This document summarizes research on land tenure and community practices in Orkney, Scotland during the later prehistoric period. It discusses three time periods: the later Bronze Age, early Iron Age, and middle Iron Age. During the later Bronze Age and early Iron Age, communities made extensive use of space and defined areas in different ways, with varied practices across the landscape connected by movement. In the middle Iron Age, life centered around the roundhouse, with nested spaces and intensive investment within a small area, while other resources existed beyond. The identities of communities shifted from an interlaced network during the earlier periods to more localized identities focused on the household and territory later on.

1. Changing Spaces:
Land Tenure, Enclosure and Later
Prehistoric Communities in Orkney
James Moore, Orkney College UHI

2. Later Prehistoric Atlantic Scotland
 Later Bronze Age
(c.1200 – 800BC)
 Early Iron Age
(c.800 – 400BC)
 Middle Iron Age
(c.400BC – AD200)

3. PRACTICE
IDENTITY
It is not by their inner attributes
that persons or organisms are
identified but by their positions
vis-à-vis one another in the
relational field
(Ingold 2000, 149)
TENURE
Tenure is not simply the
relationship between people and
the soil, it represents the
appropriation and transcendence
of the natural world by humans
(Johnston 2001, 101)

5. Geophysical survey
‘Being-in-the-world’
Detailed mapping

6. Yesnaby
Borwick
(Middle Iron Age)
Spretta Meadow
(Late Bronze Age –
Early Iron Age)

7. I feel really at home
amongst the heather,
thistles, hills and
sheep…cradled within
the landscape
(AEA - 7th
August 2008)

8. ...more sheltered amongst the
burnt mounds…surrounding
slopes almost create an
armchair of visibility looking
towards the coast.
(GJL – 9th
October 2008)

9. Sounds of water; waves
crashing behind me and
trickling streams inland…
(JMM – 27th
November 2008)

10. …limited visibility, a
ridge to the south and
the big dyke to the
north…the broch
provides a comforting
presence…feel
sheltered despite the
wind in my face.
(JMM - 14th
May 2009)

11. Late Bronze Age – Early Iron Age
 An extensive use of space
 Different ways of defining these spaces
 Different practices in different parts of the landscape, linked by
movement and vision
 No single centre – a patchwork of spaces centred on the self?
Middle Iron Age
 A world centred upon the roundhouse – home is where the
hearth is
 A series of nested spaces
 Intensive investment in a small area of the landscape
 Other practices and resources beyond

12. Changing Identities
 Extensive practices (LBA-EIA)
− An interlaced network of places, plots and paths
− People appropriate different parts of the landscape in subtly different
ways
− Diversity of practices and social interaction
 Intensive practices (MIA)
− A contraction of space – inside/outside
− Soil as an artefact
− Areas ‘beyond the pale’
− Clearer ties between people and parts of the landscape
− Reinforcement of local identities focused upon the house and
‘territory’?

13. Finally a huge thank you to all of the students, friends
and colleagues who have supported me, helped me and
provided much needed motivation on cold, wet mornings.
Thank you