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Ritual and Landscape on the West Coast of Scotland: an Investigation of the Stone Rows of Northern Mull

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

R.D. Martlew  and
C.L.N. Ruggles
R.D. Martlew
Affiliation:
Centre for Archaeological Studies, The University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT
C.L.N. Ruggles
Affiliation:
School of Archaeological Studies, The University of Leicester LE1 7RH
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Abstract

In view of the theories of the astronomical significance of standing stones proposed by Alexander Thom, extensive fieldwork was undertaken during the 1970s and early 1980s in the west of Scotland to reassess the field evidence. Two groups of sites were identified from this work that seemed to support an astronomical interpretation, but the poor condition of many of the sites made identification of their original orientation problematical. Excavations were carried out at two damaged sites in one of the groups, in northern Mull, in order to identify the original positions of the stones. Radiocarbon dates from one of the sites, the first for a Scottish stone row, suggest construction in the Late Bronze Age. The alignment of the excavated rows, and the results of detailed theodolite surveys at and around the north Mull sites, suggest a more complex relationship between site locations, astronomical events, and the landscape than has hitherto been appreciated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 62 , 1996 , pp. 117 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1996

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