Living on the Water explores the practice of building artificial islands and houses on the water.
These ‘crannogs’ are limited to Scotland and Ireland and the term encompasses a wide variety of structural types that span a chronological range from the Bronze Age to the 17th century AD.
The story gives an overview of crannogs and focuses on the key site of Loch Glashan, Argyll.
The site at Loch Glashan tells us about domestic life on the crannog but it also tells us about activities that linked the people living here to the most prominent sites in this area – Dunadd and possibly Iona.
The waterlogged nature of many crannog sites provides perfect conditions for the preservation of organic material.
Living on the Water examines how these sites are excavated, what survives and what these finds can tell us.