Abstract

Pre-itnprovetnent fields in upland Scotland: the case of Loch Tayside Christopher Smout temporary agricultural system operating alongside Robert Dodgshon, in recent stimulating articles, land worked in rigs and held in joint-tenancy. The has reawoken historical interest in early Scottish field systems by drawing attention to traces of early challenge of this new evidence, however, suggests enclosure in many townships in the Western that we should take a fresh look at Scottish field boundaries throughout the upland areas. Highlands and Hebrides. He has argued that they are evidence of a pre-runrig landscape dating from The fields are illustrated in two remarkable some period before the close of the Middle Ages, paintings ofTaymouth Castle and its environs, one when - in his view - runrig was introduced into from the south (Pl. I), one from the north these parts of Scotland for the first time (Dodgshon (Pl. II), painted by John Sanger for the Earl of 1993a; 1993b; 1994). The purpose of this brief Breadalbane in 1756-7 (Holloway & Errington paper is to draw attention to another part of the 1978, pp. 16-20). At the centre of the landscape in Scottish Highlands where the evidence also does each case are the