A Scottish Crannog ¹

Abstract

BETWEEN geology and history there lies an intermediate sphere which these sciences dovetail into one another, in this common territory or borderland lies the domain of prehistoric archæology, and to its most recent portion, or that which archæologists have designated the “Late Celtic Period,” must be assigned the antiquarian remains I have here the pleasure of describing. During this period it appears that the Celtic races of Scotland and Ireland were in the habit of constructing artificial islands in marshes and shallow lakes to which, in troublous times, they resorted for safety. They were generally formed by the superposition of trunks of trees and brushwood mingled with stones strongly palisaded by stakes, and so situated as to be inaccessible except by means of causeways, or occasionally by a narrow gangway or mole. These island forts, or crannogs, as they have been called in the Irish annals, were very numerous in former times, but owing to the gradual rising of the level of the lakes, they appear to have been so completely lost sight of that their very existence was unknown to modern antiquaries, so that their discovery in the present century marks an important epoch in the history of archæology.