Why are historic rural settlement sites important?
Historic rural settlement sites are our best connection with the ordinary people who once populated Scotland – perhaps 80% of the medieval and early post-medieval population. These places hold many clues about how people made a frugal living from the land, and how they often lived in harmony with their natural resources for hundreds of years. Because most of our documentary evidence for this way of life was written by or for the social elite, the evidence in our fields and in the soil is the most likely source of unbiased information about life in rural Scotland.
