What are these Mysterious Prehistoric Towers in Scotland?
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- Опубликовано: 1 дек 2022
- All across northern Scotland, you can still see the skeletal remains of prehistoric skyscrapers. Unique to Scotland, these enigmatic Iron Age towers are called brochs. 2,500 years ago, these drystone structures dominated the Highlands and Islands, yet so much of their story remains shrouded in mystery. Join Tristan Hughes as he ventures across northern Scotland to investigate these extraordinary ancient buildings.
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The journey begins in western Scotland, at Dun Telve, with one of the best preserved brochs in Scotland. Filled with iconic, structural features, the remains epitomise the skill of the prehistoric architects who constructed this building more than 2 millenia ago. Next, Tristan heads to Caithness, a region of Scotland renowned as the beating heart of brochs because of the sheer quantity of these ancient towers found here. With help from Iain Maclean of the Caithness Broch Project, Tristan learns how these towers were constructed using Iron Age tools.
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What bothers me about modern people is that when they look at building projects from the past they think of every thing that could possibly explain how it was built. Aliens,magic, what ever, except common sense and experimentation with tools and techniques. The majority of the measurement tools throughout all time is string and gravity.
You're wrong. Its obviously aliens. If we don't understand it then its got to be aliens. No way a human could be that smart! (This is sarcastic in case anyone was wondering)
@@user-bc9zc5lo2k humans keep getting stupider, but think they keep getting smarter. Thats why the groups who control the world all hate the Bible, because anyone reading it can see how people were smarter and keep getting stupider and that we need God and Jesus and the Spirit
It's obviously aliens because they still haven't explained how the center of all these structures atomically align with the center of the earth when you look at them from above. Clearly only aliens would see these structures from the sky.
Most people don’t believe in aliens. The world is way bigger than the USA. If it isn’t god or jesus it must be aliens. Even among americans the people that bring magic into real life are becominga minority. They are louder that’s all there is to it.
Nothing beats a string line or plumb line 👍 still use them all the time - gravity doesn’t fail, ever!
Too big for two men? LOL. in Uni a students car collapsed into a ditch in a heavy rain, he called a tow. I looked about and we had >10 men sitting about. We went outside and lifted his car out of the ditch. Modern people seriously underestimate the strength of large groups of people working together.
Too big for the scrawny men in this video maybe... But not Mel Gibson
He said two men, not 10+ men, mate.
@@niemandkeiner8057 Would you rather get a few guys together to lift a few stones or spend a day or more to build an earthen ramp 1.5m high?
@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus Why not both? This isn't something you can build over a weekend anyway. I agree that modern people underestimate how much can be accomplished by hand, btw.
We also underestimate how much stronger people of those times were in comparison to people today. Everything they did required manual labor.
All the best to The Caithness Broch project, and my thanks to the History Hit team for this great video! 🌟👍
They remind me a bit of the Sardinian Nuraghe structures, which where used as fortresses or residences or storehouses (nobody really knows). But the shape of these Brochs look quite similair. It is also interesting that they are both build long ago; brochs roughly since 600 BC and Nuraghes roughly since 2000 BC until roughly 700 BC.
These construction techniques look similar to those in the construction of the Great Zimbabwe remains. Also South Africa has what seems to have been thousands of stone circular wall remnants scattered across the landscape. I had never hear of a Broch till I stumbled upon this video.
There are many, many of these in the North. Some easy to find, some not so much. There's hundreds that are sadly just a pile of stones, but some are in amazing condition.
Its a real joy for me to find these!
I see Dundornalilla there, or Dundornagail as you may know it. Thats where I'm from. I wrote a 40 page paper on Brochs in 1984, when I was 16. And another on souterrains. There's a great broch in Mousa, in Shetland, almost intact. Thanks for the video.
Damm you look good for 112yrs,what's the secret?
@@chicktait5544 I corrected it :)
Hàlo, a charaid. Ciamar a tha sibh? Tha Gàidhlig na h-Alba agad?
@@cleverusername9369 No, my fathers first language was Gaelic, but I am not fluent in it.
@@stewartmackayso sad that we’ve lost so much of Scottish culture and language.
They do realize that people have built all our great monuments by HAND right? Check the Tanjavur Periyakovil - they lifted a sculpted 80 ton block to the top of the worlds largest religious tower or Gopuram in Tamil by hand. People can do incredible things when they put their minds, hearts and wallets into it.
Very very interesting! i've never heard abouy Brochs..they look similar to Sardinian's Nuragic structures, built 3000-3500 years ago and still shrouded in mystery
likely they are the remains of a once shared coastal european culture from scotland on the atlantic to sardinia in the mediterranean.
@@bernardmolloy4463 can you imagine that?!? History is full of mistery indeed, and we'll never get answers probably...not me for sure, maybe humanity one day
Possibly they were inhabited by giants, the possible survivors of the Atlantean civilisation.
@Tigerbear Monkeyman thank you for your information. Have you a reference text or video where I could learn more about this ? 🙏
@Tigerbear Monkeyman thanks. Actually I live in Sardinia and there is ample evidence for instance of the presence of the giants: from the innumerable Tombs of the Giants, so called to this day even though conventional archeology refuses to admit this has anything to do with “tall people”. Also the folklore carries reminiscences like in the name of the very masks used during the Carnival that is a giveaway: Mammuthones, (mamoth=giant) remembering the remote times when the real giants would have entered the villages searching for food in the form of children and inhabitants. Fascinating.
Yet academia ignores everything, this is the incredible thing !
Tristan is an excellent presenter. I’ve said it before, will say it again his “The Ancients” podcast is superb! 🍸
Scotland 🏴 has a very fascinating and strong 💪 history 🏰 ☦️🏴✝️ 📜
Regarding Building With Large Stones: Its also quite logical that wood & Rope Bock and Tackle or basic crane like device could have been used instead of ramps so that multiple people or an animal could be used (like an ox) to haul such up. Since wood & rope rot away there would not be any evidence left behind of this but there is no reason to assume that an iron age culture would not have had them since they were known to the Bronze Age cultures of Greece, Egypt, Rome etc.
Weren't they pretty dark inside with no windows at all?
@@suebeattie5101 light:
I'd assume they had windows in the roof, as well as a central fire.
The central, open fire was common in simpler houses until very recently.
If you lived there all your life, you'd rarely need light to use the stairs or rooms with simpler funcions.
And just because there are no big windows, doesn't mean no light would come in through smaller holes.
Even between the stones- if they didn't seal those joints with clay and moss against the wind.
Block, tackle, a frame holding them up and especially handmade rope require a serious amount of work to make, unless they were already in daily use anyway.
Most stones look small enough, and i'd assume the bigger ones were shuffled along ramps inside the building.
Simple inclined wooden beams for completed stories, or the partially completed wall they were currently working on.
If you have two points of contact, close the the balance point of a heavy object, you can just tip it from side to side and push it forward.
I use that all the time to move some bigger things on my own.
I would certainly hope that people of the iron age had wood and rope.
To the person who did the intro, seriously this was dope. Wasnt expecting it in the history video at all but hope to see it more often!
don't listen to this fool, History Hit, the music sucked. It sounded as if you were trying to get comments like ^^^ this one ^^^ to up the ratings. Stay true.
@@jesperb8626 Yes, yes ofc. Ratings make my life better. 🤨
I love these reconstruction projects. I visited a reconstruction of a crannog in Scotland. (Burned down recently) and it was fascinating.
The Crannog burning down is such a shame. It was a really effective learning and teaching resource.
@@alexythemechanic8056 Yes it was! I hear they are building it back better than ever. I hope it goes well for them
@Tigerbear Monkeyman Hadn't heard the reason being fire. Security, status and trade routes on water yes. I don't think anyone claims to know for sure.
6:08 "they must have used some sort of method to lift the heavy stones."
Really got to the bottom of that one. Brilliant.
Thank you so much for this very interesting documentary video. I want to learn much more about.
Fascinating! Had never heard of these. Every day I learn something new is a good day, so Thank you!
Greets from the Netherlands 🌷, T.
Love your work 👍
5:56 i thought he was about to say "The stones in iron age times were a lot heavier"
Fascinating stuff,! 👍
Croft houses on the west coast of Scotland even up to the middle of the last century were community built. Not all members were “qualified” tradesmen.
Nothing has changed 😂😂😂😂
Fascinating! I wonder, we don't see this kind of building in Scandinavia, might it have something to do with the abundance of wood here and perhaps a lack of it in Scotland?
Historically, there were a lot more forested areas when Broch building occurred than now.
Maybe climate was a factor , wood is better insulation
@@outinthesticks1035 I'm inclined to agree. Heating medieval stone castles was a very costly (and largely ineffective) undertaking and I'd imagine people would've rather chosen warmer structures most of the time.
Very interesting as always. Although you say Broch's are unique to Scotland they do resemble the Nuraghe in Sardinia.
And Gobekli Tepe!
And Norman mottes. "Circular tower inside a wall" is basically the default Celtic large building design. There were a lot of Celtic tribes, living in a lot of different places, so there are a lot of variations on that idea. And since it's a really good design, a lot of these buildings survive.
My home is in The Ozark Mountains in The US. That is significant because not only are those mountains infamous for the amount of rock (sandstone) you have to shift to build nearly anything, but also for the Scottish and Irish ancestry of its longtime inhabitants.
Dry stone structures were not uncommon, especially as fences around fields, which were made from the stone cleared from that field. There is also a style of house exterior that uses the linear splits in a vertical configuration, albeit with the aid of concrete for mortar.
Our first house was 4 large rooms that set into the hill at the back which meant the front of the house set about 4 or 5 feet above the ground due to its slope. Dad used stacked rock pillars under the floor to brace it. He did not make an effort to shape or split the rocks, just used ones that were flattish. Having experienced that and many other stone DIYs in the family and small surrounding community, I completely understand why so few brochs still stand. Not only because not everyone is a master Mason, but I believe that "...good enough for now-we'll fix that later..." would have been most of my ancestors' mantra!
Yeah, I was thinking if the slab in 6:16 just happened to hold up, how many door slabs just flat out broke after a few years, because they didn't get a strong enough stone
How bloody interesting! TY 🏯🏰⛰
Great video thanks
It's not "an archaic looking spirit level". It's a rather normal plumb level.
I hope that the community finnishes this of and could be an quite an attraction for the area a authentic reconstruction .🤩👍
2:09 That should be "Jamb", not "Jam".
As per Wikipedia "A doorjamb, door jamb (also sometimes doorpost) is the vertical portion of the door frame onto which a door is secured."
Archeologists are very good at coming upwith theories. What does annoy me at times is that they move in tight groups, and often miss the obvious. I like this idea that Broch builders made themselves a kit of spirit levels. They seem to ignore that people with lifetime skills developed an " eye" for the job. Evidence of this can be seen in boat and shipbuilding, complex curves and a perfect symmetry were created with a well developed line of sight
Brilliant comment….. here n Lancashire we call it “the rack of the eye” every tradesman is proud to use experience and judgment.
Ancient Egyptian statue work, ancient scrollwork all speak of a meticulous eye 👁🗨
It would be cool for them to build an entire broch with iron age techniques and experimental archeology. Think of Guedelon Castle in France, but with a broch. Not only educational but a potential tourist attraction.
People in the ancient world were no doubt smarter, healthier, and stronger than we are. There was no option to be lazy. You had no choice but to figure it out, solve your problems, and work...or perish. They also had plenty of time to use their brains, to contemplate, to consider. No TV, no internet to distract, no entertainment venues, etc. their brains probably worked much better than ours do. The stakes were high for them all the time, they couldn’t afford to get it wrong.
I’m hooked on the Broch culture. I’m in the process of building a Broch beehive.
Can we get videos like this on Crannogs.
And
Other Stone Structure in Scotland from prehistory to pre industrial times.
Thank you!🏴
Hope they get to build a full sized broch again, amazing project!
"What are these Mysterious Prehistoric Towers in Scotland?"
Haggis factories.
That was so interesting! I wonder why lots of them were near the sea? I know the shores diminished a lot but still
Food source? shellfish and fishing?
Transport was mostly by water
@@lmccampbell can't afford London?
@@julianshepherd2038 yes indeed. The sea was the highway of the time.
@@helenamcginty4920 ... and still is.
Thank you excellent. I may subscribe. These buildings are very similar to the towers of the almost concurrent Nuragic civilization un Sardignia.
Quite Excellent
There seems to be a lot of stuff going on in Orkney and Shetland in the late neolithic.
The foundation layout of the last Broch in the film looks similar to the ancient sites found in South Africa. Refer to Michael Tellinger films.
Those ruins you refer to are the ruins of Great Zimbabwe which was founded in the 9th century AD
Must have had a fireplace or kitchen area. Don’t see a chimney in the graphics. Very interesting video and rundown, thanks
I have been in the Mousa Broch, a wonder of engineering.
It seems incredibly similar to the ones we can find in Sardinia and Azores.
And the South African stone circles.
It'd be so lovely to have full-size replicas made of these amazing settlements.
Also, there are so many of the Scottish Castles which should be refurbished with the woodworks without which we usually get a wrong impression of what almost all of them really looked like.
(A-frames were used by many iron age cultures to lift stones high with few people. but many history folk seem to bypass this obvious and simple, but very very ancient means of erecting, and lifting stones.)
(Did you know the stone humanoids at Rapanui (Easter Island) were ''walked'' to their destinations?
The bottoms of each statue were designed as it transpires, so that a small group of people could tilt them side to side/back to front,. in a rhythmic, tilting manner, so that the statues would ''walk'' to their end point. So, the old legends about the ''giants' 'walking' there were not quite fables at all.)
Incredible
I quite enjoyed the music in this episode. Very groovy, found myself involuntarily dancing a wee bit. Also the presenter looks like he could be Jude Law's older brother who got into history instead of acting.
What a cool project. I know this is a year old. I wonder how things are coming along? Thanks for sharing this.
But what if Tristan Hughes isn’t handy? Don’t get me wrong, I *love* building brochs with Tristan, but don’t you think we should learn to build them _without_ him? Just in case?
I stopped to see one of these I spotted when touring Britain in 1996, about 25 km North of Tain, called Cairn Liath. I found it very interesting, but sadly only about 3m of wall height remained. At approx 0AD, older than anything here in NZ!
Its truly amazing how these early Scottish civilisations (first century BC) applied basic geometry to their massive constructions. By comparison the similar Great Zimbabwe in Africa was only constructed in the 11th Century AC.
If you are serious about learning more about Brochs then check out the Caithness Broch Project
Check them culls out! :)
I hate to pick nits, but it's door "jamb" not "jam".
So you say ComB ???
@@iainmaclean612 I was referring to the spelling, which appeared on the screen.
It now appears that long before there was much cultural centering down south around Stonehenge and similar centres, that the far North West and North Eastern parts of Scotland held an older culture which slowly , then suddenl;y migrated southerly to eventually end up as Stonehenge culture. Niel Oliver does an excellent BBC archaeology show on it, and focused upon, in particular, and still very much on-going so far as the current research goes, around the Ness of brodgar site not too far from the Stones. It is AMAZING. Especially now that well researched artistic impressions of it's buiidings and structures are coming to light. And shows a similar grasp of stone work as the, later, brochs did, and appears to show it as a culture which may have seeded the coming 'british' neolithic age, spreading as it did southerly.
It is still not exactly clear why this culture suddenly stopped. Whether voluntary, or perhaps forced due to water-level changes? Who knows yet?
.). It may be possible the later 'Pictish' peoples may have some descendency from them. We shall see. But we don't really quite know. So much of trhe Picts histories and tales were wiped out by Scots and Britons/Celts
A recreation of how the main settlement may have appeared: i0.wp.com/www.scottishportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/flk9514892853.jpg?ssl=1
there seems to also be a special religious stone arrangement very nearby too.
The BBC Niel Oliver show should give you the basic footing on this one, and there will be plenty of up-to-date findings and interpretations if you simply websearch ''Ness Of brodgar 2024''
Remember, these sites pre-date stonehenge, and the pyramids! WOW!
Reminds me the Battanian style of Lord hall in Bannerlord. The interior style looks alike a cave
amazing
It is surprising the stone was not reused over the years
There were mostly robbed of stone for house. Most of them are now piles of stone.
But it was.
Where do you think all the missing parts of these ruins went ? To the moon ?
Make for a lovely bit of rock garden, one trunk full at a time 😂
i saw those up in north scotland very impressive
I thought they were Nuragic towers from the thumbnail.
Thanks for this interesting history lesson. Never been to Scotland but have deep roots there.
I've been many times . You can't beat a full Scotish Breakfast with Haggis and lorne sausage !!. The artery clogging experience is something to be savoured followed by the 'pièce de résistance', a deep fried Mars Bar !!. Yum !!.
it's pretty well known that Iron age Britain was not only in contact with the rest of Europe but also the Greek / Hellenistic world. The Greeks understood and used pulleys, gearing, cranes etc. So no reason to assume they didn't here.
Key to lifting heavy stones is to keep your feet close together and lift with your back
Thanks from Belgium .
08:40, the method of maintaining the circular structure looks like the origin of Maypole dancing.
Saw the thumnail. Looks like an obvious castle design to me. hope i could help.
What do you think of Mousa in Shetland?
The things you can do without spending time watching TV, or on the internet. Or reading even.😉
Brochs are very elegant structures but I have a question. If they were multi-storey and without openings apart from the entrance-way, how did they get light and fresh air into the central rooms?
These look similar to Zimbabwe ruins. Very similar stone colour and “brick” size and shape. Very interesting similar build in Scotland and in Zimbabwe. Thousands of of years old. Mystery
Wrong! How is it a mystery? The Zimbabwe ruins are not "thousands of years old" - the building of the African towers started around 1100 AD so the Brochs are much older, three times taller & two to three times greater in diameter. If you want to build a hollow tower the strongest shape is a cone - so there's absolutely no mystery here.
Didn't they have double walls with an insulation cavity, so the wind and rain could get through the first wall but would not pass the cavity to reach the second wall?
{:o:O:}
The foundation remnants look like the stone circles in South Africa that Tellinger talks about.
Reminds me of the ones in Corsica.
Fun thought. We're older ages before us as interested in what came before? Could some archeological confusion come from previous eras emulating their predecessors as we do?
Interesting to see how my ancestors lived prehistory.
How is anything newer than the Egyptian Dynasties classed as "Pre-History"? Pre-history is usually referencing a period of time BEFORE writing was created.
Is there much of a difference between these and the mot and bailey layout?
Have you seen in comparison the so called Nuragic structures situated in Sardinia, possibly built in the same period ?
Interesting, they are a bit further north than where I'm from, but I find them fascinating. Congratulations to the English chap for not renaming them Broks.
The word " Brochs" sounds very similar to the german word "Burg" (fortified site). I wonder if there is any connection.
Yes they have the same root. 'Burg, Borg, Brough, Broch' all the same word. we take the word broch from the vikings who settled in the north of Scotland and named these structures Brochs from the Old Norse 'borg'
You'd put those slabs on timber beams and loft them up. You wouldn't build a ramp to get them up. Two brickys could get that up there without any tools
Much like the later "KEEPS" still seen in some town centers especially in Italy......Werer actually "safe houses" for the towns people......
Some Castles also had Keeps....
That last structure near the ocean with all the convoluted rooms going nowhere resemble the buried and semi-buried, ancient, stone "corrals" located by the 100s of thousands in South Africa generate strange energies.
It's where they used to keep Haggis to harvest their eggs, duh.
When you dig up fresh sand stone that has moisture, it is easily shaped.
They were obviously built as dinosaur forts, to defend velociraptors from larger predators. Around them would be general living spaces where they might dry meat from their prey to preserve it. Often they butchered their food using their claws alone. Leathers made by velociraptors preserved telltale scratches from the tip of their largest claws, which they used to scrape the subcutaneous fats off the skins.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Clever girl
I recently found out more about my Scottish Ancestors and I'm impressed with how much of their ingenuity was carried through into the modern world.
I never knew my love for the sights I've always admired and still wish to visit were literally in my blood.
Scotland, I'll come visit you and bring with me a piece of my birth place.
We're all excited for your visit canna wait 😁
House Castle 🏰
The music is a bizarre choice contrasting the subject…. Otherwise fantastic production.
I do not know why we nowadays can only think of darn ramps to get heavy stones moving. Didn't the rapa nui teach us that there are much better ways than ramps and rollers?
Obviously they are early whisky destilleries 😂! The door is supposed to keep the drenk from escaping, not to stop anyone from getting in, otherwise the closing beam would have been on the inside...
How were they build? Probably by hand.
You can't do dry stone walling any other way
... how else would it have been built 2,000 years ago?
Ordered one from Ikea had to assemble it by hand too.
In the thumbnail, it looks like a GRAIN-BIN. 😉
I like to imagine these towers were just High land hot boxes.
Love the lady's scottish accent. Somewhat Glaswegian??
No
That's a highland accent from Betty Hill Sutherland.Ill tell her you said that it will make her day!
You would be out of the wind inside. That would be gold.
That design is very similar to how they lookin Ethiopia as well
these are Nurages, has anybody done a study onthe similarities of the two structures?
Caithness Broch Project sounds like an indie band lol
We ARE an incredible indie band. Xmas number 1 sometime soon.
Not so mysterious.
There are at least two places I can think of where there are similiar structures.
China and I believe Italy.
They are family home/castles. For a time when your family was not safe unless behind an impenetrable wall.
Furthermore, as any kid who has ever played with bricks will tell you, a tower is an easy and natural construction to build.