- The Early Celts in Scotland -
an ard point, indicating that the inhabitants of Leckie were active farmers as well
as, presumably, the leaders of the community.
It is striking how all four separate and independent strands of evidence seem
best explained by similar pictures of a stratified iron age society with an elite group
inhabiting the brochs and having authority over a larger class of ordinary clansmen
who sometimes -as at Dun Mor Vaul-seem to be of different origin if the pottery is
a reliable guide. The existence of tribal chiefs cannot be confirmed from this material
but seems indisputable from general considerations as well as from the evidence for
the tribal structure of Scottish middle iron age society supplied by Roman writers.
Recent Highland Clan Society
A brief look at the highland clan system in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
AD may help us to decide whether the picture built up of iron age society is plausible.
It is also of general interest because, as noted, it was the last Celtic tribal culture
surviving in Europe, albeit one of different origins, judging from the language, from
that of the iron age La Tene cultures. One may reasonably suppose that much of the
late medieval population was genetically and culturally descended from the iron age
inhabitants of the same area although many drastic changes had occurred in the inter-
vening centuries, notably the arrival of the Christian church and the stamping out of
paganism, the settlement in strength first of Gaels in the west and south-west and,
later, of Norsemen in the Western Isles, the development of an urban society with a
money economy in the lowlands and the rise of feudalism in Scotland with a king
claiming to have a higher authority than that of the clan chiefs (although he was often
not able to exercise it) (Duncan 1975: 106f£.).
We know from early English witnesses of the highland way of life -like Edmund
Burt who was stationed with the army in Inverness in the mid-1720s (Burt 1754)- that the basis of the late clan system was the inherited authority of the chief (the
ceann cineil or 'chief of kin') over his clann ('children' in Gaelic) rather than over a
tract of territory, which was the feudal system (Skene 1902; MacInnes 1972). It is also
clear that there was a clan gentry - sometimes called the fine (Macinnes forthcoming) - composed of the collateral descendants of the chief's family, the subchiefs among
whom would have had their own estates and rents. In late medieval times there was
another class in the hierarchy, the tacksmen, who were more distant relatives whose
job it was to collect the rents for the chiefs and subchiefs. Rents in cash or kind were
a relatively recent innovation arising from the spread of the money economy from
the lowlands.
Because of invasions of various kinds foreigners often took over ancient clans or
started their own. A good example are the Stewarts of Appin whose origins lie in the
aristocratic Anglo-Norman FitzAlan family in Wales in the twelfth century (Anon
1901: 9f£'). One Walter eventually moved to lowland Scotland under King David I
and became High Stewart (i.e. 'Steward') and his descendant John Stewart became
Lord of Lorn (northern Argyllshire) in the fifteenth century by marrying the heiress
of clan MacDougall, residing at Dunollie near Oban. This link by marriage to an old
highland family was essential if the Stewarts were to have legitimacy in the eyes
of the highlanders.