Brochs and the Roman occupation of lowland Scotland

Macinnes, Lesley

doi:10.9750/psas.114.235.249

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 15 publications

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“…Whether this is regarded as a decline (Dumayne 1993a; might depend on who was affected, but there is no reason to assume that this pattern represents population abandonment (cf Whittington & Edwards 1993;Dumayne-Peaty 1998b). This impression of the palaeoecological data -and it can only be that from the evidence to date -has a strong resonance with archaeological models that stress the economic damage done to native economies by Roman withdrawal (Macinnes 1984;Armit 1999) but in which native farmers, though less well off, persisted. Whether the native population in the region was smaller in c cal ad 300 than in c 100 cal bc is unclear but possible, but it takes fewer people to operate an overwhelmingly pastoral economy, as has sometimes been painfully learnt in this part of Scotland in the last several centuries (Devine 1994).…”

Section: Land Uses and Land Use Change: Synthesis And Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The landscape context of the Antonine Wall: a review of the literature

Tipping¹,

Tisdall²

2006

PSAS

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The landscape, environmental and land use changes before, during and after Antonine occupation are examined for the region of central Scotland between the Southern Uplands and the Grampian Highlands, principally from the published literature. The purpose is to synthesize and make available a range of new palaeoenvironmental data, to evaluate critically these new data-sets, to search for significant shifts in landscape or land use and to characterize their timings and effects, thus placing the Antonine occupation in a coherent landscape context. It is established that economic expansion in the region occurred in the later Iron Age, demonstrably before Roman military occupation. This expansion developed from Bronze Age and earlier Iron Age small-scale farms and gathered pace in the last cal 200–300 years BC, for crop growing as well as pasture, and was continued rather than intensified in the first two centuries cal AD. It is difficult to see differences in this economic expansion north and south of the Antonine Wall itself, or east and west of the Forth–Clyde isthmus, but it is tentatively suggested that in the foothills of the Southern Uplands the Romans entered a landscape already decaying. Roman influence is perhaps recognizable at some localities in a reduction of cereal production and the expansion of grazed pasture, assumed to represent a restructuring of the native economy to support a new market. It is presumed that imports of foodstuffs continued to be important to Roman forces during Antonine occupation, although possible reconstructions of the sediments in the Forth and Clyde estuaries suggest these may not have provided ideal harbours. There is little evidence that this increased pastoral economy imposed stresses on soils or plant communities, and the market seems to have been readily supplied within the agricultural capacity of the landscape. Nevertheless, the native economy was probably artificially buoyed by the Roman presence, and withdrawal eventually led to what is best described as an agricutural recession, not population collapse.

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Section: Land Uses and Land Use Change: Synthesis And Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The landscape context of the Antonine Wall: a review of the literature

Tipping¹,

Tisdall²

2006

PSAS

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I. Sites Explored

Chapman¹,

Hunter²,

Wilson³

et al. 2012

Britannia

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This modifies the published excavation results; Bailey and Cannel, PSAS 126 (1996), 303-46. ROMAN BRITAIN IN 2011 65 This unusual feature sits at the base of the slope, and lacks any accompanying ditch. Differential construction styles suggest two construction phases, the first perhaps an outwork for the fort, the second converting it to a (separate?) enclosure. Only part was exposed, inhibiting interpretation. 66 Similar field-systems are known from aerial photography and excavation to the south and east of the fort; see Bishop, op. cit. (note 64), 52-69. 67 Not all the cremations were dated, but pyres of both Iron Age and Roman date were found. The relative dating of phases (v) and (vi) is as yet unclear. FRASER HUNTER 79

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The Design of the Antonine Wall

Hanson¹

2020

Britannia

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This paper assesses the alternative models currently proposed for the original design of the Antonine Wall. It argues that there is sufficient evidence of a pattern in the structural relationships between the Wall and its various garrison posts to confirm that there was a major change of plan during the construction process. This resulted in the addition of a series of secondary forts, several of which can now be shown to have replaced primary fortlets, and a concomitant delay in the construction programme. An explanation is offered for this rapid change of design, which resulted in one of the most intensively garrisoned linear frontiers in the Roman Empire.

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Brochs and the Roman occupation of lowland Scotland

Abstract: Challenges the view of lowland brochs as 'imported' by N Scottish mercenaries and destroyed in the Roman advance. Seen in their local context they appear as a natural development and an architectural expression of wealth in a complex Roman-native interrelationship.

Cited by 9 publications

References 15 publications

The landscape context of the Antonine Wall: a review of the literature

The landscape context of the Antonine Wall: a review of the literature

I. Sites Explored

The Design of the Antonine Wall

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