Souterrain is a name given by archaeologists to a type of underground structure associated mainly with the Atlantic Iron Age

Iron Age

The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

. These structures appear to have been brought northwards from Gaul

Gaul

Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

 during the late Iron Age. Regional names include earth house

Earth house

An earth house is an architectural style characterized by the use of natural terrain to help form the walls of a house. An earth house is usually set partially into the ground and covered with thin growth...

s, fogou

Fogou

A fogou or fougou is an underground, dry-stone structure found on Iron Age or Romano-British defended settlement sites in Cornwall. Fogous have similarities with souterrains or earth-houses of northern Europe and particularly Scotland including the Orkney Islands...

s and Pict

PICT

PICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics , and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.The original version, PICT 1, was...

ish houses. The term souterrain has been used as a distinct term from fogou. In Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

 the regional name of fogou is applied to souterrain structures. The design of underground structures has been shown to differ among regions; for example, in western Cornwall the design and function of the fogou appears to correlate with a larder use.

Souterrains are often referred to locally in Ireland simply as 'caves'. A.T. Lucas, folklorist and Director of the National Museum of Ireland in the 1960s, published a study of the references to souterrains in the early Irish annals

Irish annals

A number of Irish annals were compiled up to and shortly after the end of Gaelic Ireland in the 17th century.Annals were originally a means by which monks determined the yearly chronology of feast days...

. An article by Warner on the archaeology of souterrains, although published thirty years ago, is still possibly the best general overview of the subject. The most comprehensive study of Irish souterrains is Clinton's 2001 work, containing chapters on distribution, associated settlements, function, finds, chronology and no less than thirteen appendices on various structural aspects of souterrains themselves. The book lacks an index. A short summary account of souterrains in Ireland appeared in the quarterly magazine Archaeology Ireland in 2004.

The name comes from the French language, in which it means "underground passageway". In languages other than English, it is sometimes used to mean 'basement', especially in warehouses.

Souterrains are underground galleries and, in their early stages, were always associated with a settlement. The galleries were dug out and then lined with stone slabs or wood before being reburied. In cases where they were cut into rock this was not always necessary. They do not appear to have been used for burial or ritual purposes and it has been suggested that they were food stores or hiding places during times of strife, although some of them would have had very obvious entrances. In Ireland they are often found inside or in close proximity to a ringfort

Ringfort

Ringforts are circular fortified settlements that were mostly built during the Iron Age , although some were built as late as the Early Middle Ages . They are found in Northern Europe, especially in Ireland...

 and as such are thought to be mainly contemporary with them, making them somewhat later in date than in other countries. This date is reinforced by many examples where ogham

Ogham

Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language. Ogham is sometimes called the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", based on a High Medieval Bríatharogam tradition ascribing names of trees to the individual letters.There are roughly...

 stones, dating to around the sixth century have been reused as roofing lintels or door posts, most notably at the widened natural limestone fissure at the 'cave of the cats' in Rathcrogan. Their distribution is very uneven in Ireland with the most notable concentration centred around County Louth. In Scotland some of them may be connected with the same people who built broch

Broch

A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure of a type found only in Scotland. Brochs include some of the most sophisticated examples of drystone architecture ever created, and belong to the classification "complex Atlantic Roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s....

s.

Examples

An example of an excavated souterrain is the site at Rosal, Strathnaver

Strathnaver

Strathnaver or Strath Naver is the fertile strath of the River Naver, a famous salmon river that flows from Loch Naver to the north coast of Scotland...

, Sutherland

Sutherland

Sutherland is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic administrative county of Scotland. It is now within the Highland local government area. In Gaelic the area is referred to according to its traditional areas: Dùthaich 'IcAoidh , Asainte , and Cataibh...

. In this excavation, no artefacts

Artifact (archaeology)

An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...

 or other finds were made inside the structure and the roof may have been only partially covered with stones, a timber roof being present on part of it. It was suggested that the souterrain could have been used as a byre or barn and it was associated with an abandoned settlement.

An example of a partially explored souterrain in northern Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, on Shapinsay

Shapinsay

Shapinsay is one of the Orkney Islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. There is one village on the island, Balfour, from which roll-on/roll-off car ferries sail to Kirkwall on the Orkney Mainland...

 in the Orkney Islands

Orkney Islands

Orkney also known as the Orkney Islands , is an archipelago in northern Scotland, situated north of the coast of Caithness...

 is Castle Bloody

Castle Bloody

Castle Bloody is a prehistoric feature on the island of Shapinsay, Orkney, Scotland. Hogan observes that while the feature is marked as a chambered mound on the UK Ordnance Survey map, the structure is more properly and specifically classified as a souterrain or earth house. Slightly to the north...

, situated near the seacoast. Another example has been excavated in Perthshire near Alyth

Alyth

Alyth is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, situated under the Hill of Alyth five miles northeast of Blairgowrie. The village has a population of 2,301...

.

A well illustrated account of a souterrain excavated at Newtownbalregan, County Louth

County Louth

County Louth is a county of Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Louth. Louth County Council is the local authority for the county...

, one of the many souterrains discovered during the recent road-building programme in Ireland may be found in Archaeology Ireland Winter 2003 issue.

A full report on the excavation of a three-level souterrain at Farrandreg, Co. Louth, in 1998 gives references for the fourteen souterrains previously excavated in this souterrain-rich county. Finds included a rotary quern, a bone comb, a copper-alloy stick pin, three bone needles and the greater part of a tub-shaped pottery vessel in 'Souterrain ware'. The excavator concluded, on the evidence of the finds, that the souterrain had been closed up in the twelfth century.

External links

• The Raitts souterrain, approximately two thousand years old, in the Badenoch
  Badenoch
  Badenoch is a traditional district which today forms part of Badenoch and Strathspey, an area of Highland Council, in Scotland, bounded on the north by the Monadhliath Mountains, on the east by the Cairngorms and Braemar, on the south by Atholl and the Grampians, and on the west by Lochaber...
  
   district of the Scottish Highlands
  Scottish Highlands
  The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
  
  .