Nether Largie Standing Stones
Nether Largie standing stone row · Nether Largie South
Late Neolithic – Early Bronze Age·Kilmartin Bronze Age·🇬🇧 Kilmartin Glen, Argyll & Bute, Scotland, United Kingdom
About
About Nether Largie Standing Stones
Linear alignment of four standing stones up to 2.8 m high plus outlier and extensive grave field in Kilmartin Glen: Nether Largie South cairn (45 m diameter massive Bronze Age cairn with three cists containing beaker burials), Mid and North cairns (cup-marked cist slabs) and Glebe Cairn. Glen-wide cemetery spanning c.3200–1500 BCE showing continuous burial focus. Stones of schist quarried locally; alignment possibly astronomically oriented.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Astronomical alignment of four-stone row debated
Theories
- 01Linear cemetery marking processional route along glen floor
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c. 3000–1500 BCE
- Period
- Late Neolithic – Early Bronze Age
- Culture
- Kilmartin Bronze Age
- Purpose
- Ritual alignment and elite burial cemetery
- Abandoned
- Iron Age
- Rediscovered
- Excavated 1929–61 (Craw, Scott)
- Excavation
- Excavated
c. 3000–1500 BCE
Initial construction
c. 1340 CE
Abandonment
On the ground
Structures & features
56.1245° N · 5.4985° W · 30 m · 2 mapped features
Nether Largie South cairn
cairn45 m massive cairn with three beaker cists
56.1242° N · 5.4982° WMid cairn cup-marked cist
cairnCairn with cup-marked cist slab inside
56.1248° N · 5.4987° W
Gallery