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The Neolithic

Ritual

Dunragit Henge Excavation

Period:
Neolithic
Description:

One of the curving lines of pits for the posts of a circular Neolithic enclosure at Dunragit, during excavation in 2002. There are bands of smaller holes between each of the large ones, perhaps for a timber screen between the timber uprights.

 

Excavation by Manchester Unviversity in the early 2000s revealed it to be a large timber henge, where one circle of timbers had eventually gone out of use and been replaced by another. Some of the holes for the timbers were over a metre across and nearly a metre deep. They could have held timber uprights made from entire tree trunks up to 10m high, taller than Stonehenge. This is the largest timber henge known in Scotland.

Accession number:
HER Images