Fascinating history of Argyll caves
AS WE top up our heating oil tanks or order another ton of wood or coal to see us through the coming winter, it is perhaps as good a time as any to wonder what our ancestors did to keep warm when they lived in less comfortable surroundings.
Of course it is easy to say they didn’t know any better, but living along the west coast of Argyll a few thousand years ago – even although the climate was drier than it is today – life must have been pretty miserable.
Our forefathers did not live only in caves, for cave life was the exception rather than the rule, but they are the only sure places where they may have lived. Caves are generally not comfortable places, but they have been used since man first arrived in Argyll more than 10,000 years ago, down to the present day.
At one end of the range they were occupied by skin-clad hunter-gatherers foraging along the shores and rocky pools for shellfish and in the adjacent woods and hills for animals and plants. At the other, by sheep-stealers, poachers, smugglers, fugitives from justice and vague folk living on the edge of the society of their times.
When the great European ice sheets melted, the land mass rose and then slumped, leaving behind old raised beaches. Among these, which stand well above the present high-water mark, there are caves and rock shelters with middens full of shellfish remains and human rubbish. This phase of life is referred to by Scottish archaeologists as the Obanian culture because some of its best known sites were found in caves at the foot of the cliff behind the Oban Distillery and elsewhere in the neighbourhood.
The MacArthur cave, which was discovered towards the end of 1894 by quarrymen and excavated the following year, produced dozens of bone and flint implements. It also yielded the remains of at least four humans from a later period who were accompanied by items placed with them for use in the next world.
Caves are formed and developed by various geologic processes and can vary in size. These may involve a combination of chemical processes, erosion from water, tectonic forces, micro-organisms, pressure and atmospheric influences. Morvern has very few caves, mainly due to constant geological movement over a long period.
I know of fewer than a dozen suitable for human occupation although there may have been others which are now hidden by undergrowth and fallen debris. One gives its name to Beinn na h-Uamh, a mountain above the northern shores of Loch Arienas. It means the hill of the cave and must have been of some significance as its walls contain incised carvings thought to be medieval in date.
Less well known is another near Torr na Con (Gaelic, the hill of the dog) called Samuel’s cave. It lies well hidden near the entrance to Loch Driumbuidhe on the south shores of Loch Sunart. The story behind the name is this. A man called Samuel, but calling himself Martin to disguise his real name, which was possibly MacPherson, was on the run from the police in Kintail and is thought to have had something to do with an arson case. He, and another man, came down to Morvern in a small ketch by way of Loch Linnhe in the late 1800s. They called at Lochaline where Samuel purchased some groceries at the shop near the old pier and, having no money, left a gold watch as security. They crossed over to Salen, Mull, where they busied themselves gathering whelks.
The companion disappeared. Samuel is believed to have drowned him, but this was never proven. Samuel returned to the shop in Lochaline, redeemed his watch and sailed up to Auliston Point on the Morvern side where he lived in a tent before taking up residence in his cave below Torr na Con.
Here he remained for 15 years collecting and selling whelks, until the Gordons, who owned Drimnin estate, gave him work mending the sheep fank at Driumbuidhe. Samuel moved from the cave to a ruined cottage near the shore which he repaired and re-roofed, before ending up at Glasdrum below Drimnin House, where he died.
The finest caves in Argyll are to be found along the west coast of Jura between the Gulf of Corryvreckan and Loch Tarbert. Those lying round the shores of Corpach Bay and Ruantallain, show traces of human activity. Some have been walled at their mouth and have stone platforms inside.
According to local tradition, funeral parties on their way with coffins from Jura to Craignish, Iona or Oronsay, used them for shelter when the weather prevented them from reaching their destination.
An early traveller recorded one of the Corpach caves having an altar in it and pieces of petrified substance hanging from the roof.
To find these many caves and learn about the fascinating Jura coastline, you will need a knowledgeable local guide. Look no further than Ian Mackinnon, who is a man you don’t meet every day. He was born and brought up on Jura and now lives at Kilmelford.
There cannot be many left who know more of the unwritten history and folklore of their native isle.