- Chapter Thirty-Four -
use a standard measuring system and geometry to set out the towers, this impression
of sophistication is reinforced (MacKie 1 977b: 62). What evidence there is for the
amount of labour involved in building one of the dry-stone towers seems to confirm
that only the wealthy and powerful could have afforded one; Dun Carloway in
Lewis probably took a gang of sixty men seven months to build (Thomas 1890:
41 4-15).
The second strand consists of the results of the only systematic, statistically based
geographical fieldwork yet carried out on a group of brochs, in this case in Shetland
(Fojut 1982). The method of this work was to study the links between all known sites
- about seventy - and various aspects of the landscape such as rock type, soil type,
drainage, distance from the sea and so on. By analysing a set of randomly chosen,
non-archaeological sites in the same way it was possible to estimate how important - negatively or positively or not at all - each of these features was to the people who
chose the sites on which brochs were built.
It became clear in this way that each broch was sited in a distinct, economically
useful territory with arable land, pasture and usually some sea coast. Using as a basis
the productivity of the Shetland land in pre-Improvement times it seemed clear that
each of these territories could have supported between about 200 and 400 people in
the Iron Age. Since only a fraction of that number could have lived comfortably in
a broch the implication must surely be that the tower was the fortified farmhouse of
the leading family of the territory and that the rest lived in simple dwellings of wood
and thatch round about.
A picture of a stratified iron age society emerges, having a number of subchiefs,
each of whom lived in a broch and had a number of dependent clansmen and
their families owing allegiance to him. Since there are no giant brochs (technically
impossible) or even ordinary hill-forts in most of Atlantic Scotland it is not possible
to say from archaeological evidence alone whether these 'broch lairds' owed
allegiance to a tribal chief although it seems highly likely. Some brochs have sugges-
tive names, like Cunningsburgh, or 'King's borg', in Shetland; Clickhimin, moreover,
has a carved stone footprint which suggests that it was a royal site at some stage
(Hamilton 1968: fig. 70 and pI. xvmd).
The third and fourth strands consist of evidence from two excavated brochs which
is relevant in this context. Dun Mor Vaul broch is on Tiree in the Inner Hebrides and
was excavated long before the Shetland fieldwork was carried out, and at a time when
brochs were considered to have been forts rather than defended farmhouses. The
stratigraphy was clear and the finds numerous and the analysis of the pottery styles
over the six phases of occupation strongly suggested that there was a leading family
with one style, who owned the broch, and numerous subordinates, using a much
older pottery (MacKie 1974: 164-5; 1977b: 213-14).
Leckie broch in Stirlingshire was excavated during the 1970S and, though
producing hardly any native pottery, had large quantities of native ornaments and
imported Roman luxuries (MacKie 1982). Because of violent destruction most of this
was preserved and it gives a clear impression of a wealthy iron age family (there was
a central hearth) of the mid-second century AD. Also well preserved were many iron
tools, and also weapons like sword blades and spearheads. The latter confirmed the
elite nature of the inhabitants of the broch but the former included sheep shears and