Legends, Traditions or Coincidences: Remembrance of Historic Settlement in the Central Highlands of Scotland
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Legends, Traditions or Coincidences: Remembrance of Historic Settlement in the Central Highlands of Scotland Gavin MacGregor
Published online: 5 May 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract Study has established that sources of evidence (local traditions, documentary, cartographic, archaeological) of the burning of a settlement at Bunrannoch during the 1745/6 Jacobite uprising are contradictory. Some contradictions may result from conflation of long term social memories of earlier events during the late first millennium CE and the way in which the events surrounding the uprising were subsequently remembered. Such conflation may stem from the way identities of local communities were conceived during the late eighteenth century. Some members of local communities would have grounded themselves in traditional life ways, which were being actively transformed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In contrast, sponsors of change, or improvement, viewed such communities as largely criminal and impoverished. Keywords Rannoch . Settlement . Remembrance . Jacobites The tale and song have now also ceased to cheer the winter ingle; and our old people often complain, that the reign of ancient faith and brotherly neighbourhood, which knew no guile, is usurped by mercenary and selfish aims, which have completely done away with that clannish and family attachment, for which Highlanders in former times were so celebrated (MacDonald 1845, p. 558).
Introduction The upstanding remains of medieval rural settlements are exceptionally rare in Scotland (Atkinson, this volume). It is thus particularly striking that the current G. MacGregor (*) Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division, The Gregory Building, Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK e-mail: [email protected]
Int J Histor Archaeol (2010) 14:398–413
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edition of the Ordnance Survey map unusually carries the annotation “Medieval Village” at Bunrannoch, Kinloch Rannoch, Perthshire, Scotland. The site of Bunrannoch is located at the head of Loch Rannoch, in the Parish of Fortingall, in the Rannoch district of the central Highlands of Scotland (Fig. 1). The area is renowned for its wild and scenic nature, with Rannoch Moor forming its western extent and the peak of Schiehallion dominating for miles around. The southern shore of Loch Rannoch is notable for the remnants of the Black Wood of Rannoch, in part a relict Caledonian forest. At Bunrannoch, there is clear evidence of multi-period remains, with activity attested from the early second millennium BCE (Cowie 2004, pp. 253–254; O’Connor and Cowie 2001). There is a significant range of upstanding structures including later prehistoric hut circles (circular timber structures, frequently with stone footings), early historic circular homesteads (larger circular stone structures, with double skin walls, potentially suggestive of a higher status and/or defensive nature) and criel houses (a wattle wall panel on stone and turf footings, with bowed walls and arched roof), tradi
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