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summerlands wrote: Who me? I live on the border of Ross-shire and Sutherland. When I say 'stone country' I mean placed stones rather than natural ones... No, sorry, I didn't mean you Summerlands! I should've clicked the "reply with quote button". I meant in reply to thelonious wrote: I was looking at the Modern Antiquarian database on Google Earth just now and it stuck me how few stone circles there are on the mainland, north of Inverness. Looks like about 3 in the whole of north mainland Scotland. This seems so few when you think about the number in north east scotland and the great circles in the o rides and Orkney. any reasons for this do you think?[/quote]I was referring to the mountainous and incredibly wet "flow country" which makes up about half the area North of Inverness. I'm meaning the area circled by roughly Bettyhill, Durness, Scourie, Inchnadamph, Lairg and Kinbrace. This incredibly wet, boggy area roughly 60 miles by 60 miles is simply peppered with lochs, lochans, streams, rivers, high peaks, rough upland moor and ocassionally cut by narrow straths. I have little doubt that before the peat growth began this area was still very inhospitable. At the end of the last Ice Age, say before the last Lomond Re-Advance when the earliest visitors to Scotland were following the Reindeer dryshod across what is now the North Sea c14,000 years ago, this area I'm describing North of Inverness would have been still under deep, deep ice. Its bare, inhospitable Geography and Geology would certainly make the coastal and peripheral areas more likely to be settled than the interior of the "Flow Country", hence a lack of monuments. In my younger, more youthful and energetic past, I tramped into the Flow Country many times fishing and camping (though not nowadays!). It was a murderous place to try and hike in. It is still very inhospitable and difficult to cross. Roads and paths are few. It still has an Ice Age vibe - not just in the tumbled rocky screes, corries and aretes or the strange shapes the mountains were carved into - many of the lochs are still brimming with delicious Arctic Char! Reply | with quote |  27th September 2011ce 17:29 In reply to: Re: Lack of stone circles north of Inverness? (summerlands) |
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