caithness-1911/05_027

Transcription

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

4' long led to the foot of a staircase which rose up to the right
having a chamber invariably opposite its commencement. The stair
as it spirally circled upwards gave access to a series of horizontal
galleries, one above the other, the slab roof of one gallery forming
the floor of that above. These galleries were lighted by vertical rows
of rectangular openings forming small windows looking into the
interior. In the interior, on the ground level, might be found a
hearth placed within a square enclosure formed of upright slabs,
and occasionally a well cut out of the rock and approachable by
steps, with sometimes also an underground chamber or cellar of
similar formation for the storage of grain and other provisions.
Tank-like constructions, formed of flagstones set on edge in the floor,
have been found in several cases, and a well-made drain passing out
under the entrance passage was not an uncommon feature.
No broch exists beyond the limits of Scotland; and though the
range of the type is from Orkney and Shetland to Berwickshire, their
numbers greatly predominate in the northern counties. When they
were first built, or last inhabited, are alike unknown. Comparatively
few have been excavated, but a great similarity in the relics re-
covered characterises them all: querns, both rotary and of the saddle
form, stone mortars and pounders in abundance, drinking-cups and
lamps of steatite, long-handled combs for weaving on the loom and
whorls for the spindle, shards of coarse pottery (for the most part
undecorated) and occasionally fragments of terra sigillata or other
Roman ware.
No object characteristic of neolithic culture has so far been found
in a broch, nor any implement or weapon peculiar to the age of
bronze. The type of pottery, the fashion and ornamentation of the
combs and other relics, are those peculiar to the early iron age or
late Celtic period of art. Within two of the Caithness brochs were
found quartzite pebbles, painted or stained with spots similar to others
found in the cave of Mas d'Azil in the Pyrenees, and referred there to
the period of transition between the palæolithic and neolithic cultures.
The occurrence of these pebbles alone, whose purpose is unknown,
is not sufficient to place the brochs in point of antiquity previous to
the early iron age, to which the other relics are referable.
The development of the broch is still obscure, but no more
complete adaptation of the materials available to the end desired -
the construction of an impregnable dwelling - could be devised. The
people who dwelt in them had herds of cattle, and possibly flocks
of sheep. They owned horses, and tilled the soil, on which they
grew crops of oats and bere. They were also competent judges of
the quality of the land, as it is over the most fertile tracts that the
ruins of the brochs mostly occur, while numerous instances of their
occurrence adjacent to modern farm buildings throughout the county
could be cited. The comparatively close proximity to each other in
which they frequently stand, marks them out as the dwellings of
families rather than of the heads or chiefs of larger social organisa-
tions. Only one example remains in an approximately perfect state,
viz., the broch of Mousa in Shetland (shown in Plate A) which still
exists to a height of 45', and it alone appears on the pages of history
- it being recorded in the Orkneyinga Saga, that about the year 1155,
Erlend carried off the widow of Maddad, Earl of Athol, and taking