Laser scans reveal hidden Arran history
● Hi-tech surveys reveal 1,000 new sites dating back to the Stone Age
Previously unknown remains of ancient buildings and rare monuments have been discovered during an innovative archaeological project on the Isle of Arran.
Remnants of around 1,000 archaeological sites, including prehistoric settlements, medieval farmsteads and a Neolithic cursus (parallel earthworks) have been revealed for the first time using cutting-edge airborne scanning techniques.
Specialised laser mapping, known as Lidar, was employed to document the land surface in three dimensions.
The survey, undertaken by archaeologists at Historic Environment Scotland (HES), is the largest of its type to be carried out north of the Border and sheds new light on the island’s past.
As well as the cursus, which is around 5,000 years old and an extremely rare find in the west of Scotland, other finds include a 2,500-yearold roundhouse, a group of shieling buildings, a shepherd’s hut from medieval times and the remains of barite mines dating back nearly two centuries.
“This survey has shown us that there are double the number of ancient monuments on Arran than we previously knew about,” said Dave Cowley, rapid archaeological mapping manager at HES.
“This new 3D technology has allowed us to undertake a rapid archaeological survey over weeks, rather than months or years, and allowed us to discover sites that might even have been impossible to find otherwise.
“We have been able to see how densely settled parts of Arran were, and the medieval and post-medieval shieling sites discovered have told us how upland areas were used by shepherds.”
Previous discoveries show Arran has a history stretching back to the Stone Age, perhaps as far as 7,000BC, with some structures still evident today.
Neolithic stone circles, standing stones and cairns can be seen in places such as Machrie Moor, as well as traces of the field systems created by the island’s earliest known inhabitants.
The island was originally part of the kingdom of Dalriada through the Bronze and Ironages –withgaelic-speaking inhabitants ruled from Ireland. Christianity arrived in the sixth century, with the founding of a monastery by St Brendan.
In later years Arran fell into the hands of Viking invaders, the Celts, the English and the Stewartandmacdonaldclans.
Mr Cowley added: “Our survey of Arran has shown us that people in the past lived across much more of Arran than we previously thought, extending the inhabited and farmed parts of the landscape on to what are now heather moors.
“So while we have known for many years that prehistoric roundhouses, dating to more than 2,500 years ago, were common in the area around the Machrie Moor stone circles, we now know that prehistoricpeoplelivedacrossmuch more of the rest of the island.
“This is making us think about how many people might have lived on the island in the past. We are also seeing the evidence of shepherd’s huts in the upper reaches of valleys on the island, providing us with the physical evidence of people leading their stock to upland grazing, which we otherwise only know about from written accounts.”
Archaeologists say the ground-breaking Lidar technology has the potential to uncover a massive number of historical sites that have until now have remained hidden.
Mr Cowley said:“arran is just a first step. As this technology becomes more widely available, we expect to find tens of thousands more ancient sites across the rest of Scotland – working at a pace that was unimaginableafewyearsago.”