- Chapter Thirty-Four -
(MacKie 1989: 7ff.). The same thing seems to apply in Ireland where the bun-shaped
querns are found in broadly the same area as decorated La Tene metalwork; both are
markedly absent from the southern half of the country (Caulfield 1977: fig. 24) and
several of the Irish stones bear La Yene curvilinear ornament (ibid.: fig. 2 I).
Another clear indication of the continental links of the middle iron age peoples
of southern Scotland - in which they contrast with the tribes both north and south
of them - is seen in the liking of their leaders for translucent glass armlets inlaid
with coloured patterns (Stevenson 1966: 28 and fig. 3; MacKie 1989: 3-4). The great
majority of these ornaments are made of ice-green Roman glass so they clearly could
not exist until this became available after the conquest. Yet the tribes of southern
England and the midlands, conquered first, have hardly any; the concentration
is heavily in central and south-eastern Scotland and in north-east England with a
few outliers in the North-eastern and Atlantic provinces. Glass armlets are
characteristic of the La Tene cultures northern and north-western France (Giot et al.
1979), and of course of their Yorkshire relations (Stead 1979), and it is difficult not to
conclude that the armlets suggest the same as the decorated metalwork, that the south
Scottish tribes had an unusually strong continental La Tene heritage. It is curious,
however, that no complete armlet has been found on a settlement site; the ends of the
fragments have often been carved as if to be mounted on something.
The North-Eastern Province
The iron age cultures of the region between the river Forth and the Moray Firth, and
east of the great central highland massif, are not as well understood as those further
north and west. Partly this is because, with one or two exceptions, the few excavated
sites have not yielded either long sequences of occupation or rich and informative
material cultures; neither has the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical
Monuments of Scotland yet surveyed this vast area fully. However, there are a
number of clues which suggest that this province had a distinctive culture at the end
of the first millennium BC.
The most striking of these are the stone-walled hilltop strongholds known collo-
quially as vitrified forts but more accurately as timber-framed forts (MacKie 1977a).
The archaeological evidence obtained from excavated sites like Finavon, Abernethy
and Sheep Hill shows a sparse but consistent material culture, the most important
components of which seem to be barrel-and bucket-shaped urns of thick, gritty
pottery and jet ring-pendants and bracelets; later iron age bronze ornaments - for
example three La Tene Ic brooches (for which V.G. Childe suggested a Swiss origin)
and a few spiral bronze finger-rings - appear on some sites. Radiocarbon dates
indicate that the oldest of these timber-framed forts probably belong to the eighth
century BC, making highly plausible the hypothesis - offered by Piggott before
C-14 dates were available (1966: 7-8) - of their origin among the late bronze age
Urnfield cultures of the Continent. An analysis of their distribution by size strongly
suggests an eastern origin with the forts becoming smaller as they spread west into
the mountains (MacKie 1977a: 444, fig. 6). Only the presence of some strangely early
thermoluminescence dates for the vitrified rock on some of these hill-forts disturbs
this rather clear picture (Sanderson et al. 1988).