Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:20:26.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rural settlement in the Age of Reason

Archaeologies of capitalism and the recent history of Highland Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Chris Dalglish
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper discusses the project of an archaeology of capitalism through a case study situated in the southern Scottish Highlands. It is argued that archaeology as a discipline has a significant contribution to make to discussions of the emergence and development of the social relations of capitalism. This is because archaeology has as one of its main concerns mundane social practice or routine. Changes in everyday routine and the associated material environment made the ideological aspects of capitalism, focusing on the individual and private property, conceivable for some. These changes to the everyday environment were instigated by the landlords, inspired by enlightenment thought, in order to secure their ownership of certain estates as private property, which had been in dispute under the clan system. Response of the rural population to Improvement was varied and their continuing relationship with their landlord evolved with reference to certain key structuring dispositions. The essential issue for the farming population was land rights. The major conclusion of this paper as concerns archaeologies of capitalism is that we must distinguish between capitalism (an ideology of the individual made knowable in routine practice) and capitalist societies (those societies where capitalism is widespread but not necessarily universal). This allows consideration of varied experience of and interaction with capitalism in the past.

Keywords

capitalismroutineland rightsScottish Highlands
Type
Discussion Article
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , September 2001 , pp. 2 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ABDA DR3/21: Survey of the estate of Kilchrist, Kintyre, by George Landlands 1777, Argyll and Bute District Archive, Lochgilphead, Argyll.Google Scholar
Adams, I.H., 1980: The agents of agricultural change, in Parry, M.L. and Slater, T.R. (eds), The making of the Scottish countryside, London, 155–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, J.A., 2000: Rural settlement on North Lochtayside. Understanding the landscapes of change, in Atkinson, J.A., Banks, I. and MacGregor, G. (eds), Townships to farmsteads. Rural settlement in Scotland, England and Wales, Oxford, 150–160.Google Scholar
Atkinson, J.A., Banks, I. and MacGregor, G. (eds), 2000: Townships to farmsteads. Rural settlement in Scotland, England and Wales, Oxford.Google Scholar
Bangor-Jones, M., 1993: The incorporation of documentary evidence and other historical sources into preservational and management strategies, in Hingley, (ed.), Medieval or later rural settlement in Scotland. Management and preservation, Edinburgh, 36–42.Google Scholar
Bannerman, J., 1977: The Lordship of the Isles, in Brown, J.M. (ed.), Scottish society in the fifteenth century, London, 209–240.Google Scholar
Barrett, J.C., 1994: Fragments from antiquity, Oxford.Google Scholar
Barrett, J.C., and Downes, J.M., 1993: North Pitcarmick (Kirkmichael parish), in Batey, C.E. (ed.), Discovery and excavation in Scotland, Edinburgh, 102–103.Google Scholar
Barrett, J.C., and Downes, J.M., 1994: North Pitcarmick (Kirkmichael parish), in Batey, C.E. and King, M. (eds), Discovery and excavation in Scotland, Edinburgh, 87–88.Google Scholar
Bede, C., 1861: Glencreggan. Or, a Highland home in Cantire, London.Google Scholar
Beresford, M., and Hurst, J.G. (eds), 1971: Deserted medieval villages, Woking.Google Scholar
Berry, C.J., 1997: Social theory of the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Bil, A., 1990: The shieling, 1600–1840. The case of the central Scottish Highlands, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Bloch, M., 1989: Ritual, history and power. Selected papers in anthropology, London.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P., 1977: Outline of a theory of practice, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Branigan, K., 1997: Mankind on the margin. The SEARCH project, Current archaeology 13, 284–307.Google Scholar
Branigan, K., and Foster, P., 1995: Barra. Archaeological research on Ben Tangaval, Sheffield.Google Scholar
Branigan, K., and Merrony, C., 2000: The Hebridean blackhouse on the isle of Barra, Scottish archaeological journal 22, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadie, A. (ed.), 1997: The Scottish Enlightenment. An anthology, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Caldwell, D.H., and Ewart, G., 1993: Finlaggan and the Lordship of the Isles. An archaeological approach, Scottish historical review 72, 146–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, J., 1996: The Lewis land struggle. Na gaisgich, Stornoway.Google Scholar
Caldwell, D.H., McWee, R., and Ruckley, N.A., 2000: Post-medieval settlement on Islay. Some recent research, in Atkinson, J.A., Banks, I. and MacGregor, G. (eds), Townships to farmsteads. Rural settlement in Scotland, England and Wales, Oxford, 58–68.Google Scholar
Campbell, G.D., 8th Duke of Argyll, 1887: Scotland as it was and as it is, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Campbell, G.D., 8th Duke of Argyll, 1906: George Douglas, eighth Duke of Argyll 1823–1900. Autobiography and memoirs, London.Google Scholar
Crawford, I.A., 1983: The present state of settlement history in the West Highlands and Islands, in O'Connor, A. and Clarke, D.V. (eds), From the Stone Age to the ‘Forty-Five, Edinburgh, 350–36.Google Scholar
Cregeen, E.R. (ed.), 1963: Inhabitants of the Argyll Estate, 1779, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Cregeen, E.R., 1968: The changing role of the House of Argyll in the Scottish Highlands, in Lewis, I.M. (ed.), History and social anthropology, London, 153–192.Google Scholar
Cregeen, E., 1970: The changing role of the House of Argyll in the Scottish Highlands, in Phillipson, N.T. and Mitchison, R. (eds), Scotland in the age of Improvement, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Davis, M.C. n.d.: The lost mansion houses of Argyll.Google Scholar
Delle, J.A., 1999: Extending Europe's grasp. An archaeological comparison of colonial spatial processes in Ireland and Jamaica, in Egan, G. and Michael, R.L. (eds), Old and new worlds, Oxford, 106–116.Google Scholar
Dodgshon, R.A., 1977: Changes in Scottish township organization during the Medieval and early modern periods, Geografiska annaler 59, 51–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodgshon, R.A., 1993: West Highland and Hebridean settlement prior to crofting and the clearances. A study in stability or change?, Proceedings of the society of antiquaries of Scotland 123, 419–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodgshon, R.A., 1998: From chiefs to landlords, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Dunbar, J.G., 1971: The study of deserted medieval settlements in Scotland. The peasant house, in Beresford, M. and Hurst, J.G. (eds), Deserted medieval villages 2, 236–246.Google Scholar
Ennew, J., 1980: The Western Isles today, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Fairhurst, H., 1960: Scottish clachans, Scottish geographical magazine 76, 67–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairhurst, H., 1967: The archaeology of rural settlement in Scotland, Transactions of the Glasgow archaeological society 15, 139–158.Google Scholar
Fairhurst, H., 1968: Rosal. A deserted township in Strath Naver, Sutherland, Proceedings of the society of antiquaries of Scotland 100, 135–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairhurst, H., 1969: The deserted settlement at Lix, West Perthshire, Proceedings of the society of antiquaries of Scotland 101, 160–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairhurst, H., 1971: The study of deserted medieval settlements in Scotland. Rural settlement, in Beresford, M. and Hurst, J.G. (eds), Deserted medieval villages 1, 229–235.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J., 1951: Argyll in the Forty-five, London.Google Scholar
Gailey, R.A., 1960: Settlement and population in Kintyre, 1750–1800, Scottish geographical magazine 76, 99–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gailey, R.A., 1961: Settlement changes in the southwest Highlands of Scotland, 1700–1960, (unpublished Ph.D. thesis), University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
Gailey, R.A., 1962: The evolution of Highland rural settlement, Scottish studies 6, 155–177.Google Scholar
Gaskell, P., 1968: Morvern transformed, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson-Graham, J.K., 1996: The end of capitalism (as we knew it). A feminist critique of political economy, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gilbertson, D., Kent, M., and Gratton, J. (eds), 1996: The Outer Hebrides: The last 14,000 years, Sheffield.Google Scholar
Grant, I.F., 1961: Highland folk ways, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Greig, J.Y.T. (ed.), 1932a: The letters of David Hume 1, Oxford.Google Scholar
Greig, J.Y.T. (ed.), 1932b: The letters of David Hume 2, Oxford.Google Scholar
Handsman, R.G. and Leone, M.P., 1989: Living history and critical archaeology in the reconstruction of the past, in Pinsky, V. and Wylie, A. (eds), Critical traditions in contemporary archaeology, Albuquerque, 117–135.Google Scholar
R., Hingley, (ed.) 1993: Medieval or later rural settlement in Scotland. Management and preservation, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Hood, J.E., 1996: Social relations and the cultural landscape, in Yamin, R. and Metheny, K.B. (eds), Landscape archaeology, Knoxville, 121–146.Google Scholar
James, H.F., 1998: Gunna excavations 1998, Glasgow.Google Scholar
Johnson, M.H., 1996: An archaeology of capitalism, Oxford.Google Scholar
Kelly, Rev. D., 1845: Parish of Southend, in The new statistical account of Scotland 7, Edinburgh, 413–436.Google Scholar
Kidd, C., 1993: Subverting Scotland's past, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohl, P.L., 2000: Diverse approaches to the Ottoman past. Toward a globally conceived, regionally specific historical archaeology, in Baram, U. and Carroll, L. (eds), A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire. Breaking new ground, New York, 253–260.Google Scholar
Laing, L.R., 1969: Medieval settlement archaeology in Scotland, Scottish archaeological forum 1, 69–79.Google Scholar
LeLong, O., and Wood, J., 2000: A township through time. Excavation and survey at the deserted settlement of Easter Raitts, Badenoch, 1995–1999, in Atkinson, J.A., Banks, I. and MacGregor, G. (eds), Townships to farmsteads. Rural settlement in Scotland, England and Wales, Oxford, 40–49.Google Scholar
Leone, M.P., 1995: A Historical Archaeology of capitalism. American anthropologist 97, 251–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leone, M.P., Potter, P.B. Jr., and Shackel, P.A., 1987: Toward a critical archaeology, Current anthropology 28, 283–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leone, M.P., and Potter, P.B., 1988: Introduction, in Leone, M.P. and Potter, P.B. (eds), The recovery of meaning, Washington, 1–22.Google Scholar
Lindsay, I.G., and Cosh, M., 1973: Inverary and the Dukes of Argyll, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Rev. D., 1845: United parish of Killean and Kilchenzie, in The new statistical account of Scotland 7, Edinburgh, 376–394.Google Scholar
MacDonald, J. (ed.), 1992: An archaeological field survey at Meall Darroch, University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
MacDonald, S., 1997: Reimagining culture. Histories, identities and the Gaelic Renaissance, Oxford.Google Scholar
Macinnes, A.I., 1994: Landownership, land use and elite enterprise in Scottish Gaeldom. From clanship to clearance in Argyllshire, 1688–1858, in Devine, T.M. (ed.), Scottish elites, Edinburgh, 1–42.Google Scholar
Macinnes, A.I., 1996: Clanship, commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603–1788, East Linton.Google Scholar
Macinnes, A.I., 1998: Scottish Gaeldom c. 1600–1850. From clanship to commercial landlordism, in Foster, S., Macinnes, A.I. and Macinnes, R.K. (eds), Scottish Power Centres for the fifth to the twentieth centuries, Glasgow.Google Scholar
Mackay, F.F. (ed.), 1955: McNeil of Carskey: His estate journal, 1703–1743. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Marshall, D.N., 1983: Excavations at MacEwen's Castle, Argyll, in 1968–69, Glasgow archaeological journal 10, 131–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, A., 1987: Kintyre country life, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Ma'oz, M., 1968: Ottoman reform in Syria and Palestine 1840–1861. The impact of the Tanzimat on politics and society, London.Google Scholar
McGeachy, R.A.A., 1988: Aspects of commerce, community and culture: Argyll, 1730–1850, (M.Litt), University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
McKerral, A., 1948: Kintyre in the seventeenth century, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Mitchell, A., 1880: The past in the present. What is civilisation?, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Morrison, A., 1977: The question of Celtic survival or continuity in some elements of rural settlement in the Scottish Highlands, in Laing, L. (ed.), Studies in Celtic survival, Oxford, 67–76.Google Scholar
Nicholson, R., 1974: Scotland. The later middle ages, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Orser, C., 1996: A historical archaeology of the modern world, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paynter, R., 1988: Steps toward an archaeology of capitalism, in Leone, M.P. and Potter, P.B., (eds), The recovery of meaning. Historical Archaeology in the eastern United States, Washington, DC, 407–433.Google Scholar
Paynter, R., 2000: Historical Archaeology and the post-Columbian world of North America, Journal of archaeological research 8, 169–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RCAHMS, 1971: Argyll. An inventory of the ancient monuments 1, Kintyre, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
RCAHMS, 1990: North-east Perth. An archaeological landscape, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Sharples, N., and Pearson, M.Parker, 1999: Norse settlement in the Outer Hebrides, Norwegian archaeological review 32, 41–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, A. (ed.), 1998a: Burt's letters from the north of Scotland, as related by Edmund Burt, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Simmons, A. (ed.), 1998b: A tour in Scotland and voyage to the Hebrides, 1772, by Thomas Pennant, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Spencer-Wood, S., 1996: Feminist Historical Archaeology and the transformation of American culture by domestic reform movements, 1840–1925, in DeCunzo, L.A. and Herman, B.L. (eds), Historical Archaeology and the study of American culture, Knoxville, 397–445.Google Scholar
Steer, K.A., and Bannerman, J.W.M., 1977: Late medieval monumental sculpture in the west Highlands, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Stevenson, D., 1980: Alasdair MacColla and the Highland problem in the seventeenth century, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Stewart, A.I.B., 1992: Regulation of agriculture in seventeenth century Kintyre, in Gordon, W.M. (ed.), The stair society miscellany III, Edinburgh, 212–223.Google Scholar
Stewart, J.H., and Stewart, M.B., 1988: A Highland longhouse – Lianach, Balquhidder, Perthshire, Proceedings of the society of antiquaries of Scotland 118, 301–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symonds, J., 2000: The Dark Island revisited. An approach to the historical archaeology of Milton, South Uist, in Atkinson, J.A., Banks, I., and MacGregor, G. (eds), Townships to farmsteads. Rural settlement in Scotland, England and Wales, Oxford, 196–209.Google Scholar
Teignmouth, Lord, 1836: Sketches of the coasts and islands of Scotland and the Isle of Man 2, London.Google Scholar
Thin, J. (ed.), 1981: Recollections of a tour made in Scotland, A.D. 1803, by Dorothy Wordsworth, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Whyte, I.D., 1975: Rural housing in Lowland Scotland in the seventeenth century. The evidence of estate papers, Scottish studies 19, 55–68.Google Scholar
Whyte, I.D., 1979: Agriculture and society in seventeenth-century Scotland, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Wilkie, L.A. and Bartoy, K.M., 2000: A critical archaeology revisited, Current anthropology 41, 747–777.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, E.R., 1982: Europe and the people without history, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Yeoman, P., 1991: Medieval rural settlement. The invisible centuries, in Hanson, W.S. and Slater, E.A. (eds), Scottish archaeology. New perceptions, Aberdeen, 112–128.Google Scholar
Yeoman, P., 1995: Medieval Scotland, London.Google Scholar