Scottish Island a 5000 year time capsule

Archaeologists have published the results of an intensive survey of a remote Scottish island and revealed a millennia old pattern of settlement and life.

From Machair to Mountains shows how archaeologists uncovered a series of virtual “time capsules” on South Uist in the form of ancient settlements preserved beneath sand dunes – a remarkable preservation of occupation and activity from the Neolithic to the modern era, during a major project undertaken with funding from Historic Scotland.

Machair and Mountains of South Uist. Image: julesn (Flickr, Creative commons Licence)

New research

This new research even challenges a long held belief that the Norse period marked a cataclysmic change in the Hebridean way of life; Instead of supporting the view that the Scandinavian invaders killed the men and enslaved the women and children, the archaeological evidence suggests a greater degree of relatively peaceful intermixing and continuity than was previously accepted.

Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs in the Scottish Parliament, Fiona Hyslop, said: “This project is a remarkable achievement and describes a hugely significant part of Scottish history.

“The findings show that these remote locations were attractive to human inhabitants from the earliest times and that communities have successfully survived here for thousands of years. The project has added substantially to our understanding of the history of the Outer Hebrides and western Scotland.”

More than twenty years have been devoted to the project by archaeologists and experts from across the UK. The team roamed from the grassy coastal machair plains to South Uist’s mountains, exploring hundreds of sites including Neolithic tombs,Early Bronze Age occupations, Norse dwellings and blackhouses.

Howmore, South Uist. Image: what's the rush (Flickr, Creative commons Licence)

The findings build on earlier work on South Uist by Historic Scotland and other agencies since the 1950s – research that has also uncovered Iron Age settlements, Mediaeval townships and early modern shielings.

An ancient landscape

Editor of  From Machair to Mountains, Professor Mike Parker Pearson, said:

“South Uist has an extraordinary number of superbly preserved archaeological sites and landscapes from all periods.

“Best known are the settlement mounds of all periods on the island’s machair, the coastal grasslands on shell sand, but the moorlands and mountainous areas also contain remarkable remains.”

Before these investigations began, sites from the middle and later Bronze Age were almost unknown in the Western Isles. The team discovered late Bronze Age evidence of human cremations at Cladh Hallan, within stone ring settings, as well as burials (or even mummies) beneath roundhouses from the same period.

Professor Parker Pearson added: “These structures were built as part of a terraced row and exhibit a marked discontinuity with the past, by replacing the boat-shaped island style of house with the pan-British large roundhouse.

“This shift was as much ideological as economic, and sees the arrival of the sun-wise arrangement of interior activities around 1100BC.”

Pollachar, South Uist. Image: hazelisles (Flickr, Creative commons Licence)

Continuity of settlement

One of the biggest finds in the machair survey was the discovery that settlement patterns and land tenure show a degree of continuity from the Iron Age to the Clearances.

Historic Scotland’s Head of Archaeology Programmes Rod McCullagh said the findings on South Uist represented a treasure trove of new knowledge.  “The sites compare very well with almost any of the settlements of similar age anywhere in Europe outside Rome and the Aegean,” he explained.

The project built on the results of 1950s excavations of Iron Age and Viking dwellings, which were carried out ahead of the expansion of Benbecula aerodrome and the creation of a Ministry of Defence rocket range on South Uist.

With the publication of From Machair to Mountains, the programme is finally drawing to a close. Five more reports will follow, detailing the results of major excavations of Norse, Bronze Age and Iron Age dwellings – concluding one of the most productive, longest running and most detailed archaeological investigations ever undertaken on Scottish soil.

Source: Historic Scotland

More information:

• From Machair to Mountains, published by Oxbow Books (ISBN : 978-1-84217-451-7), is priced at £26.95 until the end of February, and will then increase to the full price of £35.
• The Prehistoric Village at Cladh Hallan (Sheffield University)
• The Norse Settlement at Kilpheder ( Bournemouth University)
• Neolithic settlement on South Uist (Cardiff University)
• Archaeology in South Uist – Overview by Kate Macdonald (Kildonan Museum)
• Visit Uist