Crannogs

"Eva Andersson, Kläderna och människan i medeltidens Sverige och Norge. Avhandlingar från Historiska institutionen i Göteborg 47 (Göteborg 2006) 284 pages. Written in Swedish with an English summary (Clothing and the individual in Mediaeval Sweden and Norway). ISBN 91-88614-60-3; ISSN 1100-6781 The manner of dress in Norway and Sweden between 1200 and 1500 is investigated in this dissertation. The main sources are Norwegian and Swedish charters, mainly wills. Clothes mentioned in them are analysed with the help of pictorial sources and preserved garments. As well as the particular garments, the complete dress and its development over time is studied. The clothing materials mentioned and changes over time are discussed. Comparison is also made with European fashion and manners of dress. Dress is also studied as an expression of social categories; how dress differed between the estates and between the sexes and how it was used to signal status and gender is examined. In this investigation the results from the first part of the dissertation is used, but also other sources, like sumptuary regulations and courtly literature. Previous research has seen the dress of the lower estates in Scandinavia as fixed and unaffected by contemporary fashion. In this dissertation it is shown that the spread of the fashionable ideal in dress reached far, both socially and geographically. The same types of garments were, to a large extent, worn by all levels of society, the difference lay in which materials they were made from. One of clothing’s most persistent functions is to express and signal differences between men and women. How this is done is, however, culture specific and changes over time. In the Middle Ages with few exceptions men and women wore the same types of garments. Primarily, gender was signalled with headgear and other items of clothing that did not emphasize the physical differences between the sexes. The question of how gender was signalled in clothing is in the dissertation tied to theories about how bodies and sex was perceived in the Middle Ages. As a result of this study we get a deeper understanding not only of the manner of dress, but also of how gender and status were perceived in mediaeval Norway and Sweden "

The Archaeological Survey of Ireland sites and monuments database show that 93 crannóg and inis or island sites have so far been located and recorded within the boundary of Co. Leitrim. As the now infamous excavations at the crannog in Drumclay, Co. Fermanagh have demonstrated, these sites are of considerable importance to the wider archaeological record. Here is a short snapshot of these sites and the treasures that they hold.

This paper examines a range of sources to consider the place held by the former lake of Lough Croan, Co. Roscommon, in the later medieval Ó Cellaig (O'Kelly) lordship of Uí Maine. The paper argues for the lake as a location of high importance in the medieval past. The research suggests that it served as a caput or cenn áit of the Uí Chellaig within the medieval trícha cét of Tír Maine, which for much of the later medieval period was the patrimony of these eastern Connacht lords.

While few archaeological finds remain concerning dress during the Iron Age of the Celtic Tribes in Europe, if we consider historical commentary, Celtic art, oral traditions and archaeological data together we can amass a generic idea what might have been available and worn by them. This broad approach to dress is not with out bias however and it must be noted that regional differences must have existed. The document tries to amass not just the generic view of dress but also emphasizes the issues of lack of evidence and culture and region differences that impact this information.

The focus of this research is on the later prehistoric period, from the earliest constructional origins of western Scotland crannogs in the late Bronze Age through to their apparent emergence as status dwellings in the Early Historic period after the mid first millennium AD. The aim is to investigate the ways in which crannogs functioned as settlements, both on a practical, economic as well as a symbolic and socio-cultural level. Throughout, the primary concern is with contextualisation, considering crannogs within their correct chronological and cultural context through the critical analysis of dating evidence as well as the identification of the relevant ritual and symbolic themes- i.e. the Iron Age veneration of water. It is argued in this book that the stereotypical view of a crannog that has largely been derived from the results of work carried out on Irish crannogs has been misleading in the case of the Scottish sites, tending towards a view of crannogs as high-status strongholds, often as royal seats. Though crannogs were certainly a significant feature of the Early Historic period in Scotland, there is as yet no evidence of direct connections to royalty in this period and, based on the currently available evidence, the characterisation of crannogs as high status sites is misguided in the context of their late Bronze and Iron Age origins.

My PhD thesis which:

a.) produces the first complete inventory of Scottish crannogs, including sites in the Hebrides.

b.)Examines the changing meaning and use of crannogs throughout Scotland over some five millennia, from the Neolithic to the Post-Medieval Period

c.)Provides fieldwork results from the Hebrides, including underwater investigations of crannogs on South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist and Lewis, and examples of prehistoric pottery recovered from the lochbed surrounding these sites, including several nearly complete vessels.

d.) Discusses future research aims in the Hebrides, including the identification of additional Neolithic crannogs

This paper looks at a very important issue of the incorporation of the Middle Pomerania into the Piast realm. It seeks to address the above research question mostly through the analysis of archaeological sources. The article is expanded to include the analysis of written sources, e.g., the writings of Ibrahim ibn Yaqub and John Canaparius. The studies on the issue are preceded by a broad presentation of the subject literature and an attempt to identify the key research problems regarding the history of Middle Pomerania until the mid-tenth century. The most important issues to address here include perhaps the territorial and stronghold structure as well as the communication infrastructure. These are closely related to the geographical characteristics of Middle Pomerania, which certainly did not facilitate the incorporation of the region into the structures of the emerging Piast realm.

Summary.  This paper considers the evidence for the origins and development of the lake settlement tradition of Scotland and Ireland in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. Considering a crannog ‘event horizon’ around the mid-first millennium BC, dating and structural evidence are compared and contrasted, and the evidence for non-domestic activity including ritual and votive deposition is contextualized. It is argued that the concurrent appearance of crannogs with the flourish of domestic monumentality in Scotland and Ireland can be seen as a consequence of the fusion of ritual and domestic spheres of life in the later first millennium BC, integrating the themes of architectural monumentality and the Iron Age reverence of water.

Crannogs are highly visible man-made statements in the Scottish later prehistoric landscape. The paper discusses the current understanding of crannogs, from their stereotypical model, through varied morphology of construction, to the island round house structures and farmsteads. It also considers the more promising avenues of research which are arising from recent work on Scottish lake dwellings, for example consideration of the domestic sphere of life and its relationship to the veneration of water, or modelling of social obligations through labour pooling, which can bring us closer to understanding the societies that built and used these sites.

This paper represents a detailed reinterpretation of the stratigraphy and development of the famous early medieval royal site of Lagore crannog, located just south of the Hill of Tara in Co. Meath (Ireland). In particular, this paper presents an osteological analysis of the human remains uncovered from the early phases of the sites, and brooches the possibility that the early medieval remains might suggest the site was a place associated with violent ritual, and possibly judicial execution between AD 400-800. It argues that the distinctive development of Lagore's archaeology and royal purpose, can only be fully understood by placing the site within its landscape, historical and geo-political contexts.

The employment of a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the later medieval Ó Cellaig lordship of Tír Maine and Uí Maine, broadly the areas of south Co. Roscommon and east Co. Galway, has yielded important new insights into the nature of Gaelic lordship in this part of Ireland. The application of a methodology based on toponymy, historical research, cartographic studies, and analysis of literary works in addition to archaeology, has greatly assisted in identifying the lordly centers of these eastern Connacht lords, as well as evaluating how these cenn áiteanna were ordered and operated through time. One case study area that exemplifies this approach is the district around Callow Lough and Kilconnell, Co. Galway.

ABSTRACT: Pdf copy of a power point presentation summarizing selected aspects on Celtic Europe, with text and images, and accompanying an in-class, video/dvd viewing of
(a). BBC (1986): "The Celts, episode 1: The man with the golden shoes" (available online via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i72wvqk0tbE [53 minutes]), or
(b). BBC: The Celts, Blood, Iron and Sacrifice (available online via Episode-1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA-itb5NwDU; Episode-2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGI6gud8MUo; Episode-3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhkuLeobhXo  [180 minutes]).
Both the video/dvd viewing and power point presentation form the main sources from which students are asked to extract answers/data regarding 12 culture response questions on (1) early searchers, (2) the nature of the evidence, (3) more recent survey and excavation projects, (4) dating methods and chronology, (5) social organization, (6) the associated environment, (7) subsistence and diet, (8) technology, (9) trade and exchange, (10) cognitive archaeology, art, and religion, (11) bioarchaeology, and (12) why and how did things change.  These response questions/topics follow and reinforce readings in the first 12 chapters of the course textbook, Renfrew and Bahn, 2019.  Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practices (6th edition).  UPDATED Jan. 2023.

In Scotland evidence for living in wet environments has
come almost exclusively from freshwater lochs in the form of
lake-dwellings or crannogs. This paper attempts to
move beyond functionalist readings of crannogs and, based
on their distribution and dating, place them within their
wider social and cultural context.

There are at least four wooden intertidal platforms, also known as marine crannogs, in the Firth of Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland. The interpretation of these sites partly depends on their dating and, if coeval, they could point to the presence of a native maritime hub. Furthermore, the spatial coincidence with the terminus of the Antonine Wall has led to speculation about the role they may have played in Roman-native interaction during the occupation of southern Scotland in the early first mil- lennium cal AD. Hence, a better absolute chronology is essential to evaluate whether the marine crannogs were contemporary with one another and whether they related to any known historic events. This article presents results of a wiggle-match dating project aimed at resolving these uncertainties at two of the sites in question, Dumbuck and Erskine Bridge crannogs. The results show that the construction of these sites pre-date direct Roman influence in Scotland. Furthermore, the results indicate that the two sites were built at least 300 years apart, forcing us to consider the possibility that they may have func- tioned in very different historical contexts. Other findings include technical observations on the fine shape of the radiocarbon calibration curve near the turn of the first millennia BC/AD and potential evidence for persistent contamination in decayed and exposed sections of waterlogged alder.

As part of the second phase of the South West Crannog Survey, the crannog in Loch Arthur, New Abbey, Dumfries and Galloway, was surveyed and small-scale excavations were carried out on submerged eroding deposits. The crannog was seen to be at threat from erosion for a number of reasons, including insect infestation, aquatic plants and wave action. The eroding deposits were sampled and their ecofactual content analysed and structural timbers from various positions in the crannog mound were radiocarbon dated. The results suggest that the site is a massive packwerk mound that was constructed in the second half of the 1st millennium BC, most likely in one event. After an apparent period of abandonment, the site was reoccupied in the later medieval period.