Rural Society in the Age of Reason: An Archaeology of the Emergence of Modern Life in the Southern Scottish Highlands (Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology)

My interest in the archaeology of the Scottish Highlands began long before I had any formal training in the subject. Growing up on the eastern fringes of the southern Highlands, close to Loch Lomond, it was not hard stumble across ruined buildings, old field boundaries, and other traces of everyday life in the past. This is especially true if you spend much time, as I have done, climbing the nearby mountains and walking and driving through the various glens that give access into the Highlands. At the time, I had no real understanding of these remains, simply accepting them as being built and old. After studying archaeology for a few years at the University of Glasgow, itself only a short commute from the area where I grew up, I became acutely aware that I still had no real understanding of these - miliar, yet enigmatic, buildings and fields. This and a growing interest in Scotland’s historical archaeology drove me to take several courses on the subject of rural settlement studies. These courses allowed me to place what I now knew to be houses, barns, mills, shieling (transhumance) settlements, rig-and-furrow cultivation, and other related remains in history. Overwhelmingly, they seemed to date from the period of the last 300 years. I also began to understand how they all worked together as component parts of daily rural life in the past. Essential to a consideration of the structuring of social relationships is the contemporary ideological context through which people explicitly understood their world. Understanding the emergence of modern society is to understand how today's social relationships came to be historically structured as they are. This work, focused on the Southern Scottish Highlands, is particularly concerned with the growth to predominance of the social relations of capitalism, where the central place of the individual, defined in isolation from wider society, relates to individualized notions of private property and land ownership, land rights and tenancy. This shift in importance of relationships started during the period of Improvement, a process involving fundamental change in the ways people engaged with each other. Improvement emphasized the individualized relationships of capitalism over those of community or kin, and this was in large measure achieved through the restructuring of the material, physical environment. This essential reading will be of importance to archaeologists specializing in capitalism, historical archaeology and Scottish archaeologists and historians. Understanding the emergence of modern society is understanding how today's social relationships came to be historically structured as they are. This work, focused on the Southern Scottish Highlands, is particularly concerned with the growth to predominance of the social relations of capitalism, where the central place of the individual, defined in isolation from wider society, relates to individualized notions of private property and land ownership, land rights and tenancy. This shift in importance of relationships was achieved through improvement, a process involving fundamental change in the ways people engaged with each other. Improvement emphasized the individualized relationships of capitalism over those of community or kin, and this was in large measure achieved through the restructuring of the material, physical environment. This essential reading will be of importance to archaeologists specializing in capitalism, and historical, as well as to archaeology and Scottish archaeologists and historians. This Essential Reading Will Be Of Importance To Archaeologists Specializing In Capitalism And Historical Archaeology, As Well As To Scottish Archaeologists And Historians.--jacket. Ch. 1. Introduction -- Ch. 2. Rural Settlement Studies: A Critical History -- Ch. 3. Capitalism And Society -- Ch. 4. The Changing Material And Routine Environment -- Ch. 5. Improvement And Enlightenment -- Ch. 6. Improvement And The Landowner -- Ch. 7. Improvement And The Farming Population -- Ch. 8. Conclusion. By Chris Dalglish. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 233-245) And Index. Preliminaries......Page 1 Preface......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Contents......Page 10 CHAPTER 1 Introduction......Page 14 CHAPTER 2 Rural Settlement Studies: A Critical History......Page 26 CHAPTER 3 Capitalism and Society......Page 52 CHAPTER 4 The Changing Material and Routine Environment......Page 92 CHAPTER 5 Improvement and Enlightenment......Page 142 CHAPTER 6 Improvement and the Landowner......Page 166 CHAPTER 7 Improvement and the Farming Population......Page 206 CHAPTER 8 Conclusion......Page 230 References......Page 246 Index......Page 260