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REVIEW BY ALEXANDRA SANMARK
This book is a welcome addition to our knowledge about Viking Age and Norse colonisation and settlement in the Hebrides, and provides the first overview of this time period in western Scotland. The book is structured around the settlements at Bornais and Cille Pheadair on the island of South Uist, excavated by Niall Sharples and Mike Parker Pearson, and until recently mainly published in report formats. Building on these results, and following the development of the settlements over time, the wider context and history of the Hebrides is investigated and explained in a successful manner. Due to the location of the two key sites, the book’s main focus is placed on the Outer Hebrides, but there is also additional material from other islands on the Scottish west coast.
The first chapter sets the scene and introduces the reader to the landscape, vegetation, and animals of the Outer Hebrides. The following five chapters then take the reader through time, starting with an investigation of the period before the Viking Age, focusing on the people who lived in wheelhouses and brochs, but introducing the Picts, too. Chapter 3 discusses the Viking colonisation of the Outer Hebrides, with a particular focus on Bornais and Cille Pheadair, as well as a very useful summary of the almost unpublished settlement of Udal in North Uist. Sharples, addressing the long-debated question of the size of the Norse population, concludes that there was most likely a ‘massive’ influx of settlers who led a lifestyle that was ‘recognisably Scandinavian’ (p.123).
The book continues with an examination of the later Kingdom of Man and the Isles, as well as the events around the Treaty of Perth in 1266, when the Hebrides became part of the Scottish kingdom. In the final chapter, the origins of the clans and other late medieval developments are considered with a stimulating discussion of the lasting legacy of the Norse settlers.
In summary, the combination of historical overview and detailed examinations of the archaeological evidence is refreshing, and the book is recommended to anyone with an interest in the Hebrides of the past.
The Vikings in the Hebrides
Niall Sharples
Windgather Press, £38
ISBN 978-1914427398
