Monument record 13574 - SOUTH UIST, FROSBOST

NF72NW 35 72 25

NF 764 474 to NF 758 140 The South Uist machair has been surveyed between 1993-1996, from Cille Bhrighde (West Kilbride) in the extreme S of the island to Baile Gharbhaidh (Balgarva) at the N end of the island, a distance of 35km. This year, the number of known prehistoric and Early Historic settlement sites has now increased from 81 to 176.
The continuing pattern of Iron Age-Viking Age settlement clusters along the machair supports the hypothesis of 'proto-townships'; that the system of land allotment amongst the townships is essentially an Iron Age phenomenon which survived substantially intact until the Clearances of the early 19th century (see unpublished reports, Sheffield University). An unusual concentration of sites was found at Machair Mheadhanach in the Iochdar (Eochar) area, N of the rocket range and W of Loch Bee; some 35 settlement sites, ranging in date from the Late Bronze Age to the early post-medieval period, are strung out within a 2km line along a NW-SE axis. This multifocal pattern is very different from other settlement patterns on South Uist but still fits the 'proto-township' model.
The second major concentration of sites is at Drimore where a group of 14 settlement sites, of various dates, are arranged in a SSE-NNW line 750m long. Most of these were identified in the 1950s during survey and excavation in advance of the construction of the rocket range.
The pattern of hypothesised proto-townships throughout the survey area (unpublished report, Sheffield University) holds reasonably well but there are gaps for each of the six 'shieling' (gearraidh) townships of South Uist. This suggests that these shieling townships may have formed in the medieval period by sub-division of larger units, and thus do not have prehistoric predecessors. Other medieval peatland settlements are tentatively identified at Upper Bornish, Aisgernis (Askernish), Frobost and Cille Pheadair (Kilpheder). There is a strong possibility that most of the nucleated villages mapped by William Bald in 1805 are located on earlier post-medieval and medieval settlements. The movement of settlement off the machair mainly occurred in the post-Norse medieval period. The only exceptions are Baghasdal, where the machair settlement was abandoned only after 1805 supposedly due to 'machair fever' (James MacDonald pers comm), and Machair Mheadhanach which was deserted some time between 1654 and 1805.
Sponsor:
Sheffield University.
M Parker Pearson 1996

NF 72 25 On Frobost machair there are three large settlement mounds (Sites 45, 46 and 47). Site 45 has been damaged by quarrying and has produced later Early Iron Age pottery. Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pottery came from Trench 2, one of three small test trenches into Site 46. Within Site 47 two test trenches failed to locate diagnostic material but a Middle Iron Age sherd was recovered from a rabbit scrape.
Excavation of a 19th-century blackhouse on the peatland immediately E of the machair was carried out as part of a sampling programme of house floors and activity areas in order to further characterise the chemical and physical constituents of deposits from different farmyard contexts.
M Parker Pearson 1998

REPORT DATE: 21/05/1999