Description

The monument comprises the remains of an extensive barrow cemetery dating to the Bronze Age (between around 2000 and 800 BC). The barrows are visible as a group of at least 13 sub-circular turf-covered mounds, ranging in size from 5m to 15m in diameter and from 0.10m to 1.45m in height. A total of 15 or 16 mounds were recorded by RCAHMS in 1928, and an antiquarian account published in 1839 described the site as a 'numerous cluster' of 'barrows or tumuli'. Several mounds at Linga Fiold were investigated as part of the Orkney Barrows Project in the 1990s and the majority were found to contain secondary and/or satellite burials, in addition to the original burial. Moreover, the areas immediately around and between the mounds revealed archaeological evidence of mortuary structures, funerary pyres and related activities. The monument is situated on a SE-facing slope at about 35m above sea level. There are excellent views from Linga Fiold towards the Loch of Stenness and beyond to the important Neolithic landscape around the Ness of Brodgar. The monument was first scheduled in 1949, but the documentation did not meet modern standards: the present amendment rectifies this.

The scheduled area is irregular on plan to include the remains described above and an area around them within which evidence relating to the monument's construction, use and abandonment is expected to survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map. The scheduling specifically excludes the above-ground elements of the post-and-wire fence running E-W across the monument and the above-ground elements of a telegraph pole.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance because it has an inherent potential to make a significant contribution towards our understanding of burial and funerary practices in Bronze Age Orkney. Earthen barrows form an important and relatively widespread element of Orkney's Bronze Age landscape, and provide evidence for the major social and economic changes which took place during this period. Orkney's barrows are unusual in Scotland, and important within a British context, because the majority are mainly earthen mounds as opposed to stone-built cairns. Excavations in the 1990s have demonstrated that this monument retains high potential to preserve evidence of human burials and associated features, including mortuary structures, funeral pyres and related activities. Originally part of a larger barrow cemetery, the significance of the surviving barrows is enhanced by their place within a wider funerary landscape rich in prehistoric burial monuments. The Linga Fiold barrow cemetery occupies a conspicuous position on the upper reaches of a SE-facing slope, with views over the Loch of Stenness and beyond to the important Neolithic landscape around the Ness of Brodgar. Our understanding of Bronze Age ritual and burial practices in Orkney and across Scotland would be significantly diminished if this monument was to be lost.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

RCAHMS records the monument as HY21NE 19.

References

Ashmore, P J 2003, 'Orkney burials in the first millennium AD'. In Downes, J and Ritchie, A (eds) 2003, Sea Change: Orkney and Northern Europe in the Later Iron Age, Balgavies: Angus, 35.

Downes J 1994, 'Linga Fold (Sandwick parish): Bronze Age burial mounds', Discovery Excav Scot, 91-2, fig 36.

Downes, J 1995, 'Linga Fold', Current Archaeology, 142, 396-99.

Downes, J 1997, The Orkney Barrows Project: survey results and management strategy (unpubl rep to Historic Scotland: ARCUS, University of Sheffield).

Moore, H and Wilson, G 1995, 'Two Orcadian cist burials: excavations at Midskaill, Egilsay, and Linga Fiold, Sandwick', Proc Soc Antiq Scot 125, 237-51.

RCAHMS, 1946 The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Twelfth Report with an Inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Orkney and Shetland, 3v, Edinburgh, 265-7, no 713.

Towrie, S 2013, 'The Knowes o' Trotty', http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/knowestrotty/> [accessed August 2013].

Source: Historic Environment Scotland