Border Rovers
Nether Largie
Kilmartin Glen is an area in Argyll north of Knapdale. It has the most important concentration of Neolithic and Bronze Age remains in mainland Scotland. The glen is located between Oban and Lochgilphead, surrounding the village of Kilmartin. In the village, Kilmartin Museum explains the stories of this ancient landscape and the people who dwelt there. There are more than 800 ancient monuments within a six-mile (ten-kilometre) radius of the village, with 150 monuments being prehistoric. Monuments include standing stones, a henge monument, numerous cists, and a "linear cemetery" comprising five burial cairns. Several of these, as well as many natural rocks, are decorated with cup and ring marks.
The remains at Dunadd of the fortress of the Scots, a royal centre of Dal Riata, are located to the south of the glen, on the edge of the Moine Mhòr ("Great Moss"). Kilmartin Museum is located within the village itself and inspires and educates people by interpreting, explaining and conserving the internationally important archaeological landscape, artefacts, and natural heritage of Kilmartin Glen.
Alexander Thom, the celebrated historian and student of stones, visited Nether Largie in 1970 and claimed that it was among the most important sites in Britain in terms of its astronomical alignment. He believed it was a lunar observatory, designed to predict an eclipse. Thom was among the first of his kind to put forward such a radical idea, and at the time his theories were met with polite scepticism. But he was a true visionary.
More recent studies have revealed the fascinating possibility that the stones were meant to mark the setting or rising of the sun or moon on important days such as the winter solstice: two of the stones are aligned with the midwinter sunrise, and other alignments have been identified, such as the southern-most rising or setting of the moon. (The online archaeology magazine, Antiquity, has some excellent photos and illustrations of solar and lunar alignments at Nether Largie and a neighbouring stone circle at Temple Wood.)
Nether Largie
Kilmartin Glen is an area in Argyll north of Knapdale. It has the most important concentration of Neolithic and Bronze Age remains in mainland Scotland. The glen is located between Oban and Lochgilphead, surrounding the village of Kilmartin. In the village, Kilmartin Museum explains the stories of this ancient landscape and the people who dwelt there. There are more than 800 ancient monuments within a six-mile (ten-kilometre) radius of the village, with 150 monuments being prehistoric. Monuments include standing stones, a henge monument, numerous cists, and a "linear cemetery" comprising five burial cairns. Several of these, as well as many natural rocks, are decorated with cup and ring marks.
The remains at Dunadd of the fortress of the Scots, a royal centre of Dal Riata, are located to the south of the glen, on the edge of the Moine Mhòr ("Great Moss"). Kilmartin Museum is located within the village itself and inspires and educates people by interpreting, explaining and conserving the internationally important archaeological landscape, artefacts, and natural heritage of Kilmartin Glen.
Alexander Thom, the celebrated historian and student of stones, visited Nether Largie in 1970 and claimed that it was among the most important sites in Britain in terms of its astronomical alignment. He believed it was a lunar observatory, designed to predict an eclipse. Thom was among the first of his kind to put forward such a radical idea, and at the time his theories were met with polite scepticism. But he was a true visionary.
More recent studies have revealed the fascinating possibility that the stones were meant to mark the setting or rising of the sun or moon on important days such as the winter solstice: two of the stones are aligned with the midwinter sunrise, and other alignments have been identified, such as the southern-most rising or setting of the moon. (The online archaeology magazine, Antiquity, has some excellent photos and illustrations of solar and lunar alignments at Nether Largie and a neighbouring stone circle at Temple Wood.)