Bronze Age mass burial site mystery near Sanquhar wind farm

Newly published research has revealed a “mysterious mass burial event” in the south of Scotland about 3,300 years ago.

Excavations were undertaken in 2020 and 2021 by Guard Archaeology during the construction of the access route to the Twentyshilling Wind Farm near Sanquhar in Dumfries and Galloway.

It revealed a Bronze Age barrow – an ancient burial mound – with the cremated bones of several people contained inside five closely-packed urns.

Archaeologist Thomas Muir, who led the excavation, said it appeared that some kind of “horrible event” such as famine had led to so many burials at the same time.

The wind farm sits about three miles (4.8km) south of Sanquhar on open rough upland terrain.

During their work, Guard Archaeology found the urns with the cremated bones of at least eight individuals all placed there in one mass burial event some time between 1439 and 1287 BC.

A small group of pits some distance north was also excavated, revealing late Neolithic activity between 2867 and 2504 BC.

“The five urns in the Twentyshilling Barrow contained at least eight individuals,” said Mr Muir.

“The urns were deposited at the same time as they were packed tightly within the pit and adhered to the same 15th to 13th Century BC date range.”

He said that indicated that it was a single mass burial, “possibly of the same family or group”.

“What is significant about the Twentyshilling remains is that they were cremated and then buried almost immediately,” he said.

He said that was unusual as there was “quite a tradition” in the Bronze Age of leaving bodies out for some time, as seen on another dig at Broughton in the Borders.

“That had been reopened a few times and reused so it has been used by a community over a long period of time,” he said.

“Whereas what we have at Twentyshilling is some sort of horrible event must have happened to the community – possibly famine – and a lot of people have died within a very short period of each other.”

The Bronze Age in the area may have been a “time of particular stress” as other burial sites in the region show evidence of famine and abandonment.

The archaeological work at Twentyshilling was a required condition of planning permission for the wind farm which is now fully operational.