Court cairn

The Neolithic (New Stone Age) monuments are identified by an uncovered courtyard connected to one or more roofed and partitioned burial chambers.

Many monuments were built in multiple phases in both Ireland and Scotland and later re-used in the Early Bronze Age.

Large, standing stones were used to make the walls and roof of burial chambers, normally located at one end of the cairn.

In Ireland, there are also instances of layouts with dual tombs, each with their own courtyard, but both sharing a common burial mound.

[3][4] The earliest megalithic tombs found in Britain, Scotland and Ireland were constructed in early 4th millennium BC.

The first burial monuments in these areas were most likely single chamber dolmens surrounded by large standing stones.

During the same period, passage graves were being developed throughout Ireland, southwest Britain, the Hebrides and the Orkney Islands.

In the Audsleystown dual court tomb in County Down, Ireland, the remains of 34 people were found in the burial chamber.

[6][8] Court cairns are found north of a line crossing Ireland from the Burren to the Cooley peninsula.

The ancient monuments are distributed from the Solway Firth area north to the southern Hebrides, in the counties of Argyll and Dumfries and Galloway.