High Pasture Cave: Ritual, Memory, and Identity in the Iron Age of Skye

From the first steps taken into the darkness of High Pasture Cave, it was clear that this complex site would challenge current thinking on cave use and function in prehistory, and wider understanding of Iron Age cultural practice and beliefs. Situated in a dramatic location under the slopes of the Cuillin Mountains on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, this cave and its monumentalised environs were a focus for specific and special activities throughout the Iron Age – a venue for spectacular and extensive ceremonies featuring feasts, fire, crafts and the symbolic deposition of a plethora of artefacts and environmental materials, as well as human remains. This volume sets out the results of fieldwork carried out at High Pastures between 2004 and 2010, presents results from the extensive post-excavation analysis, and provides a biography of the High Pasture Cave complex from the early Bronze Age through 900 years of Iron Age activity. Recent research has led to a resurgence of interest in caves, in particular the place of these enigmatic sites in the worldviews of later prehistoric communities. Their investigation in the past has generally attributed a domestic function, comprising temporary homes and shelter for hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists, and as workshops and places of refuge. However, it is now proposed that many caves, including High Pasture, were used for rituals involving the preparation and display of human remains, the deposition of material culture and other types of organic materials. These were clearly performative acts and the recurrent use of caves as the arenas for such performances, tells us much about their role in the cosmology of later prehistoric communities.

Table of Contents:
List of figures List of tables Contributors Acknowledgements Summary Gearr-chunntas: Gaelic summary Résumé: French summary Zusammenfasung: German summary Guide to geological and archaeological terms and abbreviations Summary of chronological schemes Part I. INTRODUCTION TO THE HIGH PASTURE CAVE COMPLEX 1. Footsteps in the dark 2. The cave in the landscape: geology, geomorphology, and sedimentology 3. The cave in the site: passage, precinct, stairwells, and periphery 4. Stratigraphy and phasing Part II. THE HIGH PASTURE CAVE COMPLEX THROUGH TIME 5. High Pasture Cave before the Iron Age 6. Transformation to sacred place: the Early Iron Age 7. Redefining ritual space through the Middle Iron Age 8. Towards closure 9. Later activities during the Post Medieval period Part III. CHRONOLOGIES OF DEPOSITION: TIME AND PEOPLE 10. Chronology: radiocarbon dating and Bayesian analysis 11. Curating the dead Part IV. BIOGRAPHIES IN LIFE AND DEATH: MATERIAL CULTURE 12. Complex Biographies in Life and Death: Material Culture Part V. OFFERINGS FROM THE LAND 13. Offerings from the land: the environmental assemblages Part VI. RITUAL, MEMORY, AND IDENTITY: HIGH PASTURE THROUGH TIME 14. Ritual, memory, and identity: High Pasture through time Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Steven Birch is a freelance archaeologist and Director of West Coast Archaeological Services. He is Co-director of the High Pasture Cave and Environs Project. He is interested in British Archaeology of all periods, but more specifically the prehistory of Scotland, including the use of caves and the Mesolithic period. Jo McKenzie is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bradford, with a focus on Scottish prehistory. She is interested in soil micromorphology, ceramic petrography, and the Neolithic to Iron Age in Scotland and the Isles. Gemma Cruickshanks is Post-excavation Officer at the Scottish History and Archaeology Department at National Museums Scotland, and is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests include material culture during the first millennia BC and AD, particularly iron, ironworking, worked bone and antler, and pottery.