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mega-what / ancient sacred places / Cork-Kerry Stone Circle Complex

Boulder-Burials

Boulder Burials, or Boulder Dolmens as they used to be called, are a type of Mid-Late Bronze Age mega­lithic monu­ment that has only ever been found in Ireland. Almost exclusively in counties Cork & Kerry. They consist of a fairly large boulder set atop three or four much smaller supporting stones. Thus they are a form of dolmen or cromlech but the supporting stones are never large and may not even be visible.

The boulder-burial sites listed here represent 39% of the known total at time of writing and are almost all in West Cork. Some are solitary, some in groups and others are associated with other monument types.

There seem to be some difficulties in correctly classifying these boulder monuments by their morphology and so a number of similar structures have been officially recorded as "poss­ibles" or "mega­lithic struc­tures". Three of these have also been investigated and are included here as additional examples of the class.

The assumption that Boulder-Burials are tombs is reflected in their name but there is little evidence to support this. While all of the four that have been ex­cavated covered pits / ritual deposits, only one contained any human bone and that was only a few fragments.

Boulder-Burials have been regarded for many years as having no special rule of siting nor any rule of orientation. This study reveals that all of them are astronomically sited and many, if not all, do have significant orientations that become obvious once the horizon is understood.

Boulder-Burials are not found outside the area of the Cork-Kerry Stone Circle Complex. O'Nualláin defined them (1978:75) as: "large boulders set above three or more low stones which: in most cases, do not constitute formal chambers. They stand above ground and are not covered by cairns or mounds" He also said they "do not appear to have any rule of orientation" but this statement is demonstrably incorrect. It was O'Nualláin (1975:84) who coined the term "Boulder-Burial" to replace the earlier terms "Dolmen" or "Boulder Dolmen" on the supposition that "all these monuments cover burials". This was on the basis of a single excavation at Bohonagh by Fahy. The language of both men appears to indicate that they already had a tomb theory and were looking for proof. In the body of the excavation report (Fahy 1961:94) we read:

..in the north-east corner of the dolmen a small shallow pit containing a few fragments of cremated bone
and in the summary (Fahy 1961:102) "The dolmen was established as a tomb". This is a stark contrast to his opinion that stone circles are ritual monuments and that the (often far less cursory) deposits of human remains found in them are dedicatory in nature.

It seems that they were lucky to find any evidence in support of their tomb theory. Three more boulder-monuments have since been excavated by O'Brien (1992) without any burial evidence being discovered at all, leading him to say:

"The absence of human remains from all three examples does call into question their role as monumental grave markers. One possibility is that the burial rite involved a token deposit of burnt bone, however a non-sepulchral function may not be entirely ruled out." (1994:215).
Another important but largely neglected result of O'Brien's excavation at Cooradarrigan is that one of the excavated boulder-monuments was previously thought to be a fallen monolith as it appeared to be simply a stone lying on the ground with none of the classic features defined above. He notes (1992:28) that this has important consequences for the field identification of these monuments and is quite correct, for there is now good reason to believe they are not monumental grave markers at all. While one may expect to find signs of dedicatory rituals under such boulders, they may not necessarily posses all the classic qualities attributed to them by O'Nualláin. Indeed, beside the primary boulder at Oldcourt is a recumbent stone thought by O'Nualláin to be a fallen Standing Stone. In this case, survey shows that it has a significant astronomical orientation and is thus likely to be a second boulder-burial still lying as it was set.

Walsh (1993) reported the known total as 87 Boulder-Burials on 68 sites. This reveals the interesting fact that, unlike most other megalithic monuments, boulder-burials may occur in groups. These groups may perhaps be sequential but often seem planned. There are also a number of "possibles" recorded and some "megalithic structures" which are again very similar. There are therefore difficulties in correctly classifying these monuments by their morphology without understanding their function.

Survey shows that these boulder-monuments were functional objects marking astronomically important places in the landscape. They cannot generally define an azimuth as accurately as a stone row or circle but capstone shape and orientation are usually significant, helping to indicate directions of interest. The arrangement of supporting stones is most likely to be purely practical but the possible symbolic content of basal architecture remains an interesting avenue for exploration. In a number of cases, it must be said, one of the support stones has been set so that it provides a convenient step-up to the capstone top to give a significant observational advantage.

Boulder monuments are often found in association with Multiple Stone Circles and their relationship in time is thus an interesting question. O'Nualláin believed they were contemporary while Burl argued that they were a later intrusion. My own observations in West Cork would indicate that they often closely (if not contemporaneously) followed stone circles into the same territory, making secondary re-use of the same sites but they also penetrated the country further to occupy their own territory. Lack of comparative dating evidence is unfortunate as no radiocarbon dates were obtained from Bohonagh, the only site where both were excavated. However, to complicate the picture: Stone Rows also seem to be later than Multiple Stone Circles yet at Currakeal a Boulder-Burial is probably later than a three-stone row that occupies a very significant astronomical point on its horizon, while the boulder-burial is in a subservient position.

The occurrence of nearby Standing Stones seems to be common. Cullomane East has two that are fairly close, Rathruane More has one that is further away and there are many more examples. Low stone outliers occur at a number of sites, Cooradarrigan 1, Cullomane East, Ballyvackey. Their function remains unclear; one may speculate that they perhaps represent a "correct" observing position or a base mark for the measuring of offsets. O'Brien found evidence of a single post-hole in the ground at two sites while the major boulder at Cooradarrigan had three each side as well as one at the north-east end. He interpreted these as possible ritual elaborations but it could be that they were there as part of the setting up arrangements before the monument was completed. Some support for this idea may come from Fahy's excavation at Bohonagh where no post-holes were found but the area of the boulder-monument had previously been covered by a layer of small stones that was disturbed by its construction.

Skyline modification may have been been undertaken in conjunction with the siting of a number of boulder-monuments to improve their usefulness. This feature, where built targets are sited on the skyline to be observed rather than locally has not been found so far for any other type of major monument and is perhaps indicative of greater power available to the boulder-monument building school. Bawngare and Knocks utilise distant Standing Stones but more striking are the large cairns used to provide foresights visible from Coolcoulaghta, Cullomane East and Kilmore. The three cairns concerned are the only ones of their type in the survey area. Large, apparently unkerbed structures on high ground. Distinctly different to the smaller kerbed cairns that occur on lower ground. In such cases, where two or more monuments several kilometres apart can be shown to be integral parts of the same system, it becomes improbable that they represent grave markers but it would be very interesting to know if the different components each have ritual deposits associated with them.

Only one Boulder-Burial has yielded a date:

Cooradarrigan 1: 1426-1302 or 1288-1266 BC. Calibrated to 95.4% (2 sigma) confidence level. Source: O'Brien 1992.

References
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© Michael Wilson.