In case anyone is in any doubt, here are the Canmore definitions:
DUN: A building or settlement enclosure with a thick, drystone wall, generally circular or oval in shape, usually situated in an elevated position.
FORT: An enclosure, often located on a hilltop, bounded by one or more banks, ditches, ramparts or walls.
Fascinating! Seeing the locations like this is really interesting. The line facing the mainland isn't so surprising, but wondering why there aren't any on the Glendale peninsula. Was the land too inhospitable to support any early settlements? Nor is there anything on the east side from beyond Sligachan down through Broadford and past Ormsay. Surely some of that was more fertile?
ReplyDeleteFirst thing that springs to mind is that they are almost all coastal. Not really surprising as we assume the main mode of travel was by sea. I am always curious about the lack of stuff in Glendale - was it ever there? Has it all been ploughed over? Nothing shown on Raasay - is that simply becasue you didn't chose to include Raasay?
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Joy, I didn't include Raasay.
DeleteI suspect that there was a mass migration to the more hospitable coastal regions following the decline in the climate during the bronze age.
ReplyDeleteTrue but here nowhere is too far from coast - even on foot - coast offered travel opportunities and food from sea but inland would surely have been a bit more sheltered -- would climate inladn on Skye be that different from coast? and could inland have offered more in the way of animal produce and trees? Well - whatever - apparently it didn't as there is certainly little evidence of life far from sea
ReplyDeleteJust found this in a paper by Tipping:
Delete"... environmental stress at c 850 cal bc is seen to have been followed by the extensive restructuring of society ...". Make of it what you will!
Link to rest of paper?
DeleteJoy has asked me to put in my thoughts on this. We discussed the idea that each broch/Atlantic Roundhouse (I see this is the current name for them) is likely to represent the stronghold/base of a family group. Stable societies reliant on subsistence farming tend to divide the land available in a very fair way. This usually means that each group - whether it be an extended family or village - has access to the same resources. The usual carve up of the land gives the following: a clean water supply, arable land, land to build shelter, and pasture land. It may be that the Roundhouses are on the coast as fishing was the main source of food, or that was the optimum area for water and arable land. The centre of Skye could have been used for upland, summer, pasture on a communal basis. Most habitation is close to the arable land as crops require more work than herd animals.
ReplyDeleteAs to the areas with no roundhouses - I think this might be that they have either not been found or have been destroyed and the stone used for housing. The Broadford area seems to have been the most heavily populated area of Skye so that might account for their absence. Glendale might have had a local variant of the Atlantic Roundhouse which has not been recognised, or it was just not thought of as a good place to settle.
A word of caution - I have assumed that all our duns and forts are Iron Age, but that is not necessarily the case. The change from roundhouses to rectilinear buildings didn't occur until the 9th century in the Outer Hebrides
ReplyDelete[https://archaeologyorkney.com/2016/11/11/marking-identity-in-the-medieval-hebrides/]
and it may well have been the same here.