Around Aberdeen we find the third type of circle. It consists of a
cist-tomb covered by a low mound, often with a retaining wall of small
blocks, but there is no entrance passage leading into the cist. Outside
the whole is a circle of large upright blocks with this peculiarity,
that between the two highest--generally to the south or slightly east of
south--lies a long block on its side, occupying the whole interval
between them. The uprights nearest this 'recumbent' block are the
tallest in the circle, and the size of the rest decreases towards the
north. Of thirty circles known near Aberdeen twenty-six still possess
the 'recumbent' stone, and in others it may originally have existed.


Passing now to monuments of more definitely sepulchral type we find that
the dolmen is not frequent in Scotland, though several are known in the
lowlands and in part of Argyllshire.

To the long barrows of England answer in part at least the chambered
cairns of Caithness and the Orkneys. The best known type is a long
rectangular horned cairn (Fig. 4), of which there are two fine examples
near Yarhouse. The largest is 240 feet in length. The chamber is
circular, and roofed partly by corbelling and partly by a large slab. In
the cairn of Get we have a shorter and wider example of the horned type.
Another type is circular or elliptical. In a cairn of this sort at
Canister an iron knife was found. On the Holm of Papa-Westra in the
Orkneys there is an elliptical cairn of this kind containing a long
rectangular chamber running along its major axis with seven small
circular niches opening off it. The entrance passage lies on the minor
axis of the barrow.

[Illustration: FIG. 4. Horned tumulus at Garrywhin, Caithness.