Significant archaeological finds are regularly brought to light by the activities of animals — rabbits, badgers, moles, and other burrowing species disturb buried material and bring it to the surface with a frequency that makes them inadvertent but productive collaborators in the ongoing process of discovering the human past.

Plowing for agriculture has been an even more significant vector for archaeological discovery across lowland Britain, where deep plowing has broken up buried structures and surfaces that have provided evidence of prehistoric occupation.

The Loch Borralie cairn was not invisible before the rabbits disturbed it.

The pile of stones that marks the burial would have been visible on the surface, identifiable as a human construction, though perhaps not easily distinguishable at a distance from the natural stone accumulations that are common features of the Scottish Highland landscape.

The cairn’s general location would presumably have been known to local communities, and the stones themselves represent a persistent surface marker of the burial beneath.