It was not till after the discoveries on the Continent had attracted
universal attention that archæologists began to look for similar
remains in Britain. It was then found that early historic references
to island forts, and some incidental notices of the exposure of buried
islands artificially constructed of wood and stone, and other remains
of lacustrine abodes, during the drainage of lochs and marshes in the
last and early part of this century, had been entirely overlooked.
The merit of correctly interpreting these remains in Scotland, and
bringing them systematically before antiquaries, belongs to the
late Joseph Robertson, Esq., F.S.A., Scotland, who read a paper on
the subject to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on the 14th
of December, 1857, entitled, "Notices of the Isle of the Loch of
Banchory, the Isle of Loch Canmor, and other Scottish examples of
the artificial or stockaded islands, called crannogs in Ireland, and
Keltischen Pfahlbauten in Switzerland."
Mr. Robertson's paper, though not published, at once attracted
attention, and stimulated so much further inquiry on the part of
the members, that, at the very next meeting of the Society, another
contribution on the subject was read by Mr. John Mackinlay, F.S.A.,
Scotland (B. 21), from which it appeared that as early as 1812 this
gentleman had observed some remains (now surmised to be a crannog)
in Dhu Loch, in the island of Bute, which were described in a letter
dated the 13th February, 1813. This communication found its way to
George Chalmers, Esq., author of "Caledonia," regarding which, writing
on the 26th of April, 1813, he says:--"It goes directly to illustrate
some of the obscurest antiquities of Scotland. I mean the wooden
castles, which belong to the Scottish period when stone and lime were
not much used in building. I will make proper use of this discovery
of Mr. Mackinlay." In 1863, Dr. John Grigor, of Nairn, described
"two ancient lake-dwellings or crannoges in the Loch of the Clans,
Nairnshire." (B. 55.) The remains, however, were too imperfect to be
of value in illustrating their structure, and the only relics found
were a portion of a small stone cup or lamp, two whetstones, an iron
axe-head, and some charcoal and bits of bone.
A more important discovery, made about the same time, was a group of
artificial islands in Loch Dowalton, Wigtownshire, which were first
described by his Grace the Duke of Northumberland (then Lord Lovaine)
in a paper read at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting of the British
Association in 1863. (B. 56.) About two years later Mr. John Stuart,
Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, visited Dowalton,
and, owing to a greater drainage of the loch having been made in the
interval, was enabled to re-examine the Dowalton islands under more
favourable circumstances. The result of his labours was an elaborate
paper to the Society, in which he gave a detailed account of the
structure and relics of these crannogs, and also took the opportunity
of incorporating into his article all the facts he could glean, so as
to afford a basis for comparing the Scottish examples with those in
other countries. (B. 94.)
Since the publication of Dr. Stuart's paper in 1866, little progress
was made in the investigation of Scottish crannogs, though traces of
them were occasionally noticed in various parts of Scotland, till the
discovery and examination of the Lochlee crannog, Ayrshire, in 1878-9.
The work done at Lochlee was important, not only because of the varied
collection of relics secured, but also on account of the interest it
had excited in archæological research, the fruit of which has already
been reaped by the discovery of no less than five other lake-dwellings
in the south-west of Scotland, all of which have now been carefully
investigated. Full details of these investigations are given in the
Collections of the Ayrshire and Galloway Archæological Association, as
well as in my recent work on the "Scottish Lake-Dwellings." (B. 331,
344, 373, and 426.)
While such general indications of lake-dwellings can hardly be
said to limit their geographical distribution to any given area in
Scotland, it is a singular fact that, so far as the discovery of
actual remains illustrative of the civilisation and social condition
of their occupiers is concerned, we are almost entirely dependent on
the investigations made at Dowalton, Lochlee, Lochspouts, Buston,
Airrieoulland, Barhapple, and Friar's Carse, all of which are situated
within the counties of Ayr, Dumfries, and Wigtown. In instituting
a comparison between the relics of these respective groups their
resemblance is so wonderfully alike that we have no difficulty in
dispensing with the necessity of discussing the merits of each group
separately; so that whatever inferences can be legitimately derived
from a critical examination of any one group may be safely applied to
the whole.
As a preliminary to this inquiry the following details of the
investigation of lake-dwellings in Scotland will, I trust, be
sufficient to give general readers a tolerably correct notion of the
social conditions and environments of the people whose history, solely
from an archæological standpoint, it is our object here to pourtray.