Quanterness

A passage grave on Orkney, north Scotland, of the Maes Howe or Quanterness/Quoyness type and dated to c 3000 BC. Like other such tombs, it had been used for collective burial, but the number of bodies found here was unusually high: remains of 157 individuals were found and the tomb may originally have housed 400. Radiocarbon dates indicated it may have represented an extended family over a period of nearly one thousand years. The long, low passage led to the principal rectangular-plan chamber, which had a corbel-vaulted roof. It is dry stone and covered by a large circular cairn.

Megalithic tomb, usually classified as a form of passage grave, on the island of Orkney, north Scotland, excavated in the 1970s. Like other megalithic tombs, it had been used for collective burial, but the number of bodies found here was unusually high: remains of 157 individuals were found in the excavated portion of the tomb and, if the same density of remains can be assumed for the unexcavated part, the tomb may originally have housed about 400 bodies. Colin Renfrew has suggested that this represents all the dead of a small egalitarian community, perhaps an extended family, over a period of nearly one thousand years (indicated by radiocarbon dates). The skeletal remains were disarticulated, very incomplete, and showed signs of removal of the flesh before deposition. It seems likely that the bodies had been exposed for some period before burial — a practice for which there is other evidence from the British Neolithic.