Ambiguity of the precise role brochs played as a display of social identity and the nature of their centrality to middle Iron Age society is a matter still under consideration. As Dennis Harding has pointed out (2004: 292), there is very little evidence to show chiefly status was communicated through house size and we may instead be projecting our own social concepts onto the intentions of the broch communities. This cautionary intervention is evidenced by the artefactual assemblages typically found within brochs which are similar in substance and frequency to other contemporary forms of domestic settlement (Barrett 1981; Heald and Jackson 2001; MacKie 2010). What is considered prestige items are often found in later contexts, beyond the primary occupation period and within secondary phases of activity such as at Upper Scalloway Broch (Sharples 1998) and Old Scatness Broch (Dockrill, Bond and Batt 2005). The few Roman finds on Northern Isles sites as evidence of status is unproven when any sense of how they interacted with and invested value in the material is unknown (Harding 2004: 301). Wide regional differences (Romankiewicz 2009; Waddington 2014; MacKie 2010), topographical locations within regions (Fojut 1982; Rennell 2015) and changes to the architecture and use of each broch through time complicates efforts to discern a strict hierarchy within broch communities across the wide dispersal of Atlantic Scotland.

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Nonetheless, Northern Isles broch sites do meaningly differ from other regions. Contemporary communities surrounded the brochs in many locations in Orkney and Shetland (Armit 2016: 41). This is absent in the Western Isles (Waddington 2014; Parker Pearson, Sharples and Mulville 1996) where brochs are primarily isolated in the landscape with notions of a controlling elite extracting tribute from a subservient population in a system of clientship. The issue of a competitive society is muddled by wider landscape distribution in South Uist (Rennell 2015) and small islands like Barra (Armit 1997) where it appears to be the only settlement type and may have housed a mixture of social classes. A different statement is perhaps made with the broch villages of the Northern Isles. Sally Foster (1989) sees the creation of the surrounding broch community as a consolidation of power and hierarchical relationships in society expressed both in the village layout with the broch at its core and the series of passages necessary to reach the broch and the closed spaces within the tower itself. The symbolic reinforcement of social status via a navigational maze and monumentality of structure is still in need of some clearer definition of who constituted the household (Hingley 1992; Harding 2004) in a system where wealth appeared derived from land and stock holding and fortunes could rise and fall through an occupational phase that in many cases lasted centuries (Barrett 1981; Harding 2004).

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A compelling site with which to explore the symbolic nature of brochs and relationship to social identity within the community is the settlement at Howe in Orkney. Poorly constructed atop a Neolithic tomb, the central broch experienced periodic collapse and rebuilding over roughly two centuries (Ballin Smith 2005: 121), yet the inhabitants continually modified the site in a distinct refusal to abandonment. There could be myriad reasons for such an effort: clear line of sight for defence, the need to maintain control over agricultural holdings or protecting the social status of the entire community. In a society where the location of central power may shift over time (Heald and Jackson 2001), the cultural enhancements and benefits of constructing and occupying a broch (Theodossopoulos et al. 2012: 4) could have given preservation of the structure an important imperative. Even within a presumed hierarchy, the sense of unity and values shared throughout the entire community in an extended kinship system (Foster 1989; Harding 2004) could be manifest in the maintenance of its central symbol of status and fortune tied to success or failure of the building (Ballin Smith 2005: 125). What comes generally clear is those who helped build the broch had a vested interest in its maintenance.

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The 2nd century decline of brochs (Armit 2016: 47) as the nucleus of occupational architecture indicative of social identity, however it is defined, diverged in the Northern Isles in the post-broch period. In Orkney, amorphous cellular buildings continued to be occupied around the central broch with occupation activities within the superstructure changing over time (Foster 2001: 59; Ballin Smith 2005: 126). Akin to the Western Isles, roundhouses and wheelhouses began to appear in Shetland. Here they were clustered around and inside disused brochs though often contemporary with those still in a primary occupation phase. East Shore Broch showed evidence of primary occupation until the middle of the millennium (Canmore 2020) as did Upper Scalloway Broch (Sharples 1998), both sites with later roundhouses inserted. Old Scatness Broch was abandoned between 40 BC and 140 AD (Dockrill, Outram and Batt 2006: 104-5) and one of the external aisled roundhouses may have been built as early as the 1st century BC (Ibid: 107) with subsequently several more giving it an appearance affinity with Jarlshof, both sites with roundhouse and wheelhouse occupation continuing up to the Viking Age (MacKie 2010: 107). The social status of sites relative to one another is difficult to parse out, especially when the artefact assemblage is virtually indistinguishable between brochs, roundhouses and later wheelhouses (Barrett 1981: 208; MacKie 2010: 96). This may indicate a fractionalisation of landholding based on success and inheritance issues due to increased numbers of elite lineage (Harding 2004: 296), though it is hard to sustain with issues of contemporaneity and the clustering together of these structures.

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Despite the idea of a final collapse in broch society culminating somewhere between the 2nd and 4th century (Armit 2016: 47; Harding 2004: 296; Foster 2001: 59), the wheelhouse still contained elements of monumental social status only it projected within rather than without. Armit (2016: 47) sees this as evidence of more social integration and stability where an invitation into the home is embodied in the wide-open spaces. Sharples (2003: 158) agrees but speculates a further delineation of space within the wheelhouse based on individual social status along lines of gender and age yet, perhaps, negotiable by virtue of other factors such as agricultural success or martial ability. The preponderance of evidence points more strongly at a continuation of extended kinship elite status in transition to clientship and further developments in the centralisation of power (Foster 2001: 61). It is a model that works better for Orkney and Shetland as opposed to other regions where these structures may represent the typical residence or farmstead, yet it does fail to address the outlying wheelhouses and complex roundhouse structures such as Lang Clodie Wick and Fethaland, both of which are in more remote areas of Shetland and lack evidence of surrounding settlement. It further fails to account for the fact the majority of wheelhouses are quite small rather than the fewer grand wheelhouses upon which these interpretations rest.

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Although this middle Iron Age period of symbolic boundaries and enclosed settlement of brochs moving to unenclosed wheelhouses and larger nucleated settlements may give clues to economy, power and elite status, it does not adequately address house forms of lower status members of society. Even if an extended kinship moving to clientage model is upheld, where did the bulk of the people reside? How were the feats of engineering to construct a broch or wheelhouse requiring a large pool of labour freed from the necessitudes of intensive agriculture successfully brought together? This has been a criticism (Armit 1997) of the model brought to the Western Isles of a dominating elite exploiting the client community (Parker Pearson, Sharples and Mulville 1996). The bulk of the subservient population has been rendered invisible, something true of the Northern Isles as well. A part of this could be research bias where resources have been disproportionately allocated to large, upstanding structures where smaller sites lack visibility on the surface (Hingley 1992: 17). They may also have been built of less durable materials, timber and/or sod (Fojut 1996: 110), which would leave little surface trace to investigate. Reconciling the architecture with lower social status individuals is thus quite challenging.

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Social upheaval in the middle of the first millennium AD brought new architecture and social identities to the Northern Isles (MacKie 2010; Harding 2004). Established lifestyles were still very much in evidence, agricultural improvements to the land around Old Scatness continued apace (Guttmann et al. 2008: 803) and pastoralism still formed a core of the economy (Dockrill, Outram and Batt 2006: 106). Throughout Orkney and Shetland, a diversification of crops bringing previously uncultivated land into production and the storage of grain as seen at Upper Scalloway may be indicative of increasing yields as a result of further centralisation of power (Bond 2002: 184). There is a large increase in pig consumption, suggestive of a feasting elite, and oats are introduced for perhaps enhanced cattle and horse fodder (Ibid: 181-4). Commensurate with this, building styles change broadly where the architecture is dominated by much smaller cellular structures such as the figure of eight house found at Buckquoy (Ritchie 1977) and where status is more difficult to detect. This change is accompanied by a noticeable rise in personal adornment (Foster 2001: 61; Armit 2016: 95; Sharples 2003; 159-60) which may signal new identifications of status and group affiliation and where ideas of communal space have been lost (Sharples 2003: 161-2). The catalyst for these changes can be difficult to detect in the archaeological record even if the end result is unmistakable.

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A facet to this development worth consideration is the withdrawal of Rome. Throughout the period of Roman presence the northern kingdoms underwent considerable consolidation, the petty Pictish kings emerging as the central power north of the Forth and Clyde with the exception of Argyll which was controlled by the Dal Riata with roots in Ulster (Armit 2016: 151-3; Foster 2001: 51; Noble et al. 2020: 327). An extended period of internecine warfare ensued which can be demonstrated in the archaeological record. At Upper Scalloway Broch, Sharples noted the dramatic increase in weaponry around the 5th century (Sharples 1998; Sharples 2003: 156) and the same is seen at Mine Howe in Orkney (Sharples 2003: 157; Heald 2001). The Dal Riata and the Picts competed for control throughout the region (Foster 2001: 101-3) including the Northern Isles where the Annals of Ulster record Dal Riata invasions of Orkney in 580 or 581. This can be further attested in prosaic cultural markers such as the Old Irish ogham-inscribed spindle-whorl at Buckquoy, the very presence of ogham script itself with its origins in Ireland (Forsyth 1995), and Pictish symbol stones indicating shared identities (Noble et al. 2013: 1138). The markers of social status had changed. Elaborately decorated and portative personal objects, including weaponry, signalled stature and affiliation (Foster 2001: 61; Sharples 2003: 157) replacing architecture. Although Noble et al. see the growth of smaller sub-rectangular structures as a possible adoption of Roman styles, particularly among the elite (2020: 328-9), the extravagance of broch and wheelhouse architecture continuing to be occupied in the landscape could also be construed a challenge to the emerging power centres. Though the archaeological record of some sites such as Old Scatness and Birsay demonstrate continued elite occupation, including wheelhouses of the former, this could be a predecessor to the emergence of mormaers as territorial rulers (Foster 2001: 105) where these sites maintained control over much larger administrative regions than hitherto. Under this, the social identity of the bulk of the population may have been simply as peasant or labourer in a form similar to serfdom with perhaps craftspeople a step above, slaves below and military service compulsory.

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Frequently noted as too easily deterministic (Harding 2004: 296), environmental factors may have fed this militarisation and played a significant role in the social upheaval of the late Iron Age. The ‘dust veil event’ of 536-7 AD in which widespread environmental disaster in Europe led to demographic collapse and large-scale movements of people can be attested in the archaeological record and from Irish tree ring analysis (Graslund and Price 2012; MacKie 2010: 111). A variety of Irish annals record famine in 536 and 539. Adding to the misery, the Annales Cumbriæ records plague in Wales in 537 and 547, the Annals of Ulster records plague in Ireland in 545 and 556 with a spread of leprosy in 554. It is doubtless such events would have touched the shores of the Northern Isles, the Justinian plague lasting until the end of the 6th century and killing as much as 30% of the European population (Raoult et al. 2013). This loss and a quite possibly dramatic shift in demographics could have created a void in which power struggles would be exacerbated. With traditional centres of authority abandoned and under threat (MacKie 2010: 111), new bases for the elite became centred on the enclosed forts of the mainland (Noble et al. 2013: 1140-1) and perhaps the more ephemeral, amorphous buildings as evidenced in the Northern Isles were architecturally representative of those members of society with lower social status. The small cellular structures would have required far less material and labour resources to build and maintain (Sharples 2003: 159). Rather than a symbol of a growing egalitarian society, it is more likely power had moved away from kinship and client groups and into the hands of a rapidly shrinking band of petty kings as it became consolidated.

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These changing social identities through the middle and late Iron Age in the Northern Isles, monumental architecture as a symbolic or real representation of individual and collective status giving way to displays of identity through elaborate personal adornment, were indications of profound shifts in power. The construction of brochs could be seen as projecting authority to a wider world, community ownership of a portion of the landscape with an ostensible chief in residence. Later wheelhouses, curiously absent from Orkney, projected within and may have been an invitation to a communal space equally as impressive but no longer as stratified. The eventual withdrawal of Rome and consolidation of power shifted the balance from local kin and clientship systems to petty kings and an increasingly militarised society where weapons proliferated and architecture became smaller. Enclosure in mainland hillforts appeared as the new centres of authority in a conflict between the Picts and Dal Riata which was not long in engulfing the Northern Isles. Perhaps also decimated by plague and environmental disasters, the preponderance of the population retreated to small cellular buildings. Invisible throughout is definite confirmation of the lower orders of society, those who would have been charged with building and maintaining the brochs and wheelhouses and carried out the increasingly intense agricultural production of the period.

 

 

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