MacKay Cave
Also known as Burnbank Cave
Excavation
MacKay, 1869.
Curation
National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Burials
MNI: 2 (1 adult, 1 juvenile).
Finds
Flint artefacts, marine shells, animal bones.
Dates
| Period | Reliability |
|---|---|
| Neolithic | 14C date obtained directly on human remains |
14C
4810 bp (Beta-440529), 4750 bp (Beta-441173) on human bone.
External References
Bibliography
Hallen, Y. (1994) Re-evaluation of the Human Skeletal Remains from MacKay Cave, Distillery Cave, and MacArthur Cave, Oban. Unpublished archive report, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Lacaille, A.D. (1954) The Stone Age in Scotland. London.
Newell, R.R. et al. (1979) The skeletal remains of Mesolithic man in Western Europe: an evaluative catalogue. Journal of Human Evolution 8: 1-228.
Oldham, A.D. (1975) The Caves of Scotland. Privately printed.
Saville, A. & Hallen, Y. (1994) The ‘Obanian Iron Age’: human remains from the Oban cave sites, Argyll, Scotland. Antiquity 68: 715-723.
Sheridan, A. et al. (2019) A summary round-up list of Scottish archaeological human remains that have been sampled/analysed for DNA as of January 2019. Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 19: 227-250.
Tolan-Smith, C. (2001) The Caves of Mid Argyll: an Archaeology of Human Use. SAS Monograph Series 20. Edinburgh.
Turner, W. (1872) On human and animal bones and flints from a cave at Oban, Argyllshire. Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 160-161.
Turner, W. (1895) On human and animal remains found in caves at Oban, Argyllshire. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 29: 410-438.
Article Author Graham Mullan