have you ever wanted to go back to an
ancient time in scotland
have you ever wondered if a circle of
standing stones could help you do it
this is a video for you incidentally
while you're watching if you're
interested in the people places and
events in scottish history
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bottom right anytime
in the meantime let me tell you a story
i'm just outside kenmore at the bottom
end of lochte
a craft war egg standing stones
archaeologists tell us that there's been
a stone circle here in one form or
another for
5 000 years first of all
there was a circle a wooden post with an
open end a bit like a horseshoe
and then a ceremonial passage coming
into the center
around 3000 bc the wooden posts were
replaced
by an oval set of standing stones
aligned
to the midsummer full moon many years
later
another set of larger standstones were
put around the outside
and the direction of entry was changed
with some graves at the opening
why the change we don't know
if you're scottish you probably won't
know this but there's a book in a tv
series called
outlander where an english woman claire
randall
touches a stone circle and she's
transported from the 1940s
back to the 1740s just before the 45
uprising what would it have been like
back then this would have been campbell
country
redcoat territory five miles to the east
is aberfeldy where general wade's
redcoats built a bridge
it was also the place where only a few
years before the black watch paraded
for the first time beyond that
is athol that was more jacobite that's
where the battle of kelly cranky
took place is that
where the stones take you
it seems more likely that they'd take
you back here
this isn't castle league of outlander
fame this
is a crannog cronics were common in
scotland
and ireland there form a communal living
on the edge of a law
could the bronze or iron age people who
lived in crannogs
have worshiped at those standing stones
two and a half miles along the river t
could that have been their church and
this
their home let me show you inside
clinics were here from as far back as
three and a half thousand bc
right down to the 17th century but their
heyday was from the late bronze age in
the iron age in the video that i made
called
uh how scotland got its borders this was
not long before the romans arrived okay
so you can go back and have a check of
that now these round houses on stilts
were built without hammer or nails but
with craftsmanship
and perfection woven hazelwood
for walls bracken and ferns for flooring
and the bracken and straw
for the roof incredible 700 timbers of
hazel oak and alder
and a fire in the middle of a large room
it might be smoky
but that kills off the beasties in the
straw roof
a crying like this would house a large
extended
family imagine sitting around the
central fire
hearth cooking eating talking telling
stories
the cuisine wasn't french but it was
probably more sophisticated
than you think or you imagine you know
that thing at christmas
where the family gather together around
and everyone eats together
and chats and laughs and exchanges their
news
here sitting around this fire every meal
would be like christmas of course you'd
also have animals around about as well
just like the baby jesus in the stable
it would be fantastic
a scottish winter can be cold but
there's no need to worry about elements
in a place like this and as the evening
wears on you might drift off
to the side of the crank and climb into
your bunk bed
maybe in the background you can still
hear music we know that even back then
they could make flutes
and liars in fact archaeologists found
the bridge of a liar
that came from the mediterranean in 500
bc
music was part of their life but stories
stories were the essence of life
stories were woven in the fabric of life
it was how
information was passed on this was an
oral culture
an oral culture that continued right
through the days of the jacobites and
claire randall
from mouth to ear the secrets passed to
how to build these structures
there were no architects drawings just
stories
they probably would have told their
stories in a brythonic language a bit
like
welsh stories of how to make fire
stories about weave cloth what were the
best herbs for cooking
what were the best herbs for healing
what was the best strategy for hunting
what was the best strategy for farming
and of course if needs be
what was the best strategy for fighting
when the romans invaded under agriculty
the people of the cronics were here
some of them may have left this place
and joined with other tribesmen to face
the roman empire
at mons gropius the first recorded
battle on scottish soil
farming and protection were two of the
reasons that the cronics existed
out in the water you had some protection
from wild animals
also you could bring team animals onto
the crank and live in the water freed up
precious growing land
in a mountainous area like this but
remember not everyone
had a chronic this was life
in the leafy suburbs
it's easy to think of these iron age
people as being cavemen but they were
much more sophisticated than that
they've been trying to reverse engineer
the weaving partner some cloth
the archaeologists discovered but with
all our modern technology
they can't quite master the technique of
how our ancestors
did it that's the archaeologist let me
explain
these crannics are common around
scotland and ireland
here in lochte they found the remains of
18 around the log
but further up the lock on the other
side near fernan underwater
archaeologists found a collapsed crannog
fantastically preserved anaerobically
beneath the mud
they meticulously put together the lives
of our ancestors who lived there
what they ate what they drank how they
cooked
they even found the preserved pieces of
cloth that i mentioned they're using
to re-engineer the weaving process and
if you come here and visit the krannert
you can see how they lived and
experience
the technology that they used back in
the iron age
they were able to work out how these
early perishable people
could take all the trees and drive them
into the mud
before binding them together with tenon
joints to build a home to last
of course eventually every house wears
out and cranks too
you might have to replace one stilt that
rotted shore up another
and gradually over several generations
of use is just worn out and has to be
abandoned
without maintenance the key really sets
in
still shatter floors fall ceilings
crumble
and the edifice tumbles into the log
over time this silts up to form a mound
which seeds
plants and trees grow and in time it's
just another little island that nobody
remembers a chronic was ever there
i often drive past a lock and see a
little island and a clump of trees and
wonder
was that a home to a bronze age man or
an iron age family
thankfully due to some underwater
archaeologists and lots of volunteers
we can experience what life was like for
one of those families
sometimes when i make these videos i
want to tell you a specific story
about some special person or a
particular moniker event that i found
interesting
to be honest today i just wanted to
bring you
to a special place lochte is one of my
favorite places in the world
and somehow there's a feeling about the
chronic that i don't get anywhere else
i can never communicate to you all the
details that you learn
from the archaeologists and the
storytellers in this living museum
none of the images that you'll see on
screen i'll ever quite get over
the beauty of this place or for that
matter the taste of the cream scones and
the ferments and this side of the lock
or the paper boat on the other side of
the log if you want those things
i've left information in the description
you'll have to come here
and experience it for yourself
cheerio
you