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Loch Migdale, near Tain in the Scottish Highlands, contains a rocky island that is a suspected crannog, or man-made prehistoric feature. The island and surrounding landscape, which is littered with intriguing lumps and bumps, belongs to Rob Jones and Cara Flanagan who invited Time Team to try to make sense of it all.
The crannog
Excavating underwater, the Team, including crannog expert Nick Dixon, has to carefully remove sections of the rubble mound. These are outlined by scaffold poles, which act as guides for the limits of the trenches. The Team concentrates on two areas – one about a metre underwater on the perimeter of the site, and the other just centimetres beneath the surface on the main crannog platform. Waterlogged samples of timber planks and stakes are discovered, which are later dated to the Iron Age and, together with charcoal and bone finds, indicate settlement activity.
The henge
Further excavation on the shore indicates the site of a small ritual henge monument. Complete with entrance facing the loch, the henge contains a stone marker to align the entrance with a landscape feature in the distance where two hills meet. It was later calculated that this point on the skyline would mark the position of the rising sun on the spring and autumn equinoxes.
Other ritual activity
Excavations on another mound – thought to be a cairn or burial mound – uncovers a small pyramidal structure made of compacted peat and surrounded by white quartz chippings. Prehistoric specialist Francis Pryor is convinced that this is evidence of further ritual activity from the Bronze Age.
Thriving landscape
With so much archaeology in such a small area the Team had their work cut out. After three days of intense excavation, on dry(ish) land and below water, they had uncovered evidence of a fascinating thriving landscape, which had been used for settlement and religion from prehistoric times to the modern day.
'Kind of tricky'
A major part of this programme involved the investigation of a prehistoric artificial island called a crannog. The fact that the remnants of this rubble-based island are about 30 metres out in the loch presented Time Team surveyor, Henry Chapman, with a challenge.
'The survey of a crannog is kind of tricky,' says Henry. 'It's just like a land survey but involves recording some of the information underwater. The crannog is out in the loch and so it's surrounded by water. The water level goes up and down all the time, so that's of little use to me when trying to record levels. What I have to do is record the bed of the loch to understand the relationship between the crannog and the main landscape.'
Crannog speculation
There is a great deal of speculation as to why prehistoric people built crannogs and how they accessed them. Was it by boat or did they have pontoons or walkways stretching to the shore? Henry hopes his survey will find some answers: 'I'm particularly trying to find anything that could look like a causeway or path. These things can often have a causeway just under the water level, which would make access to the island easier if you knew they were there. However, surveying the whole thing is another matter.'
In practice, Henry has broken down the survey into several areas: 'The approach I'm using is on three levels. I'm trying to create a 3D landscape survey of the crannog itself as it is above water. Then I'm surveying the bed of the loch up to the bank from a boat. And finally I'm doing my normal survey of the main landscape. If I pick up any indications of a possible causeway I can get the divers to investigate it further. Then I want to tie all the information together into one big plan.'
Paddling around
This may sound like a technical nightmare, but Henry has done similar work before and has confidence in his equipment. 'I've done a lot of wetland archaeology in the past, which can involve working in tidal environments like river estuaries and so I'm experienced in paddling around in the water trying to get the archaeology out of the landscape. It's all good fun at the end of the day.'
By the end of Day Three, Henry has successfully identified a causeway. Running between the crannog and the shore, it is about five metres wide and a metre or so higher than the surrounding material on the loch bed.
Environmental reconstruction
Environmental archaeologist Richard Tipping plays an important role in piecing together the history of the landscape: 'My job in archaeology is to try to reconstruct the landscape around archaeological sites. Where the field archaeologist investigates the site and way of life of the people who lived there, I specialise in looking at the environment that they lived in: what plants were there, what settlements could have looked like, how the environment has changed and how the landscape could have changed over time through actions like erosion.'
To do this Richard investigates several areas of evidence: 'I look at the soils that people would have farmed. In a landscape like this I need to investigate how peat has grown and affected how people lived, how they tried to cope with it and how it may have affected settlement. I can also investigate the sediments in the loch. These can hold environmental clues just like an archive of environmental changes through time. This includes microscopic evidence like pollen grains, which can identify the types of plants or crops that were grown here.'
Auger survey
Richard was called in to this Time Team dig to try to find out how the prehistoric landscape had changed over time. To do this he conducted an auger survey, whereby a core-sampling hand drill is screwed into the ground to gather a snapshot of the underlying stratigraphy.
'Peat can be made up of woods, mosses and sedges, and we can tell a lot about environmental change from the composition of the layers,' says Richard. 'The deepest I've found here is about 1.5 metres but most of it is fairly shallow. I would imagine that in recent centuries people have cut whatever they can for fuel.'
History to burn
'By estimating how fast peat accumulates I'd say that the 1.5 metre deposits could be 2,500 years old,' he continues. That's around the end of the archaeology that we're excavating. There is some debate that an environmental change could have occurred some 2,500 years ago that made this area unsuitable to settle. All of this hypothesis comes from peat – a whole record of prehistoric climate change and people's work on the land that is locked up in something you can burn in your fireplace.'
One of the topics talked about a lot in this programme was the importance of ritual sites and special alignments. Prehistory specialist Francis Pryor had this to say:
What's the importance of alignment?
'Most people know that Stonehenge is lined up with the sunrise and there are all sorts of alignments that occur with prehistoric monuments. It looks like this particular monument is lined up with the sun rising between a slot on the horizon. It has been suggested in the past that this is connected with some sort of Stone-Age astronomy, but that's not what the general thinking is now.'
So what's the general consensus about what these monuments were for?
'The modern view of these celestial alignments is that they were a way of linking the sun, moon and earth into the natural order of things – almost a way of linking the religion of the time with the natural world and the world of the ancestors. Imagine it as a way of reinforcing the social structures that were present here at the time. If you think of ceremonies that may have occurred here, conducted by leaders of the social group, they would have personally been seen by their group as connected to the whole natural order of things.'
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
Loch Migdale hoard
The original report on the discovery of the Loch Migdale hoard, which featured in this programme, was written by J Anderson in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 35 (1901), p266.
Artificial Islets: Crannogs of the Central Inner Hebrides by Mark W Holley (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) £44
The author's PhD thesis at Edinburgh University was based on his extensive field-work on the crannogs of Scotland. Holley maintains the Crannogs on the Web website.
Landscape with lake dwellings by Ian A Morrison (Edinburgh University Press, 1986) paperback £7.95
A well-illustrated pocket-guide to the crannogs of Scotland with sections on typology, structure, form and their place within the landscape.
The Landscape of Scotland: A hidden history by C R Wickham-Jones (Tempus, 2001) paperback £16.99
From the top of the highest mountain to the bottom of the deepest peat bog, the landscape of Scotland bears witness to the people who have lived and worked on the land for generations. It is the role of archaeology to recognise and interpret these traces, and in this book, archaeological skills are brought to bear on the landscape of today. Individual sections cover settlements, farming, fortification, industry, transport, ceremony and religion, and burials. Each section presents representative sites from all periods and all parts of the country. Rather than using the familiar manicured sites that are laid open for the public, the author takes us to humps and bumps and piles of stone – the ordinary sites which those who like to explore the countryside come across every day (perhaps without knowing it).
Farmers in Prehistoric Britain by Francis Pryor (Tempus, 1998) hardback £18.99
Wearing both his hats as archaeologist and farmer, Pryor has produced an empathic work on the life and methods of prehistoric farmers. Often what survives is just a few cropmarks, but this work brings what is now obscure into vivid reality.
Prehistoric Britain by Timothy Darvill (Routledge, 1987) paperback £22.99
Timothy Darvill examines the development of human societies in Britain from the earliest times down to the Roman Conquest, as revealed by available archaeological evidence. Special attention is given to six themes which are traced through all phases of prehistory: subsistence, technology, ritual, trade, society and population.
The Crannogs of Scotland: An underwater archaeology by Nicholas Dixon (Tempus, 2005) paperback £17.99
Nick Dixon's book brings together the fruits of his longstanding work on Scottish crannogs, at Loch Tay and elsewhere. The book explains the methods of underwater archaeology and reviews the results of the Loch Tay crannog excavations, as well as revealing exciting discoveries from a number of other prehistoric sites. In particular, the excavation of the 2,500-year-old early Iron-Age Oakbank crannog shows what can be found in the well-preserved waterlogged remains: timber floors and wooden walls of houses, bracken and ferns laid on the floor to make the house comfortable, household utensils and agricultural implements – even butter in a wooden butter dish.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
The Scottish Crannog Centre
www.crannog.co.uk/
Kenmore
Loch Tay
Aberfeldy
Perthshire PH15 2HY
Scotland
Tel: 01887 830583
E-mail: info@crannog.co.uk
The Scottish Crannog Centre is open to visitors from 15 March to 30 November 2004. It features a recreated crannog and causeway open to visitors and is the location for various special events. The website includes background information on crannogs, the crannog reconstruction and underwater archaeology.
Crannogs on the Web
www.arcl.ed.ac.uk/arch/holley/
Website run by the crannog and underwater archaeology specialist Dr Mark W Holley. It includes a catalogue (with photos) of all known Inner Hebrides crannog sites, a short report of Holley's survey of the Loch Hawe crannogs and a brief introduction to crannogs. See also Further reading.
Scottish Crannogs
www.bbc.co.uk/history/lj/archaeologylj/
crannog_01.shtml
Good introduction by Barrie Andrian to Scottish crannogs, including background on how our knowledge of these structures has developed since they were first identified in the 19th century.