Notwithstanding
agricultural operations, foundations of 145 brochs can still be traced
in Ness and 67 in Strathnavern and Sudrland, but they were not all in
use at the same time, and they are mostly on sites taken over later
on by the Norse,[5] because they were already cultivated and
agriculturally the best.
A well-known authority on such subjects, the late Dr. Munro, in his
_Prehistoric Scotland_ p. 389 writes of the brochs as follows:--"Some
four hundred might have been seen conspicuously dotting the more
fertile lands along the shores and straths of the counties of
Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, Inverness, Argyll, the islands of
Orkney, Shetland, Bute, and some of the Hebrides. Two are found
in Forfarshire, and one each in the counties of Perth, Stirling,
Midlothian, Selkirk and Berwick."
If one may venture to hazard a conjecture as to their date, they
probably came into general use in these parts of Caledonia as nearly
as possible contemporaneously with the date of the Roman occupation
of South Britain, which they outlasted for many centuries. But their
erection was not due to the fear of attack by the armies of Rome. For
their remains are found where the Romans never came, and where the
Romans came almost none are found.
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