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The
East Coast of the Isle of Lewis is an area in which
little detailed archaeological survey has been carried
out. This is certainly true of Tolsta and its environs.
Over the years, only two archaeological survey teams
have worked in the district, the Royal Commission on
the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS),
which came through in 1913 looking particularly for
monuments worth including in the list of Scheduled Ancient
Monuments (protected by law), and the Coastal Erosion
Assessment team, who came through the area in 1996,
looking at the coastal strip. The huge number of new
sites found by the Coastal Erosion Assessment (with
which I worked) just goes to show the potential of the
area; anything that I write about the archaeology of
Tolsta at this point in time is based on inadequate
knowledge, and may well change in the future.
Having
made that point, what do we know about Tolsta, and its
background?
People have lived in the Outer Hebrides for at least
6 000 years, possibly longer. The earliest settlement
sites that have been found in the islands date to around
4 000 BC, the Neolithic, or New Stone Age. These, our
early ancestors, were farmers, using stone tools, making
pots, keeping cattle, sheep, pigs, and possibly managing
herds of deer also. They grew wheat and barley, and
harvested wild food, particularly fish and shellfish,
nuts (hazel nuts were very important) and berries. They
lived in small oval or rectangular houses, some of which
were built on islands in lochs. There are two possible
such sites in the Tolsta area - one is a crannog (an
artificial or partly artificial island) in a loch, now
drained, called Loch Osavat, in the centre of the township.
The other is in Loch Beinn Tairbeairt. Such sites could
be occupied for hundreds, or even thousands of years,
and it is possible that these two sites may have first
been occupied in the Neolithic. However, as yet we do
not have any evidence of the dates during which they
were used, as there are no finds from the sites.
Communal
cairns
Neolithic
people built large communal burial cairns, which were
used time and time again, and were probably places of
worship and religious significance as well as burial
places. There are a number of such sites in the islands,
such as Barpa Langais in North Uist. They also raised
standing stones, such as the stones at Calanais. If
people were living in Tolsta at this time, we would
expect to find at least one burial cairn, and perhaps
a standing stone, somewhere in the area.
The
population of the islands appears to have stayed and
developed throughout the following four to five thousand
years. Although buildings, pottery, and tools changed,
with the introduction of metals, the clearance of woodlands
and increased use of stone for building, and the new
fashions coming from the mainland, and possibly moving
back to the mainland from the islands, the population
probably stayed the same.
Buildings
became more and more massive up to the years around
0 BC/AD. The ultimate expression of this fashion was
the broch, the huge Iron Age towers built all over the
North and West of Scotland, which may possibly have
developed in the Western Isles. As yet we don't know
of a broch in the Tolsta area, but there may have been
one, and there certainly would have been roundhouses,
the circular stone houses in which most people lived.
Around
the 6th century AD, the islands began gradually to convert
to Christianity. As one would expect, when people converted,
they built places of worship in their settlements, and
this means that the early churches of the islands, such
as that at Cladh Mhicheil, are typically built on top
of, or very near Iron Age archaeological remains. Many
chapels and churches date back to this early time, and
have continued to be used and rebuilt since then.
Norsemen
arrive
The
name, Tolstadh, reflects the arrival of the Norse people
in the islands around about AD 800. The last part of
the name, -stadh, is from the Old Norse word staðir,
which means 'farm'. The first part is a contraction
of a personal name, perhaps Thorkell. Although the name
of the township must have changed at this time, many
archaeologists believe that the Norse who settled in
the Hebrides mixed with the existing population. One
of the reasons for believing this is that we know that
many of the first generation of pagan Norse in the islands
converted to Christianity as a result of being exposed
to it here, and they took the new religion back to Scandinavia,
and onwards to Iceland. The Western Isles were a part
of Norway for nearly 500 years.
By
the end of the 13th century AD, the islands had once
again become a part of Scotland, and the ruling power
in Lewis was the Lordship of the Isles. It is probably
to this period that the fortified stac of Caisteal a'Mhorair
belongs. It is one of a series of small castles on stacs
and islands on the coasts of the Hebrides. We don't
know very much about them, but recent excavations at
the large site of Dun Eistean, further up the coast,
in Ness, have shown that there was a small rectangular
tower on this stac, with other buildings and an artificial
loch. There is no room for such a large complex on the
stac at Gearraidh, but there may have been other buildings
on the adjacent headland.
All
the evidence that we have suggests that the Tolsta area
has been occupied for a long time, and would benefit
from more detailed archaeological survey and research.
A walk with the Comann Eachdraidh on 20th July, 2002,
on a beautifully sunny day, showed how much can be seen
in the landscape around North Tolsta, particularly along
the coastline. It also proved how much the members of
the society can tell the archaeologists about sites
in the area, with stories and names for the sites coming
thick and fast. Of particular interest was the grassy
hollow, Slag an t-Searmoin, where preaching took place
during the Reformation - this is the type of site that
archaeologists cannot hope to identify alone, as the
feature is a natural one, but used for crucially important
gatherings in the history of the township. I hope that
there will be possibilities in the future to encourage
the Comann Eachdraidh and archaeologists to work together
to learn more about the history and archaeology of the
district.
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