Description
The monument comprises the remains of four burnt mounds, visible as a group of low sub-circular and crescent-shaped earthworks. The mounds are most likely to date to between 2000 BC and 1000 BC. They are sited close together on boggy ground and occupy an area approximately 40m E-W by 30m N-S. A stream runs past the site heading eastwards to the adjoining voe. The monument is located at around 30m above sea level, on ground that slopes eastwards and overlooks Lang and Clift Sounds and the mainland to the east.
The area to be scheduled is irregular on plan, comprising four overlapping circles of various diameters, each centred on the centres of the four mounds. 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 may survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map.
Statement of National Importance
Cultural Significance
The monument's cultural significance can be expressed as follows:
Intrinsic characteristics
The monument survives as a group of upstanding mounds in reasonably good condition. There is some localised disturbance on the SE bank where quarrying is said to have occurred some 50 years ago, but this represents a small-scale impact overall.
Burnt mounds are made from heaps of burnt and fire-cracked stone, occurring usually within a matrix of dark soil and perhaps charcoal or ash. The common crescent shape is formed as discarded material accumulates around a central area, which is normally where the water-heating activities took place. The stones represent the waste product from the use of hot stones to heat water, probably for a variety of purposes. After several immersions, the stones would crack and break and were discarded to form burnt mounds. Burnt mounds are often accompanied by troughs that held the water and there is sometimes evidence for associated shelters and the hearths in which the stones were heated. Troughs are usually set in the ground and lined with wood, stone or clay. Burnt mounds typically lie close to a stream or other water source.
This burnt mound complex has suffered little disturbance and has good potential to inform our understanding of the date and nature of burnt mounds, their function(s) and duration. The mounds may contain artefacts or ecofacts that can increase our understanding of their use. They may also have accumulated directly on an old ground surface and may seal important environmental information that could increase our knowledge of the landscape and land-use before and during the creation of the mounds.
Contextual characteristics
There are around 1,900 recorded examples of burnt mounds in Scotland with notable concentrations in some areas, including Shetland. The greater number in Shetland may also reflect increased survival because of a lack of later development or agricultural improvement. Burnt mounds in the Northern and Western Isles and northern Scotland are often particularly large. They often show the classic crescentic shape and may have been reused on many occasions over a significant period. They may also have served different social and practical functions to smaller mounds.
In Scotland, excavated examples typically date to the middle Bronze Age, around 1500 BC, but the overall range of dates varies from the late Neolithic through to the early historic period (around 2400 BC to AD 900). A common interpretation of these monuments in Scotland is that they were used to boil water for cooking. However, researchers have also suggested that they could have been used as saunas or sweat-lodges (possibly medicinal as well as sanitary); as baths; or for textile production (dying and fulling), brewing or leather working. Burnt mounds are often found in relatively isolated locations in Scotland, but in Shetland they sometimes occur in association with settlement remains.
In this case, as well as these four burnt mounds in close proximity, there is another, slightly smaller, burnt mound sited on a watercourse 300m to the north-west. This offers the potential to compare and contrast the group of mounds and the single mound, and examine the nature of any relationships between them. There are numerous other archaeological sites within the area, including an important cluster of prehistoric houses at South Stany Fields, just over 1 kilometre to the north-east. These may belong to different periods, but the exact chronological relationship between them has not been established. Further study of nearby monuments in relationship to the burnt mounds may increase our knowledge of the way in which prehistoric society used different parts of the landscape at different times.
National Importance
This monument is of national importance because it has an inherent potential to make a significant addition to the understanding of the past, in particular prehistoric society and the construction and use of burnt mounds, and their placing in the landscape. The good preservation of the monument and the proximity of these four mounds to another burnt mound enhance this potential. The loss of the monument would impede our ability to understand the nature of later prehistoric domestic and ritual practice, both in Shetland and in Scotland.