Early Christian activity at Scottish cave sites

Although published in 1859, James Young Simpsons proposal that cave sites were important for early Christian settlement in Scotland has yet to be integrated into scholarship. Our British Academy-funded pilot study was timed to draw upon recent work in two strands of research: on early medieval sculpture and wider studies of cave use. Through examination of several western Scottish sites, we have demonstrated firstly the importance of caves in the early Christian landscape and secondly how the finds from old cave excavations (a resource rare outside Scotland for this period), are ripe for reinterpretation.