Description

The monument comprises the remains of two burial mounds dating to the Bronze Age (between about 2000 and 800 BC). The monument is visible as two upstanding, circular, turf-covered earthen mounds. The northernmost mound measures approximately 12m in diameter and survives to a height of 1m. The southernmost mound is located approximately 120m to the SSW. It is around 11m in diameter and stands 1m high and is reported to have had a stone kerb. Both mounds have been opened in antiquity: the northernmost mound contained burnt bones, and the southernmost mound a steatite urn. The monument occupies a conspicuous location on a low-lying ridge at 100m above OD with extensive views to the S: the northernmost mound would have been clearly visible on the skyline. The monument was first scheduled in 1938, but the documentation did not meet modern standards: the present amendment rectifies this.

The scheduled area comprises two circles on plan, centred on the mounds and each measuring 30m in diameter. The scheduled area includes 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 that crosses the northernmost mound.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance because of its potential to make a significant addition to our understanding of funerary and burial practice in the Bronze Age. Burial mounds and 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. The mounds at Knowes of Yonbell retain their field characteristics to a marked degree and are significant examples of their type. Recent investigations of similar sites elsewhere in Orkney have demonstrated that such mounds have the potential to contain one or more burials and associated features, including, for example, the remains of funeral pyres or mortuary structures. The significance of the Knowes of Yonbell is enhanced by their association with a wider landscape of Bronze Age burial monuments located around Vestra Fiold and the west coast of Orkney Mainland, which has one of the most important concentrations of such monuments in Orkney. Our understanding of the dating, form, function and distribution of Bronze Age barrows would be diminished if this monument was to be lost or damaged.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

Other Information

RCAHMS records the monument as HY22SW 13.

References

Downes, J 1995, 'Linga Fold', Current Archaeology 142, 396-399.

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

Hedges, M E 1979, 'The excavation of the Knowes of Quoyscottie, Orkney: a cemetery of the early first millenium BC', Proc Soc Antiq Scot 108, 130-55.

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, Edinburgh, 259-260, no 688.

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

Source: Historic Environment Scotland