West Lomond is the highest point in the county of Fife, Scotland and the highest peak in the Lomond Hills. Its volcanic dolerite cone rises above an escarpment of carboniferous sandstone and limestone layers. The conspicuous peaks of West Lomond, and its neighbour East Lomond, are visible for many miles around, which explains their name, the ‘Lomond’ or ‘Beacon’ hills. The summit of West Lomond is occupied by a large prehistoric burial cairn. Probably constructed during the Neolithic (4000BC-2100BC) and Bronze Age periods (2100BC–700BC), the monument marks an ancestral place of burial. Several poorly recorded antiquarian excavations at the cairn have uncovered bones and a fragment of prehistoric cremation urn.