Ness (from the Norse word for ‘promontory’ or ‘headland’) is the northernmost part of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides or Western Isles (Eilean Siar). The Gaelic tongue is alive and well there, among a rural community that has strong crofting roots and traditions, but, like most of modern society, the local population is increasingly reliant on car transport and service jobs to maintain its income. The settlements of Ness are laid out along straight-ish roads, with long crofts stretching out towards the moor and machair on either side. A hundred years ago most people lived in blackhouses, a primitive-looking but actually very efficient reworking of the medieval longhouse. These were replaced in the 1920s and 1930s by whitehouses, a conventional, plain Scottish rural dwelling of the period, often with an upper half-storey; many of these have now been superseded by modern, more spacious homes. Separated from the islands’ capital, Stornoway, by a huge, mostly empty area of peaty moorland, Ness today seems remote and terminal, but its position at the opening of the Minch, and astride the sea-lanes converging on the north and west coasts of Scotland, tells a different story of accessibility, past importance and involvement in dynastic and clan politics and warfare. The community is deeply interested in its own history, and this is supplemented by the enthusiasm of its friends elsewhere, notably by the North American association of one of the local Gaelic clans, the Morrisons.

These two handsomely produced and accessibly written volumes are the main outputs from a heritage-lottery-funded archaeology and history project, which took place between 2005 and 2015 and was piloted and directed by the Barrowmans. Both are experienced archaeologists at the University of Glasgow; they settled in Ness in 2000 and turned their skills to fostering local research and helping to strengthen the community’s engagement with its own archaeology and history. The Archaeology of Ness is an extensive study of the North Lewis landscape through time, from the earliest demonstrable human presence around 3700 bc to the present. Beginning with a reassessment of antiquarian findings, it charts a path from prehistory via early Christianity, through to a large wartime military base and the remains of the recent agricultural past. An inventory of field monument and find sites has been created, and new information added through site surveys, geophysics, environmental sampling, finds studies and building recording. A disparate collection of finds and old excavations are brought together in a coherent narrative, well-paced and written with an awareness that it should be accessible to the non-expert reader. As typically with landscape studies, some periods were more forthcoming with new data than others. The Viking Age, despite a large number of Norse place names, and a silver hoard of ‘ring money’ found in the locality (which is published here), remained one of the more intractable periods when it came to new advances in understanding. The images (in both volumes) are of high quality, most of which are coloured, and the maps and plans are exceptionally informative – a product of the GIS element of the project. There is a good deal of conventional site photography, but the books also reproduce more artistic shots, giving a feeling for the stark, often weather-beaten, but sometimes radiant landscape of moor, machair, cliffs, sea and sky.

An initial stimulus for the landscape survey was Chris Barrowman’s exploration, using mountain-climbing techniques, of archaeological remains now marooned on top of inaccessible stacks around the coast. One such, until it was linked to the mainland in 2002 by a footbridge paid for by the Morrison clan association, is Dùn Èistean, the subject of the parallel volume by Rachel Barrowman. Lying on the east coast of Ness, south of the Butt of Lewis, this fortified coastal stronghold was a base for the Morrison clan in the early modern period, the history of which is admirably covered in a detailed study by Aonghas MacCoinnich, with local traditions by Domhnall Uillean Stiùbhart. The large stack upon which the site is located measures 120 × 70m and its tussocky grassed surface is 16m high above the sea, with near-vertical cliffs separating it from the mainland. Upstanding grassed earthworks of stone and turf-constructed house complexes cover part of its surface, representing buildings, kilns and the remains of a stone tower at its highest point. It was the subject of a rather inconclusive antiquarian study in 1866, the records of which are appraised and presented here. With the newly constructed bridge providing a readier means to get people and equipment across the vertiginous 15m-wide gap, an intensive field survey was undertaken and trenches excavated across the main earthwork clusters. This was followed by a series of carefully targeted excavations and core samples exploring the structures, landforms, material culture and environmental aspects of life in the dùn. Radiocarbon, artefactual and coin dating present a remarkably uniform chronology of occupation between 1440 and 1640, in line with the historically attested period of its clan importance. The impression gained is of a materially fairly modest, but politically powerful place, which was well-connected across the sea-lanes to the circulation of goods, ideas and technologies throughout the rest of Britain. More to the point, the project shows how an historic place can have power and influence, lose it for centuries through abandonment and dereliction, and regain it through intensive community-based research and collaboration. These two volumes are essential reading for anyone interested in the archaeology and history of the Western Isles.