Placenames and the settlement pattern of Dark Age Scotland

Abstract

Continues an earlier study of pit placenames: their distribution in E Scotland is seen to correlate with the best agricultural land, and their suffixes with agricultural associations indicate that the Picts practised a mixed farming economy. The unit of land denoted by the pit element appears to have been variable but small. Dating evidence can be interpreted in two ways, one indicating the 9th and 10th centuries AD and the other pointing to an earlier pre-Norse origin and to a wider primary distribution of pit names.