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A crannóg is an artificial island, usually originally built in lakes, rivers and estuarine waters, and most often used as an island settlement or dwelling place in prehistoric or medieval times. The name itself may refer to a wooden platform erected on shallow floors, but few remains of this sort have been found. The name crannóg, Anglicized "crannoge", is from Old Irish "crannóc", from crann, tree. and 'og' young.
Crannógs are most common in Ireland, where at least 2,000 examples are known. They are also very common in Scotland, with at least 600 sites known. It is likely that many more undiscovered sites lie hidden underwater, or in reeds, carr woodland or other wetland environments around lake shores and edges. Today, crannogs typically appear as small, circular islands, 10-30m in diameter, covered in trees and bushes because they are isolated from browsing livestock. Originally, crannogs may have taken many different forms. The classic image of an ancient crannóg is of a small island, surrounded or defined at its edges by a post or oak plank palisade and on top of which is a roundhouse. Another image, as suggested by excavations at Oakbank, Loch Tay, Scotland, is one of a raised platform on stilts. The choice of an island as a home remains mysterious, but they may have been used for defence at times of danger, for social display by the wealthy and prosperous, or because islands carried many meanings in the past. Some crannogs could be reached from the nearest shore by means of a causeway built up with stones, or a wooden gangway built atop raised piles, but most were probably accessed by boat.
Late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers are known to have occupied constructed lakeshore platforms in central and north-west Ireland at c.4500 BC. Neolithic crannógs are also known, notable in Scotland. The islet of Eilean Domhnuill, Loch Olabhat on North Uist may be the earliest crannóg, dated to 3200-2800 BC in the Neolithic period. Most crannógs were in use from the Iron Age through to the early Medieval period, at about the same time as the brochs, the wags, duns and the larger roundhouses. In Ireland, most crannógs date to the early medieval period, when they were the island dwelling places of kings, lords, prosperous farmers and occasionally socially marginalised groups.
The largest concentrations of crannógs in Ireland are in the lakelands district of the midlands, the north west and Ulster. The highest concentrations of crannógs in Scotland are in several lochs in Dumfries and Galloway region, although many have been found in the highlands as well. In the Grampian Highlands, a well known crannóg was built by the Burnetts of Leys, whose family thence moved nearby to the present 16th century Crathes Castle.
A crannóg dating from around 500 AD still stands in a lough in Loughbrickland, near Banbridge, County Down, and another can be seen in Llangorse Lake in the Brecon Beacons National Park, built c889-893 AD.
From Wikipedia |
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