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Loch Tay
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Loch Tay
Loch Tay (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Tatha) is a freshwater loch in the central highlands of Scotland, in the Perth and Kinross and Stirling council areas, the largest body of fresh water in Perth and Kinross. The watershed of Loch Tay traditionally formed the historic province of Breadalbane.
It is a long, narrow loch about 14.55 miles (23.42 km) long, and typically around 1 to 1.5 miles (1.6 to 2.4 km) wide, following the line of the strath from the south-west to north-east. It is the sixth-largest loch in Scotland by area and more than 150 metres (490 ft) deep at its deepest.
Between 1996 and 2005, a large-scale project was carried out to investigate the heritage and archaeology of Loch Tay, the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape (BLHL) Project. It took place primarily on the National Trust for Scotland’s property but included some local landowners who held the agricultural lands between the head-dyke and the loch-shore.
Before 1996 the earliest known evidence for occupation along the shores of Loch Tay had been a nearby stone-axe factory at Creag an Caillich and the 1965 excavations of the stone circle at Croft Moraig (dated to the 3rd to 2nd millennium BC). However, the BLHL project found a lithic scatter along the Ben Lawers Nature Trail that dated to the 8th and 7th millennia BC, during Scotland's Mesolithic period. This and another Mesolithic site found during the project were very important to archaeologists' understanding of that time period in Scotland. Until the 1990s most Mesolithic sites were recorded along the coasts and these sites were the first ones recorded in the uplands of the Highlands, demonstrating that the hunter and gatherers of that time did not strictly live by the coasts.
The BLHL project also found evidence of people living and working in the hills above the loch during the Neolithic period. A Beaker burial was also found, the Balnahanaid Beaker, which may be among the earliest Beakers in Scotland, dating to a time when their use was rare.
Investigations of the loch have found that a Neolithic woodland existed on its edge for at least 900 years and that during that period the shoreline would have been least 4–5m lower than it is today.
Several of the 20 crannogs found along Loch Tay have been radiocarbon dated to the Iron Age:
As well as round houses that were excavated at Croftvellich and Tombreck which the archeologists took to indicate that settlements may have been much more densely concentrated during the Iron Age than was previously thought, with people living both on the land and on the water.
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Loch Tay
Loch Tay (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Tatha) is a freshwater loch in the central highlands of Scotland, in the Perth and Kinross and Stirling council areas, the largest body of fresh water in Perth and Kinross. The watershed of Loch Tay traditionally formed the historic province of Breadalbane.
It is a long, narrow loch about 14.55 miles (23.42 km) long, and typically around 1 to 1.5 miles (1.6 to 2.4 km) wide, following the line of the strath from the south-west to north-east. It is the sixth-largest loch in Scotland by area and more than 150 metres (490 ft) deep at its deepest.
Between 1996 and 2005, a large-scale project was carried out to investigate the heritage and archaeology of Loch Tay, the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape (BLHL) Project. It took place primarily on the National Trust for Scotland’s property but included some local landowners who held the agricultural lands between the head-dyke and the loch-shore.
Before 1996 the earliest known evidence for occupation along the shores of Loch Tay had been a nearby stone-axe factory at Creag an Caillich and the 1965 excavations of the stone circle at Croft Moraig (dated to the 3rd to 2nd millennium BC). However, the BLHL project found a lithic scatter along the Ben Lawers Nature Trail that dated to the 8th and 7th millennia BC, during Scotland's Mesolithic period. This and another Mesolithic site found during the project were very important to archaeologists' understanding of that time period in Scotland. Until the 1990s most Mesolithic sites were recorded along the coasts and these sites were the first ones recorded in the uplands of the Highlands, demonstrating that the hunter and gatherers of that time did not strictly live by the coasts.
The BLHL project also found evidence of people living and working in the hills above the loch during the Neolithic period. A Beaker burial was also found, the Balnahanaid Beaker, which may be among the earliest Beakers in Scotland, dating to a time when their use was rare.
Investigations of the loch have found that a Neolithic woodland existed on its edge for at least 900 years and that during that period the shoreline would have been least 4–5m lower than it is today.
Several of the 20 crannogs found along Loch Tay have been radiocarbon dated to the Iron Age:
As well as round houses that were excavated at Croftvellich and Tombreck which the archeologists took to indicate that settlements may have been much more densely concentrated during the Iron Age than was previously thought, with people living both on the land and on the water.
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