- The Early Celts in Scotland -
can now be seen to be irrelevant in that context, and they include the two objects
which appeared to extend this zone of influence into the Atlantic province (Thomas
1963: fig. I). The bronze and iron bent ring-headed pins are now known from
pottery impressions at Dun Mor Vaul to go back to the Early Iron Age (MacKie
1974: fig. II, no. 16 and fig. 12, no. 87), and the same is probably true of the
long-handled 'weaving combs', seen at the early iron age site of Bu in Orkney
(Hedges et al. 1987: fig. 1.14). Thus the maritime province is in that sense more
distinct from the lowlands than used to be thought.
On the other hand there are artefacts clearly of southern English type - the bronze
spiral finger-rings and the various types of glass beads - which are consistently found
in Atlantic middle iron age layers but not before, but are also common in the
southern lowlands. As always with such small 'exotic' ornaments it is hard to tell
whether these signify more than trade, or gifts between lineages forming alliances.
However, there are two important artefacts which,. together with the absence of La
Tene-derived metalwork already mentioned, suggest that any exotic population
elements in the Atlantic middle iron age cultures are truly distinct.
Rotary querns seem not to pre-date the Middle Iron Age here and are of a quite
different type from the beehive and bun-shaped stones of the southern mainland
(MacKie 1972, 1989: 5ff.). Not only are they larger, flatter and thinner - hence the
term 'disc querns' -but they appear to have had a sophisticated adjusting mechanism
for coarse and fine grinding, as outer Hebridean and Orkney and Shetland querns
did until very recently (Curwen 1937; Fenton 1978: 392). This means that they rested
on a table rather than on the ground. The crucial element is the lower stone, with a
complete perforation through which the movable spindle passes, raised and lowered
from below; the spindle slots into the bridge or rind fixed across the bottom of the
hole of the upper stone and thus alters slightly the distance between the stones and
the fineness of the flour produced. A non-adjustable quern has only a socket in the
lower stone for a fixed spindle and the vast majority of the pre-Roman bun-shaped
and beehive querns in Britain and France appear to have this (MacKie 1989: fig. I).
However, no disc quern with a socketed lower stone has ever been found among the
scores recovered from excavations on Atlantic middle iron age sites. Such adjustable
disc querns are thus quite distinct from those of the entire western La Tene province
and their origin is as yet unclear. A preliminary assessment, however, does suggest
that we may have to look to Brittany and ultimately to Iberia for the origin of this
'non-La Tene' rotary quern.
The second element is a pottery style - black or plain, bulging-waisted jars
with sharply everted rims and omphalos bases, some with a curious decoration of
horizontal fluting along the inside of the rim. These fluted-rimmed jars - especially
the black-burnished examples - strongly resemble late Hallstatt cremation jars in
north-west France (Giot et al. 1979: 261ff.) and they appear suddenly with the
earliest defended (pre-broch) site at Clickhimin in Shetland (Hamilton 1968: ch. 5
and figs 42-4) and with the broch at Dun Mor Vaul, Tiree (MacKie 1974: 19ff;
1970: map 3). Only at the Shetland site are the jars numerous and the date of this
occupation - discovered before C-14 dating was applied in the north -is disputable;
a case can be made out for the first century Be rather than the excavator's estimate
of the fifth (MacKie 1969b).