Liddle Burnt Mound

Liddle Burnt Mound is located on South Ronaldsay, an island of Orkney, north of Scotland. The oval hill halfway between the local farm and small private museum of Ronald Simison and Isbister cairn is one of 200 so-called Ancient cooking places on Orkney, which is unique in its kind, however, and was excavated by John W. Hedges.

Liddle Burnt Mound is the largest hill in a complex of monuments, originally another Burnt Mound and a group of small grave mound comprised at least, but they are leveled.

The complex consists of two parts:

• Obtained a relatively good range of stone buildings
• The residue of a large hill enclosing it on three sides.

The building

The physical structure is similar in many respects complexes, which are known in particular from the Shetland Islands. It is oval, and has thick walls, in which are some box-like compartments. The big stove is located in the south, in an alcove in the wall. An indication of the former height of the masonry is obtained for hedges of a 1.54 m long stone, which was found on the tiled floor. The center is dominated by a large set of stone slabs, strange trough. A similar structure is found on the north wall. The trough is waterproof because it is embedded in the Lehmuntergrund. It has a capacity of nearly one cubic meter. When he was found, he was half filled with broken stones feuergeröteten. The tiles surround the tub on three sides and continue into a passageway that leads to the north by the wall of a pit in the Torfablagerung. In winter, this area is filled with water, in the summer he would act as a drain.

J. W. Hedges holds the whole thing for a house. The four horizontal stones opposite the fireplace could be the remains of an original furniture. On the other hand, there is no place for sleeping.

The fire hill

The hill has a volume of 200 m³ and still stands to a height of two meters. The excavation showed that it is caused by the gradual filling up of thousands of separate deposits from feuergeröteten stones and different colored ash. He was clearly a very unusual midden.

The finds

The few objects found were hardly significant. There were many stones, including mace heads, some were possibly sling stones, some originated from a plow, a broken part that could have served as a pot lid and shards of pottery. There were undecorated remains simple bucket-shaped vessels. Organic remains, which were mainly found at the bottom of the trough, composed of grasses, nettles, Erika, crowberry and possibly oak branches.