A highly historically important Bronze Age cemetery complex in the Highlands, which has survived for 4,000 years, has been vandalised.
Stones have been dislodged and graffiti written on a rock at the Clava Cairns near Culloden. It is a highly popular site with its ring and kerb cairns, the remains of a medieval chapel and standing stones in what is recognised as a most beautiful setting.
The site was an inspiration for Diana Gabaldon's Outlander stories, and Clava is one of the stops on an 'Outlander Tour' run for tourists from Inverness.
Indeed the vandalism was reportedly highlighted by local group Inverness Outlanders, fans of the book and TV series.
A Historic Environment Scotland spokesman said: “We are aware of the recent vandalism to Clava Cairns and remedial work is scheduled to remove it. Thankfully incidents such as this are rare, however we’d ask that members of the public refrain from grafittiing at our sites and remind them that it is a criminal offence to cause reckless or deliberate damage to a scheduled monument.”
Excavations found evidence that there was a farming community on the site before any of these monuments were erected. This appears to have been been directly replaced by the cairns and it is thought possible that some of the material used to build them had been taken from demolished houses.
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