Commercialisation, Contest, Clearance: the Archaeology of pre-Improvement cattle droving in the Scottish Highlands

Summary

This paper considers the archaeology of cattle droving in mid-Sutherland and also Cowal and West LochLomondside. It focuses on the period immediately before the widespread introduction of sheep, the dispossession of many of the sub-tenants, and the application of Improvement thinking in relation to agriculture. As such, it covers the period between 1720 and 1820.

It argues that cattle droving was a sign of the growing commercialisation of the Scottish Highlands, in a Gaelic society that was far from immutable or unchanging. It was that growing commercialisation which would lead to the replacement of a cattle based economy by one based on sheep farming. However the pace and nature of that change, along with the experiences of the "common folk", varied in different parts of the Highlands and that is reflected in the surviving archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Perspectives on the Rural and Urban Poor: Great Britain 1550-1950   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 264