Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 105

NT 289390. Report on the excavation of the cist is accompanied by a list of all 98 known British Beaker/Bronze Age multiple cremation deposits, i.e. those representing pre-consignment collections of the remains of more than one individual. The conclusion of a wide-ranging discussion is that even a simple cist may house the remains of a long series of human acts.

NY 304901. Instead of the non-defensive stone enclosures of Tyne-Forth, E Dumfriesshire appears to have had embanked enclosures with interior scooping and timber houses. Their assumed medieval date has been disproved by excavation at Boonies, a 0.07ha settlement with a TPQ of late 1st century AD. Within the enclosure were the ring-trenches of 13 round houses, mostly occupied only one at a time, but in the end five houses co-existed and one had encroached on the bank area.

Nearly 40 Scottish examples are catalogued and discussed. Their distribution is more maritime than in England, and only three of the English types are represented. Thenceforward the Scottish development divides into hogbacks with end-beasts, and those with tegulation but otherwise plain which in time evolve into the coped grave-covers of the Romanesque.

A 50mm lead disc, decorated on one side with trumpet-spirals, came from below a complex of Norse houses and is provisionally identified as a casting-pattern and discussed in relation to the two-piece brooch moulds from Birsay with their innovatory pouring-gates.