Most brochs have scarcements (ledges) which may have allowed the construction of a very sturdy wooden first floor (first spotted by the antiquary George Low in Shetland in 1774), and excavations at Loch na Berie on the Isle of Lewis show signs of a further, second floor (e.g.
Antiquarians began to use the spelling broch in the 1870s. A precise definition for the word has proved elusive.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, archaeologists such as V.
Writing in 1956 John Stewart suggested that brochs were forts put up by a military society to scan and protect the countryside and seas. Finally, some archaeologists consider broch sites individually, doubting that there ever was a single common purpose for which every broch was constructed.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, archaeologists such as V.
BAR International Series 861: Oxford. MacKie, E W 2002a Excavations at Dun Ardtreck, Skye, in 1964 and 1965.
The first of the modern review articles on the subject (MacKie 1965) did not, as is commonly believed, propose that brochs were built by immigrants, but rather that a hybrid culture formed from the blending of a small number of immigrants with the native population of the Hebrides produced them in the first century BC, basing them on earlier, simpler, promontory forts.
BAR International Series 861: Oxford. MacKie, E W 2002a Excavations at Dun Ardtreck, Skye, in 1964 and 1965.
Gordon Childe (1935), for a wholesale migration into Atlantic Scotland of people from southwest England. MacKie's theory has fallen from favour too, mainly because starting in the 1970s there was a general move in archaeology away from 'diffusionist' explanations towards those pointing to exclusively indigenous development.
Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s.
Gordon Childe and later John Hamilton regarded them as castles where local landowners held sway over a subject population. The castle theory fell from favour among Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s, due to a lack of supporting archaeological evidence.
Examples include Howe, near Stromness, Gurness Broch in the north west of Mainland, Orkney, Midhowe on Rousay and Lingro near Kirkwall (destroyed in the 1980s).
MacKie, E W 1992 The Iron Age semibrochs of Atlantic Scotland: a case study in the problems of deductive reasoning.
Archaeol Journ 149 (1991), 149–81. MacKie, E W 1995a Gurness and Midhowe brochs in Orkney: some problems of misinterpretation.
Archaeol Journ 151 (1994), 98–157. MacKie, E W 1995b The early Celts in Scotland.
Routledge, London: 654–70. MacKie, E W 1997 Dun Mor Vaul re-visited, J.N.G.
Edinburgh: 141–80. MacKie, E W 1998 Continuity over three thousand years of northern prehistory: the ‘tel’ at Howe, Orkney.
Antiq Journ 78, 1–42. MacKie, E W 2000 The Scottish Atlantic Iron Age: indigenous and isolated or part of a wider European world? 99–116 in Jon C Henderson (ed) The Prehistory and Early History of Atlantic Europe.
BAR International Series 861: Oxford. MacKie, E W 2002a Excavations at Dun Ardtreck, Skye, in 1964 and 1965.
Proc Soc Antiq Scot 131 (2000), 301–411. MacKie, E W 2002b The Roundhouses, Brochs and Wheelhouses of Atlantic Scotland c.
These archaeologists suggested defensibility was never a major concern in the siting of a broch, and argued that they may have been the "stately homes" of their time, objects of prestige and very visible demonstrations of superiority for important families (Armit 2003).
Hunter, Mollie, The Stronghold, an historical novel about the building of the first broch. ==External links== "Towers of stone–the brochs of Scotland", from The Scotsman, 27 February 2006. Pretanic World – Chart of Neolithic, Bronze Age and Celtic Stone Structures Glenelg Brochs
This list, published in July 2010, includes sites that may be nominated for inscription over the next 5–10 years. ==See also== Oldest buildings in Scotland Irish round tower Fortified tower Nuraghe ==References and footnotes== General references Armit, I.
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