Cairnpapple Hill

Cairnpapple Hill is one of mainland Scotland's most important prehistoric sites, used as a ritual center for over 4,000 years from the 4th millennium BC to the early Christian era. The earliest traces are six hearths dating from c. 3500 BC, containing pottery and stone-axe fragments from Wales and Cumbria. These were succeeded by a Neolithic henge monument featuring a bank 60m across with a ring of 24 timber posts. During the Bronze Age the site transitioned to funerary use, with cist burials accompanied by Beaker pottery and a wooden face mask, later covered by successive cairns. Excavated by Professor Piggott in 1947-48.