6000 years of Rock Carving near Balfron
This week’s article was originally published in the Stirling Observer
There is a note of triumph to this week’s column….you will have seen in last week’s Observer that one of our discoveries has been named as the number one archaeological find in Scotland of 2022 (and we also had one of the runner’s up!).
The quern rough-outs and also some cup marked stones.
The amazing collection of rock carvings near Balfron includes both Scotland’s largest quern quarry and possibly Britain’s biggest collection of Neolithic axe grinding points. These were used to either make or repair stone axes and there only 2 or 3 other examples in Scotland. These were the axes that chopped down Scotland’s primordial forest and created the first fields. These were Scotland’s first farmers, migrants whose descendants started from the Near East, who walked across Europe to start a new life in what would become Scotland and transformed our country.
The possible axe grinding grooves!
We think chopping of a tree was possibly a sacral act, the radical end of a living thing to create new life. The axes were special, sacred objects and so could only be made at a special sacred area. Near Balfron between the Endrick and the Forth is a rocky knoll the horizon of which is surrounded by distant hills. People walked for miles to come here, an act of pilgrimage. But how far did they come from Stirling or Glasgow? Perhaps from all across southern Scotland the one spot where axes could be sharpened in the right way?
But why Balfron? I think the answer is the bedrock an iron rich sandstone: it’s red when first exposed than bleaches to a shining white which glistens across the wider area. But when you carve it you get red sand which when mixed with water looks like blood. The land bled as the farms were created, but within a month it was white again…..all healed and so permission was given to chop more trees down. Amazing!
Just in case anyone asks about how to visit the site…I’m afraid its all backfilled!