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Outer Souter Cleugh Cairns is a Bronze Age burial monument located in Roxburghshire in the Scottish Borders. The site consists of one or more stone cairns built upon bedrock formed from ancient volcanic material—mafic lava and tuff dating to the Devonian period, around 400 million years ago. This underlying geology of extruded igneous rock would have been exposed or thinly covered when the cairns were constructed in the Bronze Age, providing accessible stone for their construction.
Cairns of this type typically served as burial monuments for individuals or small family groups during the Bronze Age, built between approximately 2500 and 1500 BCE. The stones were deliberately accumulated to mark and protect cremated or inhumed remains, often accompanied by pottery vessels and bronze goods reflecting the status and beliefs of the community. The elevated location on Roxburghshire's moorland landscape would have made the cairn a prominent landmark across the surrounding terrain.
The monument is protected as a scheduled monument under Historic Environment Scotland's reference SM5022, recognising its archaeological and historical significance as evidence of Bronze Age burial practices and settlement patterns in the Borders region. The volcanic geology beneath the site forms part of the distinctive landscape of this area, where Bronze Age communities exploited both the natural stone sources and the elevated terrain for their ceremonial monuments.
Outer Souter Cleugh,cairns is a scheduled monument protected by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM5022. View the official record →
Outer Souter Cleugh Cairns is a Bronze Age burial monument located in Roxburghshire in the Scottish Borders. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM5022.
Outer Souter Cleugh,cairns is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Historic Environment Scotland — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Scotland. The official designation reference is SM5022.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Russell's Cairn, cairn (3.6 km), Palisaded settlement on Trows Law (5.3 km), Romano-British farmstead, 700m north east of Trows (5.7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Outer Souter Cleugh,cairns's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Outer Souter Cleugh,cairns stands on Unnamed Extrusive Rocks, Silurian To Devonian, bedrock that formed in the Devonian. The rock here is mafic lava and mafic tuff.