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Highland (Mainland)

Where did folk live?

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thelonious T
thelonious May 9, 2017 07:36:49

I was having a little think yesterday which is never good for my brain.

Am I missing the obvious here?

Take 3 regions in the highlands.

Strath of kildonan - tons of cairns also tons of hut circles.
Lairg/Bonar Bridge area - tons of cairns and again tons of hut circles.
Area round Ledmore - tons of cairns everywhere but where are the hut circles??

Where did the folk live that built all the chambered cairns round Ledmore/Cnoc Chaornaidh? Does the lack of hut circles on the map round there seem a little odd? Maybe I'm wrong in trying to connect chambered cairns with hut circles? But the builders of these round Ledmore must of lived somewhere. Anyway head's still hurting so I'm off for a brew.

T tiompan
tiompan May 9, 2017 08:05:50
Replying to thelonious

It's a classic puzzle .
There has not been lot of excavations of hut circles (Thorneycroft ? was one of the earliest) but what little we have had points to them being later than the major monuments , i.e. B.A. rather than Neolithic . There seems to be large swathes of upland monuments and rock art but little evidence of associated settlement and on the other hand great numbers of hut circles and field systems with little in the way of monuments apart from the odd later stone circles e.g. Dartmoor .
The few earlier buildings that we do have evidence for are intriguingly quite substantial e.g. Skara Brae .

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