The Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project [30min]

The flanks of Ben Lawers on the northern side of Loch Tay in the Central Scottish Highlands form a desolate landscape. But 200 years ago a population of nearly 1500 was scratching out a living from the thin, cold, wet soil. The mystery is why their society collapsed and indeed how it established in the first place. For the past four years, a multidisciplinary team of archaeologists has been excavating, surveying and analysing to try and find some answers. They call it the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project. Aubrey Manning begins his visit high on the slopes of the mountain, where several low mounds in the rough heather mark the sites of so-called shielings, simple huts that were used when cattle were led up to their summer pastures. There is new evidence for far earlier habitation there, perhaps 7000 years ago, when Mesolithic hunters followed reindeer across the mountain passes not long after the last ice age. In the more fertile soil near the loch there are widespread signs of habitation. Known as the infield, this was where hundreds of smallholders held their tenancies from the local Laird, the Earl of Breadalbane. As well as the remains of their crofts and field systems, researchers have been able to trace their activities by studying the soil and detailed records of pollen preserved within it. By the 1790s, the population had swollen to the point where the infield was not sufficient and tenants were moved out further up the slope. These 'outfield' sites had been ploughed occasionally before but the soil was poor. Tenants had to add animal manure and lime to make it workable and there are accounts of great hardship as poor and sometimes elderly people were moved there as their only option for making a living. By 1850, many farms were deserted and today, sheep and tourists outnumber the few inhabitants. Down by Loch Tay, there is evidence of much more ancient occupation in the form of crannogs. These are the remains of what were once great wooden round-houses built out into the loch on stilts. There are 18 in Loch Tay, some dating back to the Bronze Age 2500 years ago, others occupied as recently as the 17th century. One was reconstructed 10 years ago as the central attraction for the Scottish Crannog Centre. Nick Dixon, who runs the centre, found many large trunks of oak submerged in the shallow water of the loch. Carbon dating and partial excavation revealed them to be the remains of a Neolithic forest that must have existed when the water level in the loch was perhaps five metres lower than it is today.