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1 Environmental and Research Background | 2 Post-medieval Buildings | 3 Earlier Vernacular Buildings | 4 Conclusions and Discussion

3.3. The Middle and Late Iron Age (300 BC to AD 800)

Prior to the Norse period, the vernacular architecture of the Western Isles was dominated by the circular plan, a difference that has been seen as a powerful indicator of the major impact of the Norse (Crawford 1981). In the Middle and Later Iron Age, the circular plan takes three principal forms: cellular buildings: wheelhouses; and roundhouses or brochs. These can be seen as broadly consecutive; with brochs having their origins in the early 1st millennium BC and surviving as a common form till the late 1st millennium BC; wheelhouses dating between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD; and cellular buildings dominating the archaeological record from the 5th century AD until the Norse period. Scholars associated with Edinburgh University such as Armit (1996) and Harding (2000) have tended to see wheelhouses as a later form, indicative of changes in social structure and access to materials, particularly timber. In contrast, scholars associated with Sheffield University, such as Parker Pearson and Sharples (1999, 3), have argued that the broch and wheelhouse are complementary buildings of contemporary date, that reflect cultural differences between different groups and, further, that they also reflect underlying 'structures' within Iron Age society. However, stratigraphic evidence from sites in the Northern Isles, such as Scalloway in Shetland (Dockrill 2003), shows that wheelhouses were occasionally built within the extant walls of brochs, proving that, in the Northern Isles, they are a definite post-broch form (Crawford 2002, 118). In the following sections, I shall outline the evidence for the form and function of each of these principal Iron Age buildings: cellular buildings, wheelhouses and brochs.


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