Sorry if you were expecting Part 3 of India and Stirling I’m still researching it!
A version of this article first appeared in the Observer.
What is the biggest building ever built in Stirling? It’s not the Smith, the care village, the Albert Halls or the High School, I suppose it might be the castle if you considered it all together, but its not what I had in mind. Unfortunately, you can’t see it anymore as it was destroyed around 5000 years ago. It comprised two pairs of enclosures, made of hundreds of large oak posts, which stretched for over 150m. Yes…ok I suppose without a roof it’s not really a building, but go with me. These are what archaeologists call cursuses, they are temples for worshipping the sun and are designed for processions. The Stirling pair was excavated in the 80s ahead of the building of Ochilmount in Bannockburn. They were designed to focus on a point in the Ochils, which may have had a ritual significance at the time.
They were built during the Neolithic which is when farming first came to Scotland, brought by immigrants from Europe (who had originally come from Iraq and Syria) some 6000 years ago. These people had pottery, cows and sheep but no metal! Their language lies at the core of all languages from Iraq to India and Scotland…mother, father and milk all have common roots!
The thing about farming is that it generates surpluses, you need enough to eat and to plant for next year but in a good year you always end up with a bit more. This gives people spare time….they developed religions and built structures, all of which needed organising, chopping down trees, the design, gathering the food for the workers and so on. Once the structure was built it allowed control of who was allowed in and who was not. Who appointed the priest? Who supplied the food? To be clear what we can see here is the birth of bosses which inevitably led to the aristocracy, someone seized control and exercised that power, they might have been bigger or brighter but they were in charge!
I do have a garden Murray but only the front is diggable. But probably best to keep anything safe under the grass at present!
Now living in Ochilmount I was fascinated to read this. Now my new claim to fame!