The Rise and Fall of High Morlaggan

Summary

The ‘Highland Clearances’ is an evocative term used to refer to the dramatic depopulation of the Scottish Highlands in the late 1700s and early 1800s, in the aftermath of the failed Jacobite rebellion. Although there is good evidence for forced and likely brutal evictions in many areas, the movement of people out of small rural settlements in other parts of the Highlands was less dramatic and more organic. The High Morlaggan Project is a community-led heritage and archaeology project that has traced the history of the now-deserted rural settlement of Morlaggan on the west coast of Argyll, Scotland. Using documentary research, surveying and excavation, the project has not only uncovered the rise and fall of this typical rural settlement, culminating in the emigration of its inhabitants to near and far, but has crucially restimulated the interest of the local community in both its recent and more distant heritage.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Remember a Day: Community and Public Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 129