- Chapter Thirty-Four -
be an imported idea, presumably from iron age cultures further south in Britain
(although determined anti-diffusionists doubt that also - Armit 1991).
The iron age material culture of the Atlantic province is exceptionally rich and
diverse, the many well-made and finely decorated pottery styles for example not only
provide a sharp contrast with the sparse sherds of plain undistinguished wares which
are found on contemporary mainland sites but could be providing many clues to the
influences that impinged on this maritime province from several different regions
beyond the seas. The richness of the material culture makes it possible to formulate
some tentative hypotheses about the origins of the middle iron age populations
which lived there. Moreover, several excavated sites - like Jarlshof in Shetland
(Hamilton 1956), Howe in Orkney (Carter et al. 1985), Crosskirk in Caithness
(Fairhurst 1984) and Dun Mor Vaul on Tiree (MacKie 1974) - proved to have been
occupied for many centuries, beginning at the end of the local Bronze Age.
These show clearly that there was an early iron age horizon with a sparse material
culture quite distinct from the middle phase that followed and to which the brochs
and allied structures belong. This early horizon typically shows carinated pottery,
very occasionally black-burnished, resembling comparably dated ware in southern
and eastern England; however, much of the pottery seems to be local.
The radiocarbon dates for the early iron age horizon cluster in the sixth and fifth
centuries Be (uncorrected) and those for the middle phase in the first centuries Be
and AD (MacKie in press: table I); the latter horizon is also clearly tied to the Roman
occupation of southern Scotland between about AD 80 and 180, samian sherds having
been found on several sites near the top of the primary middle iron age occupation
levels. Thus despite a number of valiant recent efforts (Armit 1991) it is really not
possible to argue for complete continuity between the two phases, although some
important pottery styles are clearly locally descended; the Middle Iron Age sees a
wholesale transformation of the buildings and the associated pottery and artefacts
which - unless one rules out the possibility on theoretical grounds (Renfrew 1990)
- seems to argue for the arrival of an influential if not substantial new population
and the galvanizing of the flourishing local cultures in various ways.
Allowing at least for the possibility of the arrival of some new dominant tribal
elites - either to form dynastic alliances with relations in the north (Fitzpatrick 1989)
or avoiding the Romans and looking for new territories - at the start of the Middle
Iron Age (probably in the first century Be), where might they have come from?
The first striking aspect of the province in this period is the complete absence of
decorative bronze metalwork in the La Tene style. No bronze or iron bridle bits,
or decorated sword scabbards or early penannular fibulae of the Aa type have been
found in the many excavated brochs, wheel-houses and allied sites. The one iron
three-link bit known from north of the Forth/Clyde line - from Dun Lagaidh on
Loch Broom (MacKie 1977a: 515, x) - comes from a dun (small dry-stone fortified
house with comparatively low walls) of Argyllshire type which lacked the Atlantic
material culture. Also completely absent from the maritime zone are fibulae of La
Tene type, though, as noted, a few early ones have been found in the southern and
eastern lowlands (Stevenson 1966: 20,25 and figs. I and 2).
It may be mentioned at this point that some of the items on Thomas's map of 1963
purporting to show the spread of La Tene influence from Yorkshire into Scotland