caithness-1911/05_024

Transcription

INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS, ETC., IN COUNTY OF CAITHNESS. -- xxiii

ment from these by gradations, not found here, has been suggested for
the circles of upright stones known to modern antiquaries as stone
circles, and to the public in the past as druidical circles. For the
druidical attribution, originally propounded by Stukeley in the end
of the 17th century, there is not one grain of evidence, though the
popular fallacy disseminated by the older maps and handbooks is
difficult to eradicate. Stone circles are to be found over the greater
part of Britain, and in form and size they present many variations.
Their sepulchral character is established by the discovery, in the
central area of many of them, of cists containing interments and
pottery of the bronze age; but whether the circle had any religious
significance, or what the nature of the religion was which these
people of the bronze age affected, we cannot tell.
In a similar category with these circles may be placed the stone
rows, of less general distribution, but whereof the frequency in
Caithness is remarkable. These monuments are to be found also in
the County of Sutherland, as well as in Dartmoor, in Cornwall,
Northumberland, and Wales. It may be assumed that they formerly
existed in many districts where, in common with numerous other
structures and monuments, they have been obliterated in the process
of agriculture. In Scotland, though their association with interment
is not invariable, they are in certain cases found radiating from small
cairns containing burials of the bronze age (see No. 558).
The numerous tall standing-stones to be met with throughout the
county, singly or in pairs, may probably belong to this period, but
their true significance does not yet appear to be established.
Though the sepulchral monuments of the bronze period show
fewer structural features than those of the neolithic, it is connected
with the bronze age that we first begin to find definite traces of the
habitations of the people.
Oval or circular banks of turf, or walls of stone, of low elevation
and enclosing an area of some 20' to 30' diameter, to be met with on
the drier portions of the moorland, are the remains of the dwellings
of the early inhabitants, and are known as hut circles. In Scotland
little research has been made on these sites, but exploration among
similar remains in Dartmoor and elsewhere in England has established
their relationship to the bronze age, if not to late neolithic times.
But while this is the case in the south, it must be borne in mind that
in the remote parts of our island primitive types of structure must
have lingered on, so that the connection of the hut circle with the iron
age, and possibly with mediæval times, is highly probable. It may
be remarked that hut circles are not numerous in this county, and
that where they do exist it is principally in the south. The fashion
of roofing these structures is still a matter of speculation, but in all
probability branches must have formed a considerable part of the
material employed. As presumably during the prehistoric period
the same races occupied both this county and Sutherland, where
hut circles are particularly in evidence, it may be that an absence of
timber in Caithness, even at that early period, produced a modification
in the style of their dwellings. Certain ruins, to be described here-
after, are remarkable for the employment of stone flags of large size to
form a low roof, a practice not observed outside the county boundary,
but probably adopted for the same reason.