Page "Crannog" Paragraph 5

Replica Crannóg on Loch TayIn reality, crannogs took on many different forms and methods of construction based upon what was available in the immediate landscape ; there is no single " correct " way to construct a crannog.

The classic image of a prehistoric crannog stems from both Post-Medieval illustrations and highly influential excavations such as Milton Loch in Scotland by C. M.

Piggot after World War II.

The Milton Loch interpretation is of a small islet surrounded or defined at its edges by timber piles and a gangway, topped by a typical Iron Age roundhouse.

The choice of a small islet as a home may seem odd today, yet waterways were the main channels for both communication and travel until the 19th century in much of Ireland and especially Highland Scotland.

Crannogs are traditionally interpreted as being simple farmsteads in prehistory.

Additional interpretations see them used as boltholes in times of danger, as status symbols with limited access and as inherited locations of power which imply a sense of legitimacy and ancestry towards ownership of the surrounding landscape.