Important Events in Hebridean History

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Beaker pot from Allt Easdal, Barra (Keith Branigan)

There was no dramatic transition from the 'Stone Age' to the 'Bronze Age' in the Outer Hebrides. Life went on much as before, but slowly the way of life was evolving, and now and again new ideas and material technology were filtering in. Metal was never much available in the Bronze Age, especially up to 1000 BC, and people continued to rely on equipment made of stone, bone, wood, and other organic materials. Rare items of gold jewellery were first worn during this period. Beaker pottery had been familiar for some time.

Houses of this period were similar in construction to those of previous ages, but tended now to become circular rather than oval, and the religious focus of the community has moved away from the large communal tombs and stone circles, towards the houses and the settlements themselves. Burial practices changed during the Bronze Age: no longer in large shared chambers, but in smaller, more individual cairns, and cremation began to supersede inhumation in the 2nd millennium BC.

Burial practices in the Bronze Age now consisted of individual inhumation in individual short cist graves. Usually the grave was lined with stones, and the body carefully interred in a crouched position. Above ground the position could be marked with a cairn of pebbles and a kerb of carefully-laid stones. Often a pot, presumably containing liquid, would be placed with the deceased. Cremation was also increasingly practiced, with the cremated remains placed in a ceramic urn inverted in a small corbelled stone chamber and covered with a cairn of stones. Examples of Bronze Age cemeteries have been excavated at Allathasdal, Isle of Barra, and Cnip, Isle of Lewis.

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