HS 1998 - Archaeology Paper no. 7 Medieval or Later Rural Settlement - Historic Scotland's approach. Edinburgh.
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Dixon, Piers 2001 Puir labourers and busy husbandmen: the medieval countryside of Scotland in the middle ages. Edinburgh.
This well-illustrated book brings together what we know of rural settlement in the Lowlands in the medieval period from a combination of archaeological and documentary research. This complementary approach is used to good effect to produce a richer understanding of the material culture of rural medieval Scotland than has been achieved hitherto. Eschewing the well-known sites of the aristocracy - castles and abbeys - it analyses the results of recent archaeological work to review what we know of rural settlement and housing, farming, hunting forests, pasture and woodland, and rural industry. This is set against the social and economic changes of the period and Scotland's place in the development of medieval Europe. This is an essential read for those interested in rural settlement.
ISBN 1 84158 146 1 £6.99 www.birlinn.co.uk
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Dodgshon, Robert A. 2002 The age of the clans: the Highlands from Somerled to the Clearances. Edinburgh.
This book complements Puir Labourers in providing an overview of Highland society in the medieval period. However, its approach is based on a broad knowledge of documentary sources as well as the geography of the area and looks at the whole structure of clan-based society. It focuses on the changing political relationships, the clans, changes in settlement over time and the economy of the Highlands and Islands. The book is well illustrated with examples of medieval and post-medieval sites and landscapes that illustrate these themes throughout the Highlands and Islands. This is a useful overview, if short on archaeological insights.
ISBN 1841581445 £6.99 www.birlinn.co.uk
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RCAHMS and HS 2002 'But the Walls Remained': A survey of unroofed rural settlement depicted on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey 6-inch map of Scotland. Edinburgh.
This book focuses on the evidence for abandoned settlement that was mapped by the Ordnance Surveyors in the course of their first survey of Scotland carried out in the third quarter of the 19th century. The First Edition Survey Project (FESP) was based on the premise that the main phase of the Clearances had already taken place so that in mapping unroofed and abandoned remains, the Ordnance Survey were effectively providing a record of pre-Clearance settlement. The book includes a description of the methodology of the Ordnance Survey mapping and of the many different forms of ruined and unroofed settlement remains - from townships to mills and from abandoned fields to enclosures. It is accompanied by distribution maps as well as extracts from the maps. A useful projection of the survival rates of sites is offered in the light of the land-use changes over the last 150 years, while the synthetic analysis of the form of these settlements produces a result that flies in the face of the long-held belief that Highland townships were clustered settlements. The book ends with some suggestions as to how best these sites may be conserved. This book should be read by anyone wishing to carry out research on rural settlement in Scotland.
ISBN 19022419278, paperback £6, published by RCAHMS and HS. www.rcahms.gov.uk
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Govan, Sarah (ed.) 2003 Conference Proceedings. Medieval or Later Rural Settlement 10 years on. Edinburgh.
This book was published by Historic Scotland to celebrate 10 years of work since the 1991 seminar on medieval or later rural settlement (MoLRS). It includes reviews of the state of research on Lowland (Piers Dixon) and Highland Settlement (Olivia Lelong), together with papers on Rig and Furrow Cultivation (Strat Halliday) and Bloomeries (John Atkinson), all of which illustrate how well our understanding of rural settlement has developed over the past decade. The case study on Ben Lawers shows the benefits of combining systematic fieldwork and documentary research (Steve Boyle), while the work of the Highland Folk Museum at Newtonmore (Ross Noble) questions our understanding of past technology. There are still major lacunae, such as the absence of late medieval settlement sites in the Highlands and Islands, but this is in part addressed by Lelong in the second half of her paper. In this context Dixon's argument for a late medieval dispersal of settlement in the Lowlands provides an interesting reflection that needs to be tested. More, well thought-out excavation projects are clearly needed, and the question of which MoLRS remains to conserve is an issue of some debate.
ISBN 190357062X paperback £10, published by Historic Scotland. www.historic-scotland.gov.uk
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Dalglish, C. 2003 Rural Society in the Age of Reason. An Archaeology of the Emergence of Modern Life in the Southern Scottish Highlands. New York.
Rural Society in the Age of Reason aims to explore Agricultural Improvement in the southern Scottish Highlands from the perspective of historical archaeology. The changing nature of society, as clan gave way to commercial estate, is studied by combining documents, maps, and other sources with the archaeology of buildings, settlements, and landscapes. The book asks: how did the enclosure of fields, the emergence of the modern home, and the demise of the farming township and shieling relate to changes in the structure of community and family life? What were the historical, political, and social contexts for these changes?
Dalglish’s approach in asking these questions is to situate the study of Scotland’s recent rural archaeology within the more general debate on the archaeological study of modern life. This debate is of wide relevance, and Rural Society is one of the latest volumes in the Contributions to Global Historical Archaeology Series.
The book is best suited to those seeking an in depth discussion of the theoretical issues surrounding the archaeology and history of Scotland’s recent rural past. It also derives value from its detailed case study material.
ISBN 0-306-47725-4, hardback and paperback, published in Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers' Contributions to Global Historical Archaeology series. www.wkap.nl
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Holden, Timothy G, with contributions by Louise M Baker 2004 The Blackhouses of Arnol. Historic Scotland Research Report. Edinburgh.
Blackhouses and their associated crofts are the product of the agricultural improvements of the 19th and 20th centuries in Highland and Island Scotland. They therefore represent an extremely important and dramatic phase of Scotland's history. Arnol township in Lewis, Western Isles, where Historic Scotland cares for the thatched Blackhouse Museum at No.42 and, since 1996, a ruined blackhouse and whitehouse at No.39, is one of the best-known and most iconic examples of such a township.
This Report details the results of a wider multi-disciplinary study of the significance of Arnol township and its individual blackhouse structures. It enables us to understand how important individual blackhouse structures are in providing unique evidence for past life styles, and how as a township group, they can enhance our appreciation of how settlement evolved in any one place. What to preserve of such settlements in Scotland, and how, is a live issue because of the varied threats to their survival.
ISBN 1 904966 03 9, paperback £10.95, published by Historic Scotland
