Scotland in Pagan Times; The Iron Age

by Joseph Anderson

I now proceed to notice a few examples which, by their associations or their contents, disclose indications of the period of the type.

In the spring of 1859 an underground structure of this type (Fig. [259]) was discovered on the farm of West Grange of Conan, near Arbroath, Forfarshire. It occupies an elevated situation on the south-east slope of an eminence commanding an extensive view. The structure differs from all those that have been described, inasmuch as in addition to the long, low, narrow, and curved gallery widening and increasing in height from the entrance inwards, which is the typical form, it presents the additional feature of a circular chamber (A) attached to the long curved chamber near the narrow end, and also communicating with the surface by a passage (C C), thus giving to the composite structure a second entrance. The main chamber or gallery is 65 feet in length along the curvature of the central line of the floor. Its entrance is 2½ feet wide, and apparently little more than 18 inches high. It widens but slightly, till at a distance of 20 feet from the entrance there is an offset formed by a large stone set at right angles to the passage, beyond which it widens more rapidly to about 8½ feet across at the farther end. The walls are built of undressed stones, but in some places they are partially cut out of the soft rock, which, for a considerable portion of its length, also forms the floor of the chamber. The circular chamber (A) is about 10 feet in diameter and 7½ feet high. The floor is partly excavated in the underlying rock. The walls are rudely built of undressed boulders. They converge almost from the floor, and the covering stone was a large boulder resting on the circular apex of the vaulted roof which impeded the plough and thus led to the discovery of the structure.

About 20 feet to the north of the underground chamber there was a circular space from which the soil had been removed. It was rudely laid with a pavement of undressed flags forming a circular floor a few inches below the level of the surrounding soil, and about 20 feet in diameter. Among the flags of this paved space there were found a portion of a plain bronze ring about 3 inches diameter, the upper stone of a quern or hand-millstone, two whorls of lead, a number of rudely-hollowed stone vessels of various sizes, and fragments of implements in iron so greatly corroded as to be unrecognisable except as fragments of implements with cutting edges.

The articles found in the underground chambers were few in number. They consisted of some fragments of pottery, coarse, but wheel-made, pale yellow in colour, and differing in texture and manufacture from the usual handmade pottery of native origin found in many of the other structures of the same class. It closely resembles some varieties of pottery that are constantly found in the vicinity of Roman stations in Scotland. A bronze needle and a portion of a quern were the only other objects found. But that the place had been long occupied was sufficiently apparent from the quantity of ashes mixed with calcined and broken bones of the common domestic animals which it contained.

In this case we have distinct evidence of an underground chamber associated with an overground habitation of less permanent structure, of which time and cultivation had removed all traces except the circular paved floor and the casual relics which it contained. There can be no doubt that the people who occupied this overground habitation also possessed the underground structure, and used it for purposes connected with their daily life. There is little now left to disclose what the manner of that life was, but that little is highly significant. It discloses that they were a people cultivating grain and rearing cattle and sheep. They had utensils of stone it is true, and these of the very rudest form and fabrication, but they also possessed wheel-made pottery and weapons or implements of bronze, iron, and lead.

A singular interest attaches to this little settlement, inasmuch as it not only shows us the association of the two forms of underground and overground structure which united to make one habitation, but also gives the associated grave-ground of the family. A few yards distant from the dwelling there was a group of six graves. They were full-length, stone-lined graves, rudely constructed, with three or four flattish slabs forming the sides, and one stone placed for each end. They lay so near the surface that the covering stones had mostly been removed by the plough, and the remains in them were greatly decayed. The only manufactured object found in them was a single ring or child’s bracelet of cannel coal. This is the only instance on record of the discovery of a cemetery associated with the double dwelling of the people who constructed these subterranean galleries.

Among the rubbish thrown out in the course of the excavation there was found a beautiful spiral bronze bracelet of the form of a double serpent, decorated in that peculiar style of art which has been described in the third Lecture of this course as the precursor or earlier development of the art of the Celtic Christian time.[^[114]] Here we find the earlier art associated with this peculiar type of structure, and with a manner of sepulture which is destitute of all indications of Christianity. It is associated also with wheel-made pottery of a type that is only found in situations suggestive of Roman intercourse, and therefore indicates a period when Christianity had not yet supplanted the Paganism of the country. It was also in a precisely similar association with one of these underground structures that the massive bronze armlets (Figs. 115, 116), described in the same Lecture, were discovered at Castle Newe. They also are decorated in this peculiar style of art and enriched with enamels. Their workmanship evinces skill and taste of a very high order, and the occurrence of these works of art in such associations may serve to remind us how greatly we should have erred if we had estimated the capacity and culture of the inhabitants of these structures by their architectural character alone, or if we had measured their condition and acquirements merely by the fact that they burrowed under ground.

Fig. 260.—Ground plan of Earth-house at Tealing, Forfarshire.
(From a Plan by Andrew Jervise.)

Another structure of the same type (Fig. [260]), but of larger dimensions, was discovered in 1871 in a field at Tealing. It was 80 feet in length measured along the curve, 3 feet wide at the entrance and widening gradually to 8½ feet at the inner end, where it is a little more than 6 feet high. It has checks for a door at a little distance within the entrance, and a second pair about 16 feet from the farther end. The usual evidences of occupation were found in the presence of ashes, charcoal, and animal bones throughout the excavation. The manufactured relics unfortunately have neither been described nor figured, although they constitute the largest and most varied collection of objects ever obtained from such a structure. They are enumerated by Mr. Jervise as follows:—A piece of the red lustrous ware commonly called Samian, a bracelet, bronze rings, and coarse pottery, no fewer than ten querns, a number of whorls and stone cups, and an article made of iron slightly mixed with brass. The occurrence of the red lustrous ware in these Earth-houses, as well as in the Brochs and Crannogs, is an indication of the period of the occupation of these structures which is of great significance. The large size of the gallery, in the present instance, and the occurrence in it of ten querns, indicate that it was frequented by a considerable number of people. It has another feature of interest in the presence, on one of the rude boulders which form the walls, of a number of cup-markings, one of which is surrounded by five concentric circles. Another stone with forty-six cup-markings on it lay on the margin of a circular paved space close to the entrance of the structure. These cup-markings form one of the enigmas of archæology. They are shallow pits, roughly hemispherical in form, hollowed by pointed tools in the surfaces of rocks, boulders, and standing stones. Sometimes they are on vertical surfaces, sometimes on horizontal surfaces, occasionally on the under surfaces of stones placed as the covers of cists. Most frequently the cups are simple rounded hollows, but very frequently they are surrounded by a series of concentric circles of varying number, and often a straight gutter proceeds from the central cup through the circles. They are sometimes hewn in groups upon the solid rock of a hillside, sometimes on earth-fast boulders, occasionally on the stones of stone circles, and often on stones in sepulchral cairns or in connection with cists. They are not confined to Scotland, or even to Britain. They are found in Scandinavia, in France, in Germany, and Switzerland. They appear on the Continent in associations which refer them to the Bronze Age at least, but they also occur in associations which show that the custom survived to the late Iron Age, and even in a modified form to Christian times. Their occurrence here, in connection with this underground structure, has therefore no special significance with respect to the age of the structure, and there is nothing in the association or the circumstances in which they occur in this particular instance which contributes to our knowledge of the purpose or significance of the markings themselves. They may or may not have been sculptured on the stone before it was taken to form part of this underground gallery, and the only thing they tell us for certain is that here, at some time or other, there was a custom of which traces are found scattered over a wide area of Western Europe.