The records of the 1965 excavation show that people in the past had dug around this stone in order to expose more of its surface. They seem to have detached flakes, and they lit a fire, or fires, beside it. That is why it was described as a ‘hearth’ in the excavation report. Still more important, this was the precise centre of the ring. Since it must have been there before any of the monoliths were erected, another way of expressing this point is to say that the successive circuits of uprights were intended to enclose this stone.
It is tempting to bring these observations together in a way that would have been difficult for archaeologists in the 1960s and 70s. There are features of Croftmoraig which must have been present long before any monument was built there; that is because they were the result of natural processes. One is the glacial mound. Until it was reshaped, it would have looked like other examples in the area, but quite by chance it had several features that might have attracted attention from an early time. Part of an unusual banded rock was exposed on its surface and was notable for its orange tinge which was especially obvious in sunlight (Fig. 10.9). At the same time, its position had the unusual attribute of commanding a view of the setting sun on both the longest and shortest days of the year. None of this could have been contrived; it can only have been discovered. Quite when that happened is impossible to say, but it is obvious that these striking effects might have been noticed long before the circle was built. Until then, Croftmoraig was effectively a natural monument. One possibility is that it occurred early in the Neolithic period, for that would explain the presence of sherds of Carinated Bowl among the finds from the 1965 excavation (Bradley and Sheridan 2005, 275).
Enhancing the natural monument
The natural monument had two distinctive features: a brightly-coloured rock whose surface had been smoothed by the passage of ice, and a clay mound which was composed of glacial debris (Fig. 4.21). How were they treated when the stone circle was built?
There is no doubt that even the earliest stone setting was built on top of the mound. The glacial erratic was at the exact centre of a ring of nine monoliths, five of which are still standing. The four largest stones, which were towards the south and southwest, were of a coarse-grained schist which sparkles in strong light, whilst the others, which still remain in position, were either fine-grained schist or epidiorite. Both the portal stones were of epidiorite and matched the raw material on the eastern perimeter of the circle, suggesting that they were erected at the same time.
Figure 10.8. The position of the midwinter sunset as viewed from Croftmoraig. Analysis by Aaron Watson and Ronnie Scott.
Figure 10.9. Detail of the banded erratic at the centre of the stone circle (Aaron Watson).
Photographs taken during the 1965 excavation make it possible to work out the dimensions of the stones whose lower sections are set in the ground. They can be compared with the lengths of those that have fallen. This shows that the stones were graded by height, with the tallest towards the south and southwest and the shortest to the north and northeast (Fig. 10.10). Something similar applies to the mound. Although its profile could have been affected by the 1965 excavation, Piggott and Simpson left a series of baulks which would have influenced the levels to which their trenches were refilled. Equally important is their contour survey of the monument before excavation took place. It confirms the impression given by the site today. Instead of the rounded profile that characterises natural features of this kind, it resembles a ramp rising towards the west and southwest. Beyond the fallen monoliths a pronounced scarp extends around the edge of the circle where the tail of the mound has been cut away. This would have emphasised the prominent position of the tallest stones. Those in the entrance were of similar dimensions. Visitors passing between them would have been aware of a subtle gradient rising towards the tallest monoliths on the site, and in the distance they would see the profile of Schiehallion.
The shapes of the standing stones provide less evidence of patterning, but those with rounded or level tops are to the south or southwest, while wedge-shaped or pointed uprights are mainly a feature of the north-eastern sector. Two of the stones in the outer circle also have cup marks, but they cannot be dated.
As Piggott and Simpson noted, the portal stones may have marked the positions of inhumation burials whose remains have been destroyed by the acid subsoil. It is difficult to establish the alignment of these monoliths especially as one of them has fallen since 1965. It is obvious that they do not point at the centre of the circle but, accepting that their orientation is not precise, they do seem to be directed towards Schiehallion, which appears on the horizon 11 km away. In fact they may be aligned on the point where the setting sun disappears behind the mountain.
To summarise, it seems as if the first stone circle respected and even enhanced some of the features that were discovered there by chance. The mound was selected as the position for the new monument, and the glacial erratic visible in its surface became the central point of a new structure. Unfortunately, it is not known when more of its surface was uncovered, nor is it clear when fires were lit beside it. In common with other monuments attributed to the Copper Age or the Early Bronze Age, the stones at Croftmoraig increased in height towards the west and southwest, and this sector of the ring was built from raw material which would have sparkled in strong light. There was an equally important emphasis on the northwest where the midsummer sun could be observed as it set behind Schiehallion. The importance of this alignment, which is best observed from the raised ground east of the monument, seems to be reflected by the placing of the portal stones. All the elements that originally drew attention to this location were emphasised in the architecture of the monument. Its slightly awkward plan may have been a compromise between the conventional features of a monument of this kind – the grading of the uprights by height, the organisation of the stones by raw material, an emphasis on the southwest – and the natural elements that drew attention to Croftmoraig in the first place. The most important of these was its relationship with a prominent mountain and the midsummer solstice.
From stone to timber
The wooden building inside the stone setting has often been misunderstood. To some extent this happened because researchers followed Piggott and Simpson in dating it to the Neolithic period and looked for structural parallels among the monuments of that phase. It is why it is sometimes represented as a semi-circular setting of posts and compared with a feature inside the henge at Cairnpapple (Piggott 1948). The radiocarbon dates from Croftmoraig sever that connection. In any case the site drawing held by NMRS suggests that the timber setting did form a complete circle. As noted in Chapter 8, sockets were absent where the excavators recorded an area of disturbed ground or where the positions of posts could be masked by fallen monoliths. The structure was once rebuilt.
Figure 10.10. The heights of the monoliths at Croftmoraig based on the surviving structure and photographs in the 1965 excavation archive.
At the same time, it had an entrance defined by two parallel rows of posts on the eastern side of the circuit. It conformed to the axis established by the portal stones during the previous phase and appears to have been aligned on the more northerly of these two monoliths. This arrangement lacked exact parallels among Neolithic timber circles but conforms to the layout of later Bronze Age roundhouses in Scotland. As Chapter 8 has argued, it shares a number of their characteristic features. It has a similar orientation to these buildings; a shallow ‘ring ditch’ follows the inner edge of the circuit of posts; and it is the same size as the dwellings found in settlements.
That leaves two features unexplained, and it is these that help to characterise this remarkable structure. How was it constructed? Either the posts represent the line of its outer wall, so that its entrance extended outwards from the building, or they supported a roof which sloped down as far as the outer limit of the porch. In that case it would have come into contact with the stones of the circle, so that the remains of that monument merged with th
e edge of the roundhouse and the interior was completely covered. One argument in favour of this hypothesis is that the ring of postholes is almost exactly concentric with the circle of standing stones. That reconstruction would be consistent with interpretations of other Bronze Age buildings. The example at Croftmoraig has a precise parallel at Kintore where similar structures are assigned to the excavators’ Type 1 which dates from the Middle Bronze Age (Cook and Dunbar 2008, fig. 195). Its defining feature is a semi-circular ring ditch with a post setting along its outside edge. Type 1a at Kintore has a projecting porch.
The porch inside the stone circle presents another problem. In some respects it conforms to the attributes of a ‘ring ditch house’, but its dimensions are very different. Although its length – a little over 2 m – is consistent with a wider pattern, that does not apply to its width which was between 35 and 40 cm. On any account it was exceptionally narrow. The best source of comparison is with the roundhouses at Kintore, where the porches of circular buildings dating from the Bronze and Iron Ages were between 1.5 m and 2.3 m wide (Cook and Dunbar 2008, 301–44). The same was true of comparable buildings at Lairg which were less well preserved (McCullagh and Tipping 1998, 102–13). The implications are obvious. Since the porch structure at Croftmoraig was about a quarter of the width of those at comparable buildings, the interior must have been more difficult to access. It makes it very unlikely that the hollowed area inside the structure results from stalling livestock. It is usually suggested that roundhouses were illuminated by light passing through the entrance. By contrast, the inside of this building would have been exceptionally dark.
Taken together, these arguments raise new possibilities. The timber building at Croftmoraig may have spanned the entire area of the earlier stone setting. What had once been a permeable structure was covered by a roof and there was no way of seeing what was happening inside it. Access to the interior was impeded by the provision of an unusually narrow porch and it is possible that daylight hardly reached its centre. The timber circle may have been constructed in the image of a roundhouse, but it had a distinctive character of its own.
Another way of making this point is to consider its wider setting. In an earlier phase it was possible to observe the movements of the sun from the coloured rock in the centre of the monument. Once this structure had been erected, those effects might have been obscured. Unless windows were provided or there was a second entrance (for which there is no evidence), this was a solid structure and its relationship to the solstices could only be appreciated by people outside the building. Although the stone at the centre of the monument was within the timber structure, it was not in line with the beam of light passing through its entrance. Whatever activities occurred there, they were also concealed.
From timber back to stone
When the wooden ‘house’ was replaced by a second setting of monoliths it followed the same footprint as the postholes found in 1965. That would be explained if the remains of the timber building had decayed before the change took place. People might have observed the hollow marking the course of the ring ditch and any traces of the roof supports.
Piggott and Simpson documented this process in some detail and there is little to add to their account. The ring ditch was refilled and capped by a layer of stone that they describe as ‘paving’. It extended discontinuously across the interior of the monument. The sockets for five standing stones cut through the hollows associated with the older building. The reference to paving is significant for two reasons. Photographs in the project archive show that slabs were used as packing stones to secure these monoliths in the ground. With only one exception (Monolith 4), this did not happen in the outer circle. Flat slabs also appear in pictures taken in 1965 which show that the same deposit underlay the perimeter wall and were used to raise this structure to the correct level over the eastern part of its circuit.
During the first phase at Croftmoraig the shaping of the mound had reinforced the grading of the stones in the circle. This earthwork was highest to the west and southwest. The enclosure wall, which belongs to the final period of activity, shows a significant contrast, for its upper surface was almost horizontal around the entire perimeter of the monument. Its level varied by no more than 20 cm over a circumference of 28 m. To the east it was built on the land surface, but where the ground was higher it was supported by a rubble footing excavated into the subsoil. It drew attention away from the profile of the mound, and for someone seeing the enclosure from a distance it created the illusion that the interior of the monument was flat.
If the profile of the monument was altered, so was its orientation. The inner oval had a completely different alignment from the timber structure it replaced. It consisted of seven standing stones on almost the same footprint as the inner part of the wooden building. The southern limit of this setting could have been Monolith 22, one of those which have fallen. The 1965 excavation found no sign of a socket, but since that stone is flat-bottomed it may not have needed one. According to this reconstruction, the inner setting would have been roughly oval, with the glacial erratic at its centre. The stones making up this setting were directed towards the SSW and increased in height in that direction. They are identified by Rosemary Stewart (pers. comm.) as epidiorite and fine-grained schist. In most respects the new structure resembled other monuments close to Loch Tay.
This simple arrangement seems to have been supplemented by the erection of further standing stones, all of them comparatively small. It is not clear when it happened. One (number 18 in Piggott’s and Simpson’s site plan) was inserted on the NNE margin of the oval, while another (10) was located SSW of the fallen stone (22). Their positions emphasised the overall orientation of this structure. One of these uprights (Monolith 10) was close to the perimeter wall and stood out from the others because it was red. It was the only piece of dolerite in the monument.
The oval setting of stones is concentric with the perimeter wall and the stratigraphic evidence recorded by Piggott and Simpson suggests that they were built together. Again there is good evidence for a change of orientation. Like the outer stone setting, the porch of the wooden building was directed towards the east, but when the wall was built it took no account of that entrance and continued past the portal stones without a break. Parts of the enclosure may have been removed, but Chapter 4 suggested that a new entrance was created on the SSW side of the circuit. That observation takes on an added significance in the light of the structural sequence established in 2012, for the position suggested for an entrance is precisely in line with the axis of the oval stone setting. Its location is marked by a large slab decorated with cups and rings. The position of that stone is directly opposite Monolith 3 in the outer circle which has eight cup marks on its inner face. (Other groups of cup marks were identified by Piggott and Simpson, but are not convincing.) If the rock carvings were intended as a pair, they adhere to the same alignment from NNE to SSW. The reason for this change could be a greater emphasis on the significance of the midwinter solstice, for the new orientation of the monument emphasised the position of the sun as it travelled down the horizon on the shortest day of the year.
Ending
How did the sequence end? There is a little evidence. Certain features can be assigned to a late phase in the use of Croftmoraig, but it is impossible to tell how they were related to one another. The putative entrance through the enclosure wall may have been closed by placing the decorated stone across it. A layer of smashed and broken quartz seems to have been spread across the mound and extended as far as both the portal stones, but it is not clear whether all this material was deposited simultaneously. It meant that the surface of the monument would sparkle in strong sunlight; the same effect would extend to the perimeter wall which made use of mica schist. Finally, there are a few tiny pieces of cremated bone, but it is impossible to be sure that they come from human burials. None is from a secure context, but it may be no accident that the latest radiocarbon date from the prehistoric use of th
e monument is for one of these fragments. It takes the history of the site into the Late Bronze Age. By that time it is likely that construction had ceased.
The monument at Croftmoraig draws together the land and the sky, and its unusual synthesis of geological and structural elements accounts for its distinctive architecture. This chapter has traced a lengthy sequence and has tried to establish how these relationships came about and how they were addressed during the history of the monument. Few of these elements were unique, yet some of them have still to be considered by archaeologists working in other parts of Britain. And that is the principal lesson of this book.
References
Proc Soc Antiq Scot Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
RCAHMS Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland
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Andersen, S. (1979) Identification of wild grasses and cereal pollen. Danmarks Undersøgelse Årbog 1978, 69–92.
Anderson, J. (1896) The pottery, bronze, etc. found at Birrens, 179–98. In D. Christison, A. MacDonald and J. Anderson, Account of the excavation of Birrens, a Roman station in Annandale, undertaken by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1895. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 30 (1895–1896), 81–198.
Anderson, J. (1901) Account of the excavation of a Roman Station at Camelon, near Falkirk, undertaken by the Society in 1900 (iii) Notice of the pottery, bronze and other objects found at Camelon. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 35 (1900–1901), 380–417.
The Use and Reuse of Stone Circles Page 25
