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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
During the 19th century students of Scottish archaeology were fascinated by souterrains or earth-houses. In 1877 Joseph Anderson declared that ‘no class of structural remains has been more fully illustrated’, and his statement is supported by an abundance of papers and reports published in the first twelve volumes (1851-78) of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. As the century drew to its close the earth-house gradually lost its hold on archaeological imagination. There were occasional papers and a few notable discoveries, but on the Whole the first half of the 20th century was a period of stagnation in this not unrewarding field. French scholars peered with organized enthusiasm into their souterrains-refuges, but in Scotland it was the close season for earth-houses. A little of the old interest has lately revived, and this may be an opportune moment to consider some of the more obvious problems that surround these curious structures.
1 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, XII (1876-78), 350 n.
2 Hereafter abbreviated as PSAS.
3 e.g. David MacRitchie, ‘Earth-houses and their Occupants’, PSAS LI (1916-17), 178-97.
4 e.g. the discovery of the earth-house at Castle Law. See V. G. Childe, ’Excavations at Castlelaw Fort, Midlothian’, PSAS LXVII (1932-33), 362-88.
5 A. Blanchet, Les Souterrains-Refuges de la France, Paris 1923.
6 For further details of the souterrain at Barns of Airlie, here referred to as Airlie I, see especially PSAS V (1862-64), 352-3, and LXXVII (1942-43), 37-8.
7 The fullest account of Tealing III is given in PSAS X (1872-74), 287-93. It is called Tealing III above in order to distinguish it from other souterrains in Tealing Parish, especially from Tealing I and Tealing II which were discovered in the 18th century.
8 The souterrain at Ardestie (Monikie Parish) was discovered in 1949 and excavated in 1949-50; An excavation report is in preparation.
9 See PSAS IV (1860-62), 492-9, for Andrew Jervise’s account of the souterrain discovered in 1859 in a field on the farm of West Grange of Conan, near Arbroath.
10 Carlungie I (Monikie Parish) was discovered in 1949 and excavated in 1950-51. An excavation report is in preparation. For a second souterrain, Carlungie II, discovered in the same field, see Antiquaries Journal, XXIII (1953), 65-71.
11 For details of Pitcur II, a souterrain which still lies open in Kettins Parish, the main source of information is David MacRitchie’s article in PSAS XXXIV (1899-1900), 202-14. Pitcur I was another souterrain, discovered before Pitcur II but now filled in.
12 i.e. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, hereafter abbreviated as RCAMS. On the Hebridean earth-houses see RCAMS IX (1928), xli-xliv et passim.
13 For the sites named here see especially RCAMS IX (1928), xlii, 87-9, 104, 115-7, and PSAS VII (1866-68), 165-7, LXVI (1931–32)) 32-66.
14 PSAS VII (1866-68), 167-72. See also RCAMS IX (1928), 46, 86-7, 116, 118 et passim.
15 For details of the souterrains of Orkney and Shetland see especially RCAMS xn (1946), 3 vols., and PSAS LXI (1936-27), LXII (1927-28), LXIV (1929-30), LXV (1930-31), LXXIII (1938-39). For recently discovered examples (Naversdale, Hatston and Skaebrae) see PSAS LXXX (1945-46), 143-4, and LXXXIII (1948-49), 236, 238.
16 For details and references see RCAMS II (1911), 55, 70, 73, 97, 112, 115-6, 119-20.
17 A card-index list of souterrains may be compiled easily enough from references in PSAS and other sources. Such a list lies behind the present article. An exhaustive survey of any group of souterrains is quite another matter ; it would require much closer study and the excavation of two or three selected examples.
18 cf. Sir Lindsay Scott, ‘The Problem of the Brochs’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, New Series, XIII (1947), 1-36, and especially ‘Gallo-British Colonies’, ibid, XIV (1948), 46-125.
19 PSAS LXVII (1932-33), 363-5, 377-86.
20 PSAS VIII (1868-70), 104-9 ; RCAMS X (1929), 53-4.
21 PSAS VIII (1868-70), 27-8 ; RCAMS X (1929), 9.
22 PSAS 1 (1851-54), 213-7.
23 PSAS xii (1876-78), 626-7 ; XL (1905-06), 355-7 ; RCAMS XI (1933). 135. Ardross 1 was discovered in 1878 and re-discovered in 1906. No remains were to be seen when the officers of the Royal Commission visited the site in 1925 and when the Eleventh Report was published in 1933. The souterrain was uncovered for the third time in 1939. It is now open and well preserved.
24 PSAS LXVI (1931-32), 277-397. To the Roman and Romano-British objects listed in this article by James Curle should be added a Roman amphora from Carlungie I, a brooch from Carlungie II, and two Roman fragments from Ardestie.
25 PSAS LXVI (1931-32), 396 ; LXVII (1932-33), 362-88.
26 PSAS VIII (1868-70), 104-9.
27 PSAS I (1851-54), 213-7.
28 Fragments of Samian ware have also been found at Bac Mhic Connain and Berie in the Hebrides, cf. RCAMS IX (1928), xliii.
29 V. G. Childe, The Prehistory of Scotland, London 1935, pp. 183, 212-5.
30 Despite a curious set of skulls found in the souterrain at Rennibister but apparently introduced at some date after the souterrain had been abandoned. See PSAS LXI (1926-27), 296-317 ; RCAMS XII (1946), ii, 93-4. See also the report on Sandquoy in RCAMS XII (1946), ii, 167.
31 This possibility, with the evidence for and against it, is fully discussed in the excavation reports (forthcoming) of Ardestie and Carlungie I.
32 See above, p. 226.
33 By R. W. Feachem, K. H. Jackson, Stuart Piggott, R. B. K. Stevenson and F. T Wainwright in The Problem of the Picts (in the press).
