An Archaeological Search for Clan Macfarlane
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Story and Artwork By David R. Starbuck By Yon Bonnie Banks An archaeological search for Clan MacFarlane TOP RIGHT: InveruglasInveruglas Farm,Farm, onon thethe westwest bankbank of Loch Lomond. Hundreds of years of MacFarlane settlements have given way to sheep and weekend hikers; BOTTOM LEFT: Mapping the foundation of a shieling (Site A1) cotland has traditionally evoked images of inin thethe uplandsuplands overlookingoverlooking LochLoch LomondLomond plaids, bagpipes, haggis, thrift, hospitality, and sheep as far as the eye can see. More recently, another image has been added: that of Mel Gibson as the revered Scottish patriot William SWallace in the movie Braveheart, proudly proclaiming his desire for freedom from his English oppressors. While there are 5 million residents in Scotland today, there are more than 15 million people of Scottish extraction scat- tered all over the world. Many of the displaced modern Scots celebrate their ancestry by wearing kilts, displaying tartans, and attending “Scottish Games” every summer. Sometimes it appears that some of these overseas Scots want to believe that they are descended from kilted kings and clan chiefs who lived in turreted stone castles. But if truth were told, as many as 90 percent of the Scots were WWW.MUSEUM.UPENN.EDU/PUBLICATIONS 25 poor tenant farmers and shepherds throughout the achieved the notoriety of the outlawed MacGregor United States. Because one of my grandmothers was a an area just north of where the Lowlands rise to meet medieval period and later. leader, Rob Roy, who achieved fame in 1817 through “MacFarland” (one of the several variations upon the the western Highlands. The southern end of Loch I cannot claim to be descended Sir Walter Scott’s novel of the MacFarlane spelling), this has become an archaeological Lomond lies just 18 miles north of the center of from kings. My Scottish ancestors same name. search for my roots, as I seek a rural, largely illiterate Glasgow, and the 23-mile-long lake is the largest were the MacFarlanes, sometimes The harshness of their lives people whose origins are as shadowy and obscure as the expanse of fresh water in Scotland. The MacFarlanes described as the most notorious in the rugged uplands, where mists that rise every day over Loch Lomond. inhabited some of the 38 small islands in the loch, and cattle and sheep thieves in all of few economic opportunities two of them — Inveruglas Isle and Ellan Vhow — held Scotland. The MacFarlanes were existed, led the MacFarlanes to MEDIEVAL AND POSTMEDIEVAL castles that were occupied by clan chiefs. Clan members often considered by their con- tax cattle drives crossing their ARCHAEOLOGY IN SCOTLAND were scattered among dozens of houses and small set- temporaries to be more trouble- land and to carry out raids Scottish archaeologists refer to more recent sites — tlements, but in the summer they were transhumant, some even than the MacGregors, upon the farms of their more those from the medieval period to the mid-20th that is, they moved with their animals to seasonal pastures their closest neighbors to the east. prosperous neighbors to the century — as MOLRS (Medieval or Later Rural with many going to the uplands overlooking the west side However, the MacFarlanes were south. In fact, in that region Settlements). Many of LEFT: A plan view of a shiel- a relatively small clan, and none a full moon was referred to them are highly visible, ing foundation, Site A1. of the MacFarlane chiefains ever as “MacFarlane’s Lantern” but most contain so few artifacts that it is difficult of Loch Lomond. There to date them precisely. they lived in shielings, sea- Regional offices, such as sonal dwellings, for about the West of Scotland six weeks each year, from Archaeology Service, June into August. Most maintain archaeological made a living from farm- site files. These listings ing or raising cattle. Since contain increasing num- the MacFarlanes were not a bers of MOLRS, especially large clan, extremely few of because so many Scottish that name still live in the archaeologists are now region today. practicing commercial, or The MacFarlanes have contract, archaeology. In- been identified with this tensive research efforts are clan territory since ca. A.D. CENTER: A modern plan of Scotland, because that was the best time increasingly emphasizing 1225 and most Lennox showing the location of Loch Lomond to go cattle stealing. When the later periods. These charters relating to this and the survey area; CLOCKWISE FROM members of Clan MacFarlane efforts include projects area date to 1225. Today TOP: Appropriate gear for work in Scotland. Midge nets are so tightly gathered, the tune played on directed by the Glasgow the area is well known for woven that it is hard either to see their bagpipes was called University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD) the Linton, or blackface, breed of sheep, a hardy animal or breathe through them; Animal “Lifting the Cattle,” and there at Ben Lawyers and elsewhere and the Flora MacDonald that was introduced to the local area in 1746. Linton pens such as this, now often covered is no denying that they also project (1996–2000), which focused on postmedieval sheep have largely replaced the cattle that were raised with bracken, were constructed at one end of some of the MacFarlane stole sheep, goats, horses, and settlement on the Hebridean Island of South Uist and in by earlier generations, and the sheep were responsible for shielings; Even in the uplands, just about anything else. the township of Milton. In this last case, archaeologists what are known as the “clearances” of the 18th century, some farming was conducted on the Is it possible for archaeology from the University of Sheffield and Boston University as clan chiefs displaced their followers with many thou- level floors of the glens, and the fur- to describe rural life in Scotland have studied the lives of crofters (tenant farmers on sands of sheep. The last of the Clan MacFarlane lands rows, which helped to drain the and to document the rise of one small plots of land) during the 18th and 19th centuries, were sold off to pay debts in 1784. There has been no clan fields, have been preserved on the landscape for hundreds of years; of its clans, in this case Clan just before many of them emigrated to the New World. chief since 1824. Few MacFarlanes left any written Students excavate a corn-drying kiln (Site A3) that MacFarlane? This has been my hope, and it has led my record, although the clan chief Walter MacFarlane contained, appropriately enough, layers of charcoal students and me to Scotland, where we are determined CLAN MACFARLANE — A LIFE ON THE LAND (1716–1760) did collect many clan documents during as well as some of the maggots and slugs that are to trace the clan’s customs and settlement patterns up to Historical sources indicate that the members of Clan the period in which he lived as an antiquarian and abundant here in the saturated soil. the late 18th century, at which time most departed for MacFarlane, who were vassals of the Earls of Lennox, tra- genealogist in Edinburgh. However, there would have Glasgow, Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, and the ditionally resided between Loch Lomond and Loch Long, been little similarity between his prosperous urban 26 VOLUME 44, NUMBER 3 EXPEDITION WWW.MUSEUM.UPENN.EDU/PUBLICATIONS 27 lifestyle and that of more ordinary clan members who and well preserved on the ground surface throughout small animal pen at one end, about three feet in diameter, where the fields were saturated with water from mean- lived very close to the land. rural Scotland, it is possible to locate and document probably to shelter a lamb or a calf. Old cultivation fields, dering streams and the many rivulets that flow down the The introduction of sheep was clearly the biggest many of these medieval and postmedieval structures and now primarily used for grazing sheep, were still marked hillsides. These small streams are known as “burns,” and change in recent times, but while this has resulted in study their implications for broader settlement pattern- with “rigs” (ridges) and furrows we discovered that nearly every significant changes in ground cover, there has been little ing. The area we selected for research was Inveruglas from past plowing, and it appears foundation was located along- new construction or impact on the historical sites that Farm on the west side of Loch Lomond. This has been that the furrows helped to drain side a burn. span many hundreds of years; these are still intact and one of the largest sheep farms in the county of Argyll water away from the crops. This In 2000 our survey crew easily visible on the surface of the land. The only signifi- since the late 1700s, covering some 6,000 acres. Roughly pattern of rigs and furrows has divided the study area into cant modification to this landscape did not come until 1,300 lambs are born there each spring. The farm begins been in use in the British Isles since Subregions A, running from the 20th century, and that was the construction of the as gentle fields on the shore of the loch, but the land the Late Neolithic. Bracken, a fern the Loch Sloy Dam to Loch Loch Sloy Dam between 1945 and 1950, which greatly quickly rises to the west to form uplands. typically tied into bundles and used Lomond, and B, running enlarged Loch Sloy and completely submerged the Our field survey in the summers of 2000 and 2001 for thatching roofs, sometimes north and parallel to the west principal MacFarlane village in the glen.