stirling-1963-vol-1/05_072

Transcription

INTRODUCTION : THE DARK AGE
he crossed the Tay that Agricola appears in fact to have met with any serious opposition from
the Scottish tribes. The details of the picture will not be clear until more excavation has been
done on the native sites themselves, but it is reasonable to suppose that the different groups
reacted in different ways to the new circumstances of the Roman occupation. At West Plean
(cf. No. 104), for example, one homestead seems to have been abandoned by its owner shortly
before the Romans arrived on the scene, and it is in the highest degree unlikely that the native
fort at Camelon (No. 82) would still be tenanted when a Roman fort was planted in its
immediate vicinity. In contrast, however, the dun at Castlehill Wood (No. 86) and the
homestead at Gargunnock (No. 105) were both occupied during the late 1st or 2nd century
A.D., and their inhabitants were sufficiently in touch with the Romans to acquire small
quantities of Roman pottery and glass. During the comparatively lengthy Antonine occupation
there would be a natural tendency for the earlier distinctions between the native groups dwelling
in the region of the Wall to become blurred, and for a new consciousness of unity to supervene.
A further impetus in the same direction was provided by the Severan re-organisation in the
early 3rd century, which made the Lowland tribesmen responsible, under Roman supervision,
for their own defence. This no doubt explains why, some two hundred years later, the district
at the head of the Forth emerges as a separate geographical unit, Manau Guotodin, which is
linked by name with the philo-Roman tribe of Votadini and ruled by a native dynasty
whose pedigree contains names and an epithet suggestive of Roman investiture.
Isolated finds of Roman objects in Stirlingshire are few in number, and apart from a fine
brass fibula found at Polmaise (Pl. 9A, B) and a bronze statuette of Mercury from Throsk
(Pl. 9 C), ¹ are comparatively undistinguished. An inscription on Gowan Hill, Stirling (No.
403), which was once considered to be Roman, is now adjudged to be of more recent
origin. On the other hand, a fragment of a building inscription mentioning the Twenty-second
Legion Primigenia, which is now at Abbotsford and is stated in the Inventory of Roxburghshire ²
to have come from Old Penrith, must now be assigned to the neighbourhood of Falkirk. The
supposition that the stone derives from Old Penrith rests solely on Bruce's conjecture, ³ which
he claimed was supported by a recollection of the local inhabitants in 1870. Unknown to
Bruce, however, the stone had already been reported in the Statistical Account ⁴, of 1797, where
it is said to have been found on the Antonine Wall and to be at that time at Callendar House.
Despite Madonald's reluctance to accept it, ⁵ this testimony is still the earliest in the field and
remains unshaken. ⁶

6. THE DARK AGE
For present purposes, the Dark Age is understood as lasting until the beginning of the 2nd
millennium of our era, and thus as including the Early Christian period. Only one monument
in Stirlingshire can be related to its early part, the fort at Dunmore (No. 77), near Fintry. It is
impossible to say with certainty whether the outer works on Dumyat (No. 68) are coeval with
the citadel or whether, as appears more likely, they represent an earlier, vitrified, fort ⁷ ; but

1 Both objects are in the National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh, and are described in P.S.A.S., lxvi (1931-2), 385.
2 Vol. ii, p. 301.
3 Lapidarium Septentrionale, 804.
4 Vol. xix, 110.
5 R.W.S., 406, note 3.
6 For a similar confusion regarding the origin of a Birdoswald tombstone, see C.W., new series xxiii (1923), 13 ff.
7 The Problem of the Picts (ed. Wainwright, F. T.), 74 ff.

-- 36