Balfarg

By Stacey Castle

Balfarg is a Neolithic site located in Fife, Scotland and dates from around 3200 BC. Known since 1947 from aerial photographs, no excavations had taken place until 1977 when it was threaten by an impending housing project. Balfarg Henge is part of a bigger, prehistoric ceremonial compound which was utilised for around 1500 years. The site comprises the remnants of a stone circle and evidence of timber was also found. The central timber circle was 25 meters wide and held approximately 16 timber posts.

Henge Monument at Balfarg. Copyright Andy Sweet (Sweet 2015)

Roger Mercer was the lead archaeologist on the site in 1977. Grooved ware pottery was found in the postholes from the timber phase, which indicates the timber structures were erected prior to the stone arrangement around 3200 BC and the second stage, stone megaliths, began around 2800 BC. There is a long history of farming and cultivation at the site which has led to the “total denudation of all surface traces of the existence of the earthwork monument.” (Mercer 1981: 64). The stone circle sockets contained no cultural substances except for a small amount of burnt bone in one, possibly a cremation.

In the centre of the stone monument, the archaeologists discovered a burial of a young male along with a handled beaker and a knife made of fine flint. However, Roger Mercer argued there is no archaeological evidence or reason that the burial and the structure are connected because the grave is not concentric to either of the stones and it is more likely that it was placed there after it was not being used. Megalithic monuments were used as burial sites by Neolithic people but it is debateable whether this was the primary function as not all of them contain human remains. “Some might have been keeping track of the calendar; some might have had something to do with paying respect to the dead; some might have been for artistic reasons; and some may have been celebrations of some long-forgotten religious ceremony or political leader.” (Hirst 2015)

The beaker found with the burial was placed in an upright position in front of the skull and torso. It was made of an easily breakable material and decorated with diagonal lines using a sharp tool. Other sites in Britain have found similar handled beakers used in burials, and may have been established in reaction to more interesting beakers and jugs being produced. In Aldro Barrow in East Yorkshire four burials were found with three beakers. One of the individuals was cremated and buried directly underneath one of the beakers, therefore it is likely the cremated specimen was buried before the individuals with the beakers. “The weight of the evidence would appear to indicate that the beaker at Balfarg represents activity on the site at a date after 1500 BC” (Mercer 1981: 100) due to the burial in the centre of the monument and the cremated remains which were buried there first.

The flint knife found had no effective cutting advantage and it was more likely an individual item incorporated with the burial. Although flint knives found at other sites have shown importance, no cultural meaning can be attributed to the one found at Balfarg Henge.

The site was excavated in 1977 because of plans to build a housing estate. To preserve the historic and archaeological nature of Balfarg Henge, the houses were then built around the site to accommodate it.

Aerial view of Balfarg (Copyright Google Earth)

The stone monument is incomplete, the site having previously had a dozen more orthostats. They could have been taken to reuse somewhere else or moved after the site was not being used anymore.

One of the two remaining stones on the site, to the South side, was presumed a portal stone although Mercer and his team did not retrieve any evidence to suggest there was an equivalent orthostat on the North side. Mercer suggested that “if an orthostat had stood on the N side of the entrance symmetrically with that standing on the S side it might be expected that, unless it had been deliberately removed from the site, it would have tumbled into the ditch butt on the N side of the entrance causeway.” (Mercer 1981: 70).

In 1978, the theory that the two stones were not packed still availed, however by this point the stone packing was evidently detectable. The two larger stones that still remain there were placed in deeper sockets so they could not be taken away or fall down. The sockets of stones that previously stood there, in shallower holes, contained heaped stones assumed to be packing stones. The rocks found were harder and less likely to break than other rocks, they were less frail which demonstrates a process of selection to support these features.

Roger Mercer has concluded that although there have been a number of sockets retrieved, there is still no clear picture of the layout of the site. Around the site a number of probable stone sockets were located, Mercer theorises that they represented “a stone circle set up on the inner lip of the ditch” (Mercer 1981: 70) but he goes on further to say that “such a putative ring would not correspond in position with either of the two remaining standing stones. Such a ring would comprise c 24 orthostats of which not one survives.” (Mercer 1981: 70). Therefore we do not have a definitive idea of what the site looked like.

Bibliography

Hirst, K. Who Built the Megalithic Monuments? Available online at http://archaeology.about.com/cs/megalithicsites/a/megalithictop5.htm [Accessed:17/11/15]

Mercer, R. J ‘The Excavation of a late Neolithic Henge-type enclosure at Balfarg, Markinch, Fife, Scotland, 1977-78’. Proceedings of the Society Antiquaries of Scotland, 111 (1981) 63-171.

Sweet, A. ‘Balfarg henge, Fife’. Available online at http://www.stravaiging.com/photos/ancient%20sites/megalithic%20sites/Balfarg%20henge,%20Fife/ [Accessed 16/11/15]