Ingram : Bronze Age (c. 2000 BC – 700 BC)
Cairns, such as that known from Turf Knowe (NU 005156), are usually attributed to the Bronze Age, though many are not precisely dated, and they are known to have existed in the Neolithic period. This example is situated in a prominent position commanding views across to Ingram and the mouth of the Breamish valley to the east, and contained burials of at least three individuals. Though Early Bronze Age pottery was found at the site, cist burials from beneath the cairn may be Iron Age or later, and it is likely that this site was the focus for mortuary activity over a considerable period of time (NSMR 3091).
Not all cairns of this period contained burials. Cairns occur in considerable numbers as a result of field clearance in association with early agricultural remains. These are much more difficult to date, though, on the basis of their association with Bronze Age settlements or burial cairns, a Bronze Age date can sometimes be established (Higham 1986, 92). At Standrop Rigg (NT 950174), an unenclosed settlement comprising at least five round buildings on slight platforms is associated with field clearance plots defined by linear banks and stone clearance cairns (Jobey 1983b). Radiocarbon dates from a pit associated with the settlement suggest that the site may have been occupied as early as the 3rd Millennium BC (Later Neolithic), though whether the extant houses and field systems are as early as this remains uncertain.
Small agricultural settlements of this kind are common in the Cheviots throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, and were traditionally distinguished on the basis of type, particularly the presence or absence of an enclosure. Standrop Rigg is likely to be one of the earliest settlements of its kind, and its situation at considerable altitude may represent the efforts of an expanding population in the Later Neolithic or Early Bronze Age to cultivate land that was previously regarded as unsuitable. Cultivation of such very thin upland soils is likely to have been a short term strategy resulting in soil exhaustion and destabilisation of the soil regime, which in some cases particular sites may have been abandoned as a result (Topping 1981a, 26; Higham 1986, 89).
