Historical periods - Pre-history

Who were the first people in Balloch? 

We have no evidence but can conjecture that people first set foot here, or saw what was to be Balloch from the shore, around 8000 years ago. Mesolithic sites (but no earlier finds) have been found nearby along some of Scotland’s rivers and coast line with evidence of habitation on the coast to the North and South of here. A Mesolithic site has also been discovered in what is now Castle Street, Inverness so it is likely that these were the first people to arrive in our area.

We have much more solid remains to show that Balloch was settled by later folk some four and a half thousand years ago. Of course we must remember that Balloch is a relatively recent concept and what we are talking about at this time is a much wider area that shared common features.

There are three cairns in, or adjacent to present day Balloch, all situated near the A96 in farmland fairly near to the Moray Firth shore. One is just a remnant of a chambered cairn, the other two are Clava type ring cairns. 

The cairns at Balnuaran of Clava give their name to a set of thirty monuments which are distributed up and down the rivers around Inverness.

There are two types of Clava cairn, ring cairns, which are a ring of loose stones with kerbing inside and out, and chambered cairns, which have an access passage into the central area. Both types have circles of standing stones around them.

All the cairns, including the ones  at Clava itself, have been robbed of some of their covering of stones. The chambered cairns would originally have had corbelled roofs, and the central chambers would therefore have been enclosed.  No published excavations have established the dates for the Clava monuments, but they are thought to belong to the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (about 2500 - 1700 BC).

A major find of great importance was made recently  (2006) in Inverness showing the importance of the site around the year 0 AD.  This site must have had significant influence over what is now Balloch and the surrounding area.

19 October 2006
Iron Age city discovered under Inverness
The remains of a 2000-year-old city have been discovered under Inverness and it is being hailed as one of the most important recent discoveries in Scotland. The find near Inverness Royal Academy was uncovered by a team who spent almost a year excavating the remains of seven large roundhouses and almost a dozen iron kilns.
Last year The Inverness Courier revealed the team from Headland Archaeology had uncovered the ancient city's 'industrial estate' where iron was smelted, bronze was cast and glass was produced. But at the final event of the Highland Archaeology Fortnight, archaeologist Ross Murray gave further details about what he and his colleagues had discovered so far about the city that once stood at the eastern end of the Great Glen.
"They had a large industrialised production setup and would have been producing goods for trade with other countries."
Among the items found below a site near Inverness Royal Academy were part of a bronze horse harness, an enamelled bronze brooch, dozens of woodworking tools and a large iron sword. "We found boxes upon boxes of iron and bronze objects and these are all at the National Museum of Scotland being analysed. What is already obvious was the wealth of this settlement and we have just clipped the industrial part of it. The rest is now covered by earlier development at Culduthel." Mr Murray said.
Over the next few months experts at the National Museum will analyse samples to assess where the iron ore used in the kilns came from and study fragments of ancient wooden beams to provide an accurate date for some of the buildings in the ancient settlement. Just as part of modern Culduthel stands on top of the Iron Age settlement, it too was built over the remains of a much earlier Neolithic community from 5000 years ago. These remains will also be investigated to learn more about the earliest inhabitants' lives.
Source: The Inverness Courier (17 October 2006)