Indoor meeting, 22 Mar 16

Tuesday 22nd March 2016

To those of you who made it today (14) thanks for coming to those who didn't make it, sorry you missed it- I really enjoyed the meeting - so much enthusiasm, knowledge and lots of different opinions.

We didn't have time to cover all the issues raised..we could do with a meeting simply to define what we think a broch is!  Then another to discuss building techniques - look at Ann's model in closer detail, and at the broch plans, then another to talk about roundhouses and their contribution to the picture, and so on .......

Thanks to David and Christine for bringing along the fascinating DVD.. the section that was built is still there, beside the Forestry car park at Strathyre - see it on Streetview here: https://goo.gl/maps/db9jx4UcSqp

Thanks to Ann for bringing her model.  We'll look at it again when we look at compare designs of different brochs

Thanks to Judy for bringing the stuff about roundhouses.

So what did we manage to get through and maybe agree on?

If we don't agree on what a broch is then we can't agree on how many there are...but Euan MacKie reckons there are 104 and he knows a wee bit more than we do.

Brochs are unique to Scotland -mainly in the North and islands (but there are circular towers in other countries cf nuraghi)

Part of roundhouse tradition - - simple low walled roundhouse  led to complex  roundhouses  then brochs and sometimes wheelhouses

Overall roundhouse tradition dates from 700BC to 100 AD.  Few brochs have been excavated using modern methods and there are few radio carbon dates to confirm but most brochs in the later years of first millennium BC.

Who built them? This fascinates me -- any comments welcome.  The first information I can find is that a chap called Pytheus sailed around UK around 320 BC - that's about the right time.  He didn't differentiate between the various different peoples living here but called them all Pretannike.  The word originates in the ancient p Celtic word for "cut" or "shape" and perhaps refers to the custom of tatooing. (cf later the Picts) The word later became "Britain" . 
 

 Fast forward a few hundred years to 83 AD and Ptolomy's maps describing our area as inhabited by the Ebudae (cf Hebrides)


So what do you think?  Itinerant builders?  Incomers imposing their style on locals?  or simply the tatooed locals?