As they survive today, it is the Atlantic roundhouses, built largely of stone, that epitomise the current concept of complex prehistoric architecture. The topic of Atlantic roundhouses is represented by a very substantial body of literature with a long history of examining the various developmental stages of these structures in the field. There is also a vast literature considering the role, function, date, and origins of these structures. Included in this topic are brochs, one of the most celebrated, studied, and controversial phenomena in Scottish archaeology. Brochs have exerted a tremendous influence (possibly disproportionately so) upon Iron Age house studies in Scotland, but they continue to be a dominant topic of discussion. Yet monumental Iron Age domestic structures termed ‘substantial houses’ (a term coined by Hingley in 1995) have been identified across the entirety of Scotland, including not just brochs and Atlantic roundhouses but also crannogs, and very large timber roundhouses.
Does the category of substantial house only relate to dry-stone structures, some demonstrating extreme longevity or can it apply to very large but inevitably less permanent timber buildings? There is a strong case for suggesting that ‘substantial houses’ are a social outcome that occurs in both dry-stone and organic materials, depending upon local materials availability, and that their direct comparison is certainly worthy of further pursuit (Hingley 1995). In order to understand the experiences of occupants and visitors to Atlantic roundhouses, and the capacities that the people and the buildings had to exert influence and power over social relations, near and far, it is necessary to examine and understand the detail of architecture. The perennial question as to how high a particular building was is essential to any appreciation f its setting and impressiveness in the landscape. An appreciation of the three-dimensional space available within such buildings is also key, and not readily grasped from small-scale plans.
Chronology, temporality and biography
As with the dating of other aspects of the Iron Age the issue of the ‘plateaux’ on the radiocarbon curve that reduces all dates within a wide bracfket to a common blandness, has presented problems. AMS coupled with Bayesian analysis are beginning to resolve these and a range of other scientific dating techniques are also becoming available. The absolute dating of ‘true brochs’ (showing complex drystone architecture) can now be extended back to the third or fourth centuries BC, from the dating of Scatness (Dockrill 2007). Once again this places a lot of evidential value on the dating of a single site, and there remains a need for broader pictures of the development of a series of sites to give a better view.
Hingley (2005) has suggested that substantial roundhouses created and marked a particular temporality, or sense of time amongst past communities. Duration and endurance as a mark and ‘qualification’ for status are also factors: a remarkable social change may be implied by the adoption of ‘permanent’ dwellings that were designed to outlive by far their builders (Sharples 2006) -although the idea of very long duration has been challenged (Cowley 2003). Sharples suggests the the adoption of ‘permanent’ dwellings is a response to environmental degradation – an idea that requires demonstration. A closer reading of the fine resolution (including soil micromorphology) of floor deposits and occupational layers in tandem with more precise absolute dating may help to resolve the question of continuity, or discontinuity of occupation.
The potential long endurance of buildings raises issues of lineage and inheritance (Armit 2005a) and the life-cycles (Sharples 2005) of buildings have been emphasised as important aspects of their social use. The end of substantial circular buildings and the development of the generally smaller structures that succeed monumental Atlantic roundhouses have been charted (see Gilmour 2000 for the West, Hedges 1990 and Smith 1990 for the North). Exactly when and why this occurs remains a very important topic for investigation. Changes in social organisation are presumed to be the likely cause, but this requires demonstration.
Broad comparison of the different manifestations of substantial houses could offer many useful insights, especially in assessing how similar or different their social roles were.
Use, Activity, Deposition
It is frequently assumed that Atlantic roundhouses indeed functioned as ‘houses for living in’ on purely formal grounds, with little reference to, knowledge of, any evidence for activities that took place within them. Armit (2006) is admirably realistic about the complex series of processes that will have lasted centuries and served to complicate and truncate the floors and floor-deposits as well as confusing any single, coherent and contemporary pattern of activity and deposition. is admirably realistic about the complex series of processes that will have lasted centuries and served to complicate and truncate the floors and floor-deposits as well as confusing any single, coherent and contemporary pattern of activity and deposition.
One rich resource is the series of soft deposits that the hard shells of Atlantic architectural spaces protect and preserve. At Scalloway (Sharples 1998) it was argued that sudden conflagration and collapse of the organic roof led to the preservation of floor deposits frozen at a particular point in the annual cycle of activities and tasks undertaken inside. It was inferred from the evidence that overwintering animals were accommodated on the ground floor while humans domiciled in upper storeys. A similar conflagration was argued for the remains at Bharabhat, Lewis.
Dockrill (2002) has suggested that broch towers provided a major role in the management of the local economy as centres for the redistribution of cereals.
How the generality of Atlantic roundhouses were actually used, however, remains an important research question, including whether there is a wider range of functions than the simply domestic. As indicated above It can be difficult to interpret daily activities and practices from constantly used, re-used and cleaned floors, often truncated by later activity. Indeed, the end-deposit of any period of use preserved for archaeological study may be a very specific accumulation left in circumstances that may not reflect daily use in any way.
However, not all house floors are as mixed and confused as those heavily cut, re-cut and truncated examples from the Western Isles. In the Northern Isles there appears to be less practice of intrusive deposition into the floors of buildings and these floors may thus represent a clearer manifestation of patterns of activity and practices. At least this proposition can be tested; detailed investigation and analysis of well-preserved floor deposits is vitally important in this regard. To date there has been no modern large-scale analysis of well-preserved floors that might represent activity dating to the original use of an Atlantic roundhouse.
Indeed, while debate has continued over the specific interpretations of the scientific analysis of floor deposits, these have largely revolved around the floor accretions of southern timber roundhouses floors and modern experimental roundhouses (Macphail et al. 2004, Canti et al. 2006, contra Macphail, Cruise et al 2006). Atlantic Iron Age structures may represent a very useful body of extremely well-preserved structures that could help resolve some of these debates.
It is, perhaps, inherently unlikely that all Atlantic roundhouses functioned in a similar way and provided a recognised and stable role in terms of the agricultural cycle of tasks and processes and the social continuum of changing status and activity. Research is required as to whether any standard patterns of activity can be established and whether, if this proves to be the case, these vary locally or by region.
The nature of so-called ‘floor deposits’ is a key issue requiring further research, and the settlements of the Atlantic zone offer an ideal opportunity for this.
As noted earlier, interpretations of building use should be more integrated, with excavated evidence, artefactual, ecofactual and other scientific techniques being drawn together.