Shepherd, A. N., ed. (2000). The good stones:. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

This chapter reviews the character of the standing structures at Balnuaran of Clava in relation to the poorly preserved remains of other monuments in the surrounding area. They form part of a cemetery which originally contained at least eight separate monuments. This section discusses the detailed designs of the various cairns and the evidence for modifications to those monuments from the time of the first antiquarian records. When studied in detail, the four structures in the guardianship enclosure - a ring-cairn, a kerb-cairn and two passage graves - have more features in common than is usually expected.

This chapter presents specialist studies of the artefacts from Balnuaran of Clava. There is an account of the cremated bone and a detailed review of the environmental evidence provided by soil micromorphology, pollen analysis and the study of charcoal assemblages. This chapter concludes with details of the radiocarbon dates from the site.

After the detailed accounts of individual monuments presented in earlier chapters, this section studies the entire distribution of the Clava Cairns in relation to their local setting in the landscape. It compares the locations of the passage-graves and ring-cairns both with one another and with a series of 'control samples' in the immediate vicinity of the sites and suggests that each kind of monument shows a remarkable sensitivity to the character of the local landscape. The cairns are generally in inconspicuous positions, in areas that could have sustained year-round settlement, but there are certain contrasts between the views from these two classes of site. The monuments in Strathnairn are exceptionally large in comparison with the other cairns, and the form of the Clava cemetery may imitate the configuration of the local topography. The chapter also discusses the orientation of these sites in relation to rivers, hills and the movements of the sun and moon.

This chapter reviews the results of field survey undertaken between Strathnairn and the coast of the Moray Firth. This crossed the densest distribution of Clava Cairns, including those at Balnuaran and Newton of Petty. After a review of the field methodology and the lithic raw material available in the area, this account compares the character, distribution and density of surface finds in a number of natural zones. It also identifies an important change in the character of land use after the Mesolithic period. The areas that saw most activity in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age were the edges of a freshwater wetland on the coastal plain and the gravels of Strathnairn. There was more limited activity close to the spring on Drummossie Muir and at certain points along the coast. The distribution of surface artefacts is very closely related to that of Clava Cairns, suggesting that most of these monuments were constructed in the heart of the domestic landscape.

The `good stones' are a group of fifty or more distinctive ring-cairns and passage graves around the Moray Firth. This report documents survey and excavation in 1994--97 of the core monuments at Balnuaran of Clava, Petty, Inverness-shire, with additional information from newly discovered remnant and lesser-known Clava sites (including a ring-cairn at Newton of Petty, excavated in 1975--77). The monuments are described in terms of their structural elements, design, construction and orientation, the placement and selection of stones, decoration with cup marks, and their use for deposition of cremations, lithic scatters and seashells. The cairns were constructed in a domestic landscape, and chronological appraisal prompted by radiocarbon dating places them in the wider burial and ritual scenery of the Early and Late Bronze Age. The following reports are included: