Room for Ideas: Tracing Non-Domestic Roundhouses

Abstract

Edinburgh EH8 9AGIron Age studies in Britain operate in a world populated by roundhouses. Post-ring evidence is generally interpreted in domestic contexts. However, research on later prehistoric roundhouses in northeast Scotland has identified a small but significant number of round structures in unusual locations, with unusual architectural details and a distinct lack of domestic material. Some of these relate to Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age stone circles, for which Richard Bradley's work in the wider region has highlighted progressive biographies of construction and reuse. This paper, rooted in architectural design theory, selects a particular case study, the multiple timber post-rings at Candle Stane, Aberdeenshire, to highlight the complexities in interpreting these interesting yet enigmatic buildings. The architectural approach develops alternative reconstructions that lead to new perspectives on later prehistoric architecture as event-based and concerned with process.These processes only gradually lead to an architectural end product, which displays distinctly non-domestic connotations. The research not only highlights the usefulness of data derived from rescue work for academic study, but the advocated approach of reconstructing in alternatives also lends itself for developing innovative approaches in Higher Education to teach visual competence.Structures clearly dedicated to ritual functions can be identified from the Neolithic onwards, but in Britain this evidence seems to decline from the Middle Bronze Age, coinciding with a 1 highlighting the uncertainties regarding the roofing of the Early Neolithic structure at Claish. 12 Noble et al. 2007, 153-5. 3 conclusions into question and proposes a series of alternative interpretations to stimulate debate over ambiguous evidence. ROUND HOUSES, ROUND-HOUSES, ROUNDHOUSES: CASE STUDIES FROM NORTHEAST SCOTLAND The fertile lowland areas of Scotland's south and east have attracted settlement for thousands of years. People have worked these lands, built and rebuilt homes and consequently compromised the archaeological evidence of earlier periods. Because of this development pressure in these areas, their archaeological record has become dominated by rescue work, which by its nature is limited in scale to the affected area. As Bradley, Gosden and their colleagues demonstrated, such records still present important data for prehistoric archaeological research. 13 For the author's study, focused on northeast Scotland, the rescue excavation record was not only useful for large-scale analysis, but also to address specific research questions in detail, highlighting a small number of sites that stood out from the general roundhouse evidence. This prompted the present enquiry into whether round timber structures of later prehistoric date would have necessarily been used as prehistoric round houses. What may appear as playing with semantics is in fact an important distinction to be clarified to ensure the use of terms consistent with the argument: the spelling "roundhou...

Island Dwellings at 60° North: New Evidence for Crannogs in Iron Age Shetland

“…The superstructure architecture did not a priori require an artificial island foundation; rather, artificial island settlements were selected (needed?) and adorned with existing or emergent domestic architectural traditions (but see Romankiewicz 2018 for discussion of the primacy of ‘domestic’ roundhouses in Iron Age Scotland). That the initial move to building and living on islands in water is increasingly being pinned (through dendrochronology and radiocarbon wiggle‐match dating) to a few centuries in the mid‐first millennium BC across all of Scotland points to strong networks of communities with deeply shared understanding of what bodies of water meant and how that related to domestic architecture.…”

Irish Iron Age Settlement and Society: Reframing Royal Sites

“…At Navan a large central oak post, as well as five circles of internal posts, mean the 40 m structure was structurally capable of supporting a roof and there is compelling evidence for such having been present as some posts were pushed 10-15 cm below their post-pits (Lynn 2003b, 30;2003c, 36); the conclusion that this was a structure that carried a roof or a superstructure of enormous size is unavoidable (Lynn 2003b, 30-1). While the contemporaneity of multiple circles is still subject of debate for sites such as Ballacagen on the Isle of Man (Bersu 1977; Harding 2017) or Candle Stane in Aberdeenshire (Romankiewicz 2018), it seems to be evident at Navan Fort's 40 m structure. At Navan, the evidence for the outer ring of posts originally having consisted of single ones, also pushed beyond their post-pits, and augmented by the addition of as second post in each case, further documents the enormous pressure that must have rested on the building (Lynn 1997a, 169-71), The Mauve phase building at Knockaulin combines an outer double slot trench with an internal substantial post-ring and a central ring of posts that has been interpreted as an inner sanctum or tower without an entrance (eg, Wailes 1990).…”