beacharra, Kintyre, Argyll, was excavated in 1892 by members of the Kintyre Scientific Association. The finds, consisting of six pots, a jet slider or belt-fastener and a utilized flint flake, were placed in Campbeltown Museum. A newspaper account of the excavation appeared at the time, and with the aid of this and of information from Mr A. Gray, who had been in charge of the excavation, T. H. Bryce was able to compile the first proper report upon the excavation. This he incorporated in the first of two papers on the cairns of Arran. A sketch plan of the burial chamber, prepared in 1892 by Mr P. Mackay and now in the records of the Kintyre Antiquarian Society, is reproduced (fig. 1).The importance of the pottery from Beacharra was fully recognized by Bryce, but it was not until 1929 that it was related by J. G. Callander to Scottish Neolithic pottery as a whole. Subsequently this evidence was analysed and placed in its British and European context by V. G. Childe and S. Piggott. In 1935 Childe introduced the term Beacharra to describe the pottery from sites of the Clyde-Carlingford culture in Scotland. The term was retained and the classification developed into Beacharra A, B and C by Piggott for the Clyde-Carlingford culture as a whole. More recently, and inadvisedly in the present state of knowledge, it has been suggested that the use of the term Beacharra, at least insofar as pottery from Ireland is concerned, should be discontinued.