Important Events in Hebridean History
Iron Age
Main Article
David Simon: Broch at Dun an Sticir, North Uist
as it may have looked in the Iron Age.
The roof, however, may have sat on the inner wallhead,
leaving a parapet walkway around the top of the building.
By 200 BC, a new range of monuments was appearing throughout the Outer Hebrides. This was characterised by the building of monumental fortified residences such as brochs and duns, and by the development from the pre-existing roundhouse of the new, distinctive form of wheelhouse. Old settlement patterns had been abandoned, and a new, coastal distribution of settlements had emerged. The economy was now based extensively on stock farming rather than cultivation of crops, of which cattle were the most important product. The blanket bog was now established throughout the interior of the islands, used for rough summer grazing. Sea levels were now within 2 metres of their present levels.
Museum nan Eilean: A typical pot of the middle
Iron Age, found at Barvas, Isle of Lewis
Prestige and prosperity were expressed though the building of these impressive structures. The artefacts that were produced in them were functional but plentiful: large quantities of often decorated pottery were produced, in contrast to other parts of Scotland where pottery was rare or absent.
Museum nan Eilean: Iron and bronze armlet
from a high status grave on Barvas machair
Wool was spun into yarn on drop-spindles, and woven into cloth on warp-weighted looms in every house, as testified by the quantities of spindle-whorls and loom-weights encountered in most excavations. Bone and antler were used to make a wide variety of tools and personal items such as decorated combs.
Wood was now in short supply except for the wealthiest and most powerful, so whalebone was often used in its place. Iron was of course a new feature of the material culture, and occurs in the forms of objects such as knives and spearheads, although it is often the presence of whetstones that indicate contemporary use of iron.
The Romans never came to the Outer Hebrides, or affected the development of the people there in any discernible way. Only a handful of coins, brooches and Samian ware have turned up on Iron Age sites, probably through a lengthy process of trade, gift and exchange.
