stirling-1963-vol-1/05_066

Transcription

INTRODUCTION : THE EARLY IRON AGE
The settlement at Wheatlands (No. 101) and the homesteads at West Plean (No. 104) and
Gargunnock (No. 105) are timber -framed structures of differing types. The discovery of a
stone cup at West Plean suggests that the builders may have come from north-east Scotland
and have established themselves before the arrival of the Romans in the vicinity. ¹ At
Gargunnock, an oval house produced relics of the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. The homestead
at Logie (No. 102) appears to be a stone-walled Einzelhof homestead ² of a type spread
widely but thinly throughout the parts of Scotland lying south of the estuaries of the Rivers
Tay and Clyde, while that at Woodside (No. 103) is probably a larger version of the
same type. All these structures must have been broadly contemporary with the forts and
duns.
There is as yet no evidence from which to deduce how long the pre-Roman Iron Age
occupation of Stirlingshire lasted. Whatever the length may have been, the first Roman
occupation endured only for about twenty years, and there is no evidence that it led to any
wholesale eviction of natives. In parts of neighbouring British territories there is abundant
evidence that peaceful native occupation continued not only throughout the gap of forty years
that ensued before the arrival of the Antonine garrisons, but also also through the 2nd and into
the 3rd century. ³ While Stirlingshire contains no settlements or homesteads identifiable as
belonging to certain later types found in the Tweed basin, some of the recorded monuments
may well have continued in occupation for a long period. ⁴ The possibility of a prehistoric
occupation of the Castle Rock at Stirling is alluded to below (p. 37).
The presence of the broch at Tor Wood (No. 100) raises the same questions as the forts,
but in a more emphatic form. As already mentioned, it is the only structure of Early Iron Age
date that represents a locally unfamiliar type. The loose group of ten brochs known as the
Tay-Forth-Tweed group, to which the Tor Wood specimen belongs, is separated by great
distances from the nearest part of the main broch-area, namely eastern Sutherland, which,
apart from two outlying brochs on the River Beauly, ⁵ does not extend south of the shores of the
Dornoch Firth. It is also remote from the sparse scatter of brochs in the western and south-
western coastal and insular regions.
In view of the isolated positions in which the brochs of the Tay-Forth-Tweed group are
found, it seems necessary to ask by what route or routes, and why, their builders came; under
what circumstances could the laborious task of constructing a broch have been prosecuted in a
strange land and one which already carried a native population; and when and by whom such a
broch would have been destroyed. At first sight their distribution might suggest that their
builders arrived from the sea, though the proximity of Coldoch broch to a well-known later
route across the Forth mosses (cf. No. 524), as well as that of Tor Wood broch (No. 100) to a
main Roman road (No. 124), should also be borne in mind. But however this may be, their
presence in small numbers in territories far away from their native localities still demands
explanation. It is possible that their builders simply moved as colonists, seeking new lands for
settlement, as may perhaps be suggested by the overcrowding implied by the high con-
centration of brochs in the main broch-area; and in this case the absence of brochs from the

1 Inventory of Roxburghshire, p.20.
2 Ibid.
3 See, for example, P.S.A.S., lxxxii (1947-8), 193 ff.; lxxxix (1955-6), 284 ff.
4 Cf. ibid., lxxxi (1946-7), 138 ff.
5 Struy (NH 396396) and Castle Spynie (NH 542420).

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