Atlantic Scotland Research Articles

Wilson, Graeme. Playing with things: the archaeology, anthropology and ethnography of human‐object interactions in Atlantic Scotland. vi, 150 pp., figs, illus., bibliogr. Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing, 2018. £28.00 (paper)

Wilson, Graeme. Playing with things: the archaeology, anthropology and ethnography of human‐object interactions in Atlantic Scotland. vi, 150 pp., figs, illus., bibliogr. Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing, 2018. £28.00 (paper)

Two Iron Age duns in western Scotland

This report discusses the excavation of two stone-walled duns situated in North Knapdale, Argyll and Bute, led by Kilmartin Museum. Substantial areas of both sites were excavated, providing a good stratigraphic record of the development of the structures. Both sites proved to be multiphase, and six radiocarbon dates established a fairly restricted period of occupation for both in the last centuries of the 1st millennium BC and the first centuries AD. These dates are important contributions to an ongoing debate on the chronology of duns and forts in Argyll as there are so few reliable dates for this class of monument. At Barnluasgan an oval structure enclosing a craggy knoll was replaced by a smaller circular one. At Balure, in contrast, a primary circular structure had a series of successive enclosures added. Both circular structures had internal post holes and hearths, suggesting they were roofed ‘dun-houses’. No intramural features were seen, but median wall faces were present. Artefacts were sparse, as is usual on sites of this period, but included an unusual decorated rotary quern, and rare glass toggles. There are detailed reports on the artefacts and on the palaeobotanical remains. The landscape context of the sites is explored, and a discussion places the sites in this context and in relation to debates on classification of stone-walled structures in Atlantic Scotland.

Pre-Romanesque Irish chapels in Scandinavian Scotland: international building typologies and the pagan gap

ABSTRACT This paper will reconsider the evidence relating to ecclesiastical buildings in Atlantic Scotland which have been ascribed to various early medieval constructional dates on the basis of Irish comparanda and historical accounts associated with Scandinavian settlement. Critical discussion will consider how archaeological, architectural, historical, and independent dating evidence have been used at different times to present consistent narratives for these buildings, and how recent investigations at Teampull Ronain (North Rona) and St Columba’s Shrine (Iona) might inform these international typologies.

Brochs and beyond: excavations at Old Scatness, Shetland

Completely unknown until 1975, when it was revealed during the construction of a new road, Old Scatness is a multi-period site that has provided unequivocal evidence dating broch construction to the mid first millennium cal BC, alongside a firmly dated sequence that is crucial to understanding the long Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland. Excavations were carried out at the site between 1995 and 2006 by local volunteers and staff and students from the University of Bradford in a collaborative project led by Bradford and Shetland Amenity Trust. The first volume, The Pictish village and Viking settlement, covering around 1000 years from 400 cal AD–1400 cal AD, appeared in 2010. It was followed by The broch and Iron Age village in 2015, which considered pre-broch occupation from the Neolithic, but focused on the construction of the broch village from the mid first millennium cal BC. The third and final volume, The post-medieval township, published in 2019, examines the settlement evidence from the late fifteenth century AD to the end of the twentieth century AD, placing it within the historic context of the documentary evidence for the period. Given the complexity of the excavations, the range of scientific methods employed and the comprehensive nature of the published volumes, this is an impressive turnaround. As a set, these three volumes represent the full publication of an extraordinary occupation sequence spanning over 2500 years, allowing a detailed reconstruction of the changing social and economic role of a location in Shetland from the development of an enclosed broch, through a period of Norse occupation to a final phase as a nineteenth-century AD croft.

Maternal relationships within an Iron Age burial at the High Pasture Cave, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Human remains from the Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland are rare, which makes the assemblage of an adult female and numerous foetal bones at High Pasture Cave, on the Isle of Skye, particularly noteworthy. Archaeological evidence suggests that the female had been deposited as an articulated skeleton when the cave entrance was blocked off, marking the end of use of the site. Particularly intriguing is the deposition of disarticulated remains from a foetus and perinate close to the adult female, which opens the possibility that the female might have been the mother of both of the infants. We used shotgun genome sequencing in order to analyse the mitochondrial genomes of all three individuals and investigate their maternal relationship, and we report here, for the first time, complete ancient mitogenomes from foetal-aged bone fragments. While we could not exclude the possibility that the female was the mother of, or maternally related to, the foetus, we could definitely say that she was not the mother of the perinate buried alongside her. This finding is contrary to the standard archaeological interpretation, that women in such burials most likely died in childbirth and were buried together with their foetuses.

Excavating a Mid-Iron Age crouched inhumation on the shores of Loch Gruinart, Islay, Argyll and Bute

Human remains uncovered across Atlantic Scotland have displayed a variety of burial rites practised throughout the Iron Age. An excavation on the island of Islay, as part of the Historic Environment Scotland Human Remains Call-Off Contract, has uncovered a crouched inhumation eroding out of sand dunes near the western shore of Loch Gruinart. Osteological analysis of the skeleton revealed it is that of an adult male, aged between 26 and 35 years. The body was found in a crouched position on its left-hand side, aligned south-east to north-west, with the head raised up and turned to face the west. No artefacts or grave goods were found in association with the burial. Radiocarbon dating has established that the remains relate to the Mid-Iron Age. The evidence uncovered here adds to the evolving narrative of the nature and date of the varying burial rites practised throughout this region during the Iron Age.

Cille Donnain Revisited: Negotiating with Lime Across Atlantic Scotland from the 12thCentury

This paper introduces the initial findings from an ongoing buildings archaeology research project. I present the results of two wide-ranging mortar surveys which describe the archaeological evidence for lime mortars within the 12th-century bicameral chapels of Atlantic Scotland and pre-Reformation chapels of the Western Isles. The diverse evidence for materials, plan form, and structure suggest important processes of cultural negotiation. I argue that lime mortar was an animated technological agent for Christianization, which enabled power and perspective to be mediated by complex culturally appropriate techniques.

A special place in the saltings? Survey and excavation of an Iron Age estuarine islet at An Dunan, Lewis, Western Isles

This is the third of a series of four papers that present the excavations undertaken on the Uig peninsula, Isle of Lewis, as part of the Uig Landscape Project. We present the archaeological evidence from An Dunan, a causewayed tidal islet in the salt marsh of Uig sands, a liminal and potentially ritual site dating to the Iron Age and medieval period. The first main Middle Iron Age phase was characterised by activities centred on an ash mound, demarcated by four large orthostats, within an essentially rectilinear structure containing internal cellular divisions. The activities within the structure have been interpreted as non-domestic in nature. The second main phase involved the medieval re-use of aspects of the Iron Age building to create a small boat-shaped structure, with very little associated material culture. The structural, artefactual and environmental evidence from the site is presented, before being interpreted within the wider research context of the archaeology of the Western Isles and Atlantic Scotland.

Searching for Scandinavians in pre-Viking Scotland: molecular fingerprinting of Early Medieval combs

The character and chronology of Norse colonisation in Early Medieval northern Scotland (8th–10th centuries AD) is hotly debated. The presence of reindeer antler raw material in ‘native’ or ‘Pictish’ type combs from the Orkney Isles, northern Scotland has been put forward as evidence for a long and largely peaceful initial period of cultural contact, as opposed to a shorter, more polarised period probably in the late ninth century. Here this hypothesis is tested using a minimally-destructive collagen peptide mass fingerprinting method (ZooMS) to speciate the raw material of 20 combs. Eleven were identified as red deer, four as reindeer and one as whale. The accuracy and gentleness of this method was tested by the subsequent application of ancient DNA (aDNA) methods to fourteen of the same samples: in ten, amplification was successful and all supported the preliminary ZooMS identification. All ‘native’-type combs in the sample are identified as red deer, and all Norse types as reindeer. These results challenge previous species identifications for these combs' raw materials. The balance of evidence no longer supports the existence of a long period of cultural contact between Atlantic Scotland and Scandinavian settlers before the late 9th century. ZooMS is shown to have considerable potential for identification of worked bone and antler artefacts, with applications in archaeology and wildlife/art-history forensics.

Small-Scale Evaluation of a Post-Medieval Blackhouse at Bereiro, Lewis, Western Isles of Scotland

Abstract This paper presents the results of the excavation of two dry-stone structures in the abandoned blackhouse village of Bereiro, near to the township of Crowlista, Isle of Lewis. The research was undertaken as part of a wider landscape project investigating human occupation on the Uig peninsula from prehistory to the post-medieval period (the Uig Landscape Project). The excavation aimed to collect dating evidence from the site to determine the date of construction and abandonment of one of the earliest structures in the village, in an attempt to establish the longevity of the blackhouse form in the vernacular architecture of medieval Atlantic Scotland. The results of the dating program are considered alongside historical documents, which record the social history of the village within the context of the long-standing research questions regarding blackhouse villages. These questions include the development of the agricultural field systems and continuity or change in the Hebridean landscape from late...

Domestic, industrial, (en)closed? Survey and excavation of a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age promontory enclosure at Gob Eirer, Lewis, Western Isles

This is the first of four papers that present the results of survey and excavations undertaken in the late 1990s as part of the Uig Landscape Project on Lewis in the Western Isles (Na h-Eileanan Siar). This paper introduces the project and presents the results of the survey and excavations on the promontory enclosure of Gob Eirer, one of the earliest of the Uig sites excavated. Gob Eirer is located on a stack just off the Uig shoreline in the Camas Uig, connected to the mainland by a pebble beach. The results of the excavations are discussed in terms of the structural form, stratigraphy, material culture and environmental evidence from the site. Gob Eirer is then considered within the wider context of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age archaeology of Atlantic Scotland and broader research themes surrounding promontory enclosures.

The Useful Dead: Bodies as Objects in Iron Age and Norse Atlantic Scotland

This paper discusses a group of modified human remains from Iron Age and Norse sites in Atlantic Scotland, several of which have been discovered or rediscovered over the past decade, and all of which have recently been radiocarbon dated. It investigates the ways in which these remains seem to have been recovered, used, modified and deposited by living communities, and what this may reveal about past attitudes towards the bodies of the dead. These practices are placed within a wider European later prehistoric and early historic context, to highlight how this group of evidence may add to current debates surrounding social memory, the ritualization of domestic life, and the place of the dead within the world of the living.

Combs, Contact and Chronology: Reconsidering Hair Combs in Early-Historic and Viking-Age Atlantic Scotland

Analysis of an important collection of bone/antler hair combs from Atlantic Scotland has illuminated the chronology of early-medieval Scandinavian settlement in the region. Application of a new typology, identification of variations in manufacturing practice and analysis of spatial patterning throw light on the development of combs traditionally seen as characteristic of early-historic Atlantic Scotland. The application of new techniques of raw material analysis demonstrates the probable use of reindeer antler in combs of 'native' style. However, none of these combs is from contexts that can confidently be dated to the 8th century or earlier, and the pattern is indicative of Norse-native coexistence (peaceful or otherwise) in the 9th century, but not before. The comb evidence demonstrates a Scandinavian presence throughout Atlantic Scotland from early in the Viking Age, but also highlights the importance of contact with Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England.

Lordship and Environmental Change in Central Highland Scotland c.1300–c.1400

Whilst there has been an increasing recognition of the influence of natural agency on human society in Scotland in the medieval period, conventional historiography has generally presented the wholesale reconfiguration of structures of secular lordship in the Scottish central Highlands in the 14th century as an essentially political consequence of the socio-political dislocation associated with the Anglo-Scottish wars that occurred after 1296. The establishment within the region of militarised Gaelic kindreds from the West Highlands and Hebrides of Scotland has come to be regarded as either a symptom of efforts by externally based regional lords to bolster their authority, or an opportunistic territorial aggrandise-ment by newly dominant neighbouring lords. Feuding and predatory raiding associated with these kindreds is recognised as competition for resources but generally in a context of projection of superior lordship over weaker neighbours. Evidence for long-term changes in climate extrapolated from North Atlantic proxy data, however, suggests that the cattle-based economy of Atlantic Scotland was experiencing protracted environmentally induced stress in the period c.1300–c.1350. Using this evidence, we discuss whether exchange systems operating within traditional lordship structures could offset localised and short-term pressures on the livestock-based regime, but could not be sustained long-term on the reduced fodder and contracting herd sizes caused by climatic deterioration. Territorial expansion and development of a predatory culture, it is argued, were responses to an environment-triggered economic crisis.

Bruach An Druimein, Poltalloch, Argyll

Rescue excavations in advance of gravel quarrying were carried out under the direction of the late Eric Cregeen from 1960 to 1962, at Bruach an Druimein, Poltalloch, Mid Argyll (NGR: NR 820 972). The site lies on one of the fluvio-glacial terraces which border the Kilmartin Glen, overlooking the lower ground, which has one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric funerary monuments in Britain. The site had previously been identified as containing later prehistoric and Early Historic cist burials and a degraded bank. The main features of the excavated part of site were an enclosing ditch complex, and numerous post-holes and other occupation evidence within the ditch. Possible Neolithic/Bronze Age activity was indicated by lithic scatters and possible burnt mound material. Several Bronze Age cist-burials, also uncovered during the quarrying, have already been published. The main phase of occupation, as supported by a series of radiocarbon dates, lay in the later first millennium BC, the early Iron Age period. The post-holes were interpreted as belonging to at least two roundhouses, important as the first such structures identified in Atlantic Scotland, though common in eastern and southern Britain.

Time and place: a new chronology for the origin of the broch based on the scientific dating programme at the Old Scatness Broch, Shetland

Iron Age studies in northern Britain have been dominated by one monument form, the broch. This focus on these monumental towers of the Atlantic Scotland, perhaps at the expense of other archaeological evidence, has brought about a strong division in the archaeological community. MacKie and Armit have both recently summarized the development of broch studies detailing the opposing arguments for the date of construction. In recent years archaeological evidence for these monuments has indicated an indigenous development rather than being associated with the movement of Iron Age peoples. This paper presents new chronological data for the construction of a Shetland broch and examines the archaeological repercussions for the ‘early’ chronology provided by these dates. Excavations at Old Scatness in the South Mainland of Shetland have revealed new evidence for a broch and defended Iron Age Village.

Beyond the Grave: Human Remains from Domestic Contexts in Iron Age Atlantic Scotland

The occurrence of human remains in Iron Age domestic contexts in southern England is well-attested and has been the subject of considerable recent debate. Less well known are the human remains from settlement contexts in other parts of Iron Age Britain. In Atlantic Scotland, human bodies and body parts are found consistently, if in small numbers, in Atlantic roundhouses, wheelhouses, and other settlement forms. Yet these have remained unsynthesised and individual assemblages have tended to be interpreted on a site-specific basis, if at all. Examination of the material as a corpus suggests a complex and evolving set of attitudes to the human body, its display, curation, and disposal, and it is improbable that any single interpretation (such as excarnation, retention of wa r trophies, or display of ancestral relics) will be sufficient. Although the specific practices remain diverse and essentially local, certain concerns appear common to wider areas, and some, for instance the special treatment accorded to the head, have resonances far beyond Iron Age Britain.

Fur-bearing species and Scottish islands

Analysis of a database comprising archaeological records of fur-bearing species in Scotland has highlighted the presence of foxes, badgers and other mustelids in areas outside their modern-day geographic range. Of particular interest is the apparent presence of foxes on Orkney for a number of centuries, from perhaps the last few centuries BC to the mid to late first millennium AD, pine marten on Orkney in the Neolithic, and badgers on the Outer Hebrides in the Early Bronze Age and 6–7th centuries AD. While zooarchaeological analysis of the data suggests the evidence from the Outer Hebrides is indicative of imported products of fur-bearing species, such as skins or ‘trophies’, the evidence from Orkney suggests populations of fur-bearing species may have been purposefully introduced by humans. This raises interesting questions regarding human perception and use of the different species in prehistoric North Atlantic Scotland.

Artefacts and the Iron Age of Atlantic Scotland: past, present and future

IntroductionThis paper is concerned with the Iron Age of Atlantic Scotland, a period running from approximately 600 BC until the onset of Viking colonization and influence around AD 800. The definition of Atlantic Scotland for the purposes of this paper is taken to include the north and west of Scotland and its coastline and archipelagos including Shetland, Orkney and the Inner and Outer Hebrides. This area is also defined by the distribution of a particular kind of drystone monumental architecture, variously termed brochs, duns or more recently Atlantic roundhouses (Armit & Ralston 1997: 183–7). These structures are often well preserved, in the case of some standing as towers 10 m in height, and are thus highly visible in the landscape. In Orkney and Shetland brochs and other Iron Age houses often form only one part of a large and complex settlement mound, with both earlier and later settlement and activity dating over millennia on the same site, as at Howe and Pool (Uallin Smith 1994; Hunter et al. 1993).

The role of cetacea in prehistoric and historic Atlantic Scotland

AbstractWhalebone has been recovered from many archaeological sites in Atlantic Scotland. Through an examination of material excavated from the Western Isles (Outer Hebrides) this paper explores the methods by which whales and whalebone were procured. Using historical and ethnographic data the possibility that cetaceans were naturally stranded or actively hunted is considered, and for the latter the methods of capture are discussed. The ways in which whale carcasses were utilized: as meat, blubber, skins, artefacts and as an architectural material, is examined through the analysis of archaeozoological material. Using these data the value of whales and whale bone in the islands can be determined. The potential for further study is discussed in the light of the growing volume of material available for study and advances in scientific techniques such as DNA analysis. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.