Editing Broch (section)

==Origin and definition==
The word ''broch'' is derived from [[Scots language|Lowland Scots]] 'brough', meaning (among other things) fort. In the mid-19th century Scottish [[Antiquarian|antiquaries]] called brochs 'burgs', after [[Old Norse]] ''{{lang|non|borg}}'', with the same meaning. Place names in Scandinavian Scotland such as Burgawater and Burgan show that Old Norse ''{{lang|non|borg}}'' is the older word used for these structures in the north. Brochs are often referred to as ''[[Dun (fortification)|dùn]]'' in the west. Antiquarians began to use the spelling ''broch'' in the 1870s.

A precise definition for the word has proved elusive. Brochs are the most spectacular of a complex class of roundhouse buildings found throughout Atlantic Scotland. The [[Shetland Amenity Trust]] lists about 120 sites in [[Shetland]] as candidate brochs, while the [[Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland]] (RCAHMS) identifies a total of 571 candidate broch sites throughout the country. Researcher Euan MacKie, using a restricted definition, has proposed a much smaller total for Scotland of 104.<ref>Armit (2003) p. 16.</ref>

[[File:Broch Dun Carloway Lewis Schottland.jpg|thumb|left|Remains of [[Dun Carloway]] broch, [[Isle of Lewis|Lewis]], Scotland]]

The origin of brochs is a subject of continuing research. Eighty years ago most archaeologists believed that brochs, usually regarded as the 'castles' of Iron Age chieftains, were built by immigrants who had been pushed northward after being displaced first by the intrusions of [[Belgae|Belgic tribes]] into what is now southeast England at the end of the 2nd century BC and later by the [[Scotland during the Roman Empire|Roman invasion]] of southern Britain beginning in AD 43. Yet there is now little doubt that the hollow-walled broch tower was an invention in what is now Scotland; even the kinds of pottery found inside them that most resembled south British styles were local hybrid forms. 

The first of the modern review articles on the subject (MacKie 1965)<ref>{{cite journal | last=MacKie | first=Euan W. | title=The Origin and Development of the Broch and Wheelhouse Building Cultures of the Scottish Iron Age | journal=Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society | publisher=Cambridge University Press (CUP) | volume=31 | date=December 1965 | issn=0079-497X | doi=10.1017/s0079497x00014742 | pages=93–146| s2cid=164050601 }}</ref> did not, as is commonly believed, propose that brochs were built by immigrants, but rather that a hybrid culture formed from the blending of a small number of immigrants with the native population of the Hebrides produced them in the 1st century BC, basing them on earlier, simpler, promontory forts. This view contrasted, for example, with that of Sir [[W. Lindsay Scott]], who argued,
<ref>{{cite journal | last=Scott | first=Lindsay | title=The Problem of the Brochs | journal=Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society | publisher=Cambridge University Press (CUP) | volume=13 | year=1947 | issn=0079-497X | doi=10.1017/s0079497x00019605 | pages=1–36| s2cid=162750751 }}</ref> following [[V. Gordon Childe]] (1935),<ref>{{cite book | last=Childe | first=V | title=The prehistory of Scotland | publisher=Routledge | publication-place=London | year=2016 | isbn=978-1-138-81727-2 | oclc=944381428}}</ref> for a wholesale migration into Atlantic Scotland of people from southwest England.

MacKie's theory has fallen from favour too, mainly because starting in the 1970s there was a general move in archaeology away from 'diffusionist' explanations towards those pointing to exclusively indigenous development. Meanwhile, the increasing number – albeit still pitifully few – of [[radiocarbon]] dates for the primary use of brochs (as opposed to their later, secondary use) still suggests that most of the towers were built in the 1st centuries BC and AD.<ref>Parker Pearson, M. & Sharples, N. ''et al.'' (1999) ''Between land and sea: excavations at Dun Vulan, South Uist''. Sheffield. {{ISBN|9781850758808}}</ref> A few may be earlier, notably the one proposed for [[Old Scatness Broch]] in Shetland, where a sheep bone dating to between 390 and 200 BC has been reported.<ref>Dockrill, S. J., Outram, Z. and Batt, C. M. (2006) Time and place: a new chronology for the origin of the broch based on the scientific dating programme at the Old Scatness Broch, Shetland, ''PSAS'', v. 136, pp. 89-110; {{ISSN|0081-1564}}</ref>

The other broch claimed to be substantially older than the 1st century BC is [[Crosskirk Broch|Crosskirk]] in Caithness, but a recent review of the evidence suggests that it cannot plausibly be assigned a date earlier than the 1st centuries BC/AD.<ref>MacKie, E. W. (2007) ''The Roundhouses, Brochs and Wheelhouses of Atlantic Scotland c. 700 BC – AD 500: architecture and material culture. Part 2 The Mainland and the Western Islands''. British Archaeological Reports British Series. Oxford.</ref><ref>For the C14 dates for the Shetland sites see [http://www.shetland-heritage.co.uk/amenitytrust/archaeology/scatness/scatness_2002.html Shetland Amenity Trust] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090504043656/http://www.shetland-heritage.co.uk/amenitytrust/archaeology/scatness/scatness_2002.html|date=4 May 2009}} Retrieved 14 August 2007.</ref>