Prehistoric Scotland
Information about Prehistoric Scotland
Archaeology and geology continue to reveal the secrets of prehistoric Scotland, uncovering a complex and dramatic past before the Romans brought Scotland into the scope of recorded history. Obviously, throughout this period there was no such thing as Scotland or a national identity. Successive human cultures tended to be spread across Europe or further afield, but focussing on this particular geographical area helps to find out about the origin of the remains and monuments that are still widespread, and to understand the background to the history of Scotland.
The extent of open countryside untouched by intensive farming, together with past availability of stone rather than timber, has given Scotland a wealth of accessible sites where the ancient past can be seen.
This tectonic activity produced the basis of Scotland's topography: ancient mountains in the North and South of the country, partially eroded by 400 million years of water and ice with a wide fertile valley between them, and a newer, wilder western terrain. With Scotland now in the northern temperate zone, it was subjected to numerous glaciations in the Neogene and Quaternary periods, the ice sheets and their attendant glaciers carving the landscape into a typical postglacial one, overdeeping river valleys into the characteristic U-shape and leaving the upland areas covered with glacial corries and dramatic pyramidal peaks. In lowland areas the ice deposited rich fields of fertile glacial till and eroded the softer material surrounding the extinct volcanoes (particularly the older Carboniferous ones), leaving many crags.
Glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and it was only after the ice retreated that Scotland again became habitable, around 9600 BC.
An early settlement at Cramond, near what is today Edinburgh, has been dated to around 8500 BC. Pits and stakeholes suggest a hunter-gatherer encampment, and microlith stone tools made at the site predate finds of similar style in England. Although no bones or shells had survived the acid soil, numerous carbonised hazelnut shells indicate cooking in a similar way to finds at other Mesolithic period sites including the slightly earlier Star Carr and Britain's oldest house, the Howick house in Northumberland dated to 7600 BC, where post holes indicate a very substantial construction, and the finds are interpreted as being a permanent residence for hunting people. This suggests that hunter-gatherers could also have settled down in Scotland.
Other sites on the east coast and at lochs and rivers, and large numbers of rock shelters and shell middens around the west coast and islands, build up a picture of highly mobile people, often using sites seasonally and having boats for fishing and for transporting stone tools from sites where suitable materials are found. Finds of flint tools on Ben Lawers and at Glen Dee (a mountain pass through the Cairngorms) show that these people were capable of travelling well inland across the hills.
At a rock shelter and shell midden at Sand, Applecross on Wester Ross facing Skye, excavations have shown that around 7500 BC people had tools of bone, stone and antler, were living off shellfish, fish and deer using pot-boiler stones as a cooking method, were making beads from seashells and had ochre pigment and used shellfish which can produce purple dye.
Neolithic farming brought permanent settlements. At Balbridie in Aberdeenshire crop markings were investigated and ditches and post holes found revealing a massive timber-framed building dating to about 3600 BC. An almost identical building was excavated at Claish near Stirling. At the islet of Eilean Domhnuill, Loch Olabhat on North Uist, Unstan ware pottery suggests a date of 3200-2800 BC for what may be the earliest crannog.
The remainder of this section focuses mainly on the Orkney Islands, where there is a Neolithic landscape rich in sites amazingly preserved by prevalent use of the local stone which appears on the shore ready split into convenient building slabs. This is only a selection of highlights and there are many other examples across the country, often under the care of Historic Scotland.
At the wonderfully well preserved stone house at Knap of Howar on the Orkney island of Papa Westray (occupied from 3500 BC to 3100 BC) the walls stand to a low eaves height, and the stone furniture is intact. Evidence from middens shows that the inhabitants were keeping cattle, sheep and pigs, farming barley and wheat and gathering shellfish as well as fishing for species which have to be line caught using boats. Finely made and decorated Unstan ware pottery links the inhabitants to chambered cairn tombs nearby and to sites far afield including Balbrindi and Eilean Domhnuill.
The houses at Skara Brae on the Mainland of the Orkney Islands are very similar, but grouped into a village linked by low passageways. This settlement was occupied from about 3000 BC to 2500 BC. Pottery found here is of the grooved ware style which is found across Britain as far away as Wessex.
About 6 miles (10km) from Skara Brae, grooved ware pottery was found at the Standing Stones of Stenness (originally a circle) which lie centrally in a close group of three major monuments. Maeshowe, the finest example of the passage grave type of chambered cairn (radiocarbon dated to before 2700 BC) lies just to the east. The magnificent Ring of Brodgar circle of standing stones is across a bridge immediately to the north. This circle was one of the first to be analysed by Professor Alexander Thom to establish the likely use of standing stones as astronomical observatories. Another Neolithic village has been found nearby at Barnhouse Settlement, and the inference is that these farming people were the builders and users of these mysterious structures.
As with the standing stones at Callanish on Lewis and other standing stones across Scotland, these monuments form part of the Europe wide Megalithic culture which also produced Stonehenge in Wiltshire and the stone rows at Carnac in Brittany.
The widespread connections these people had is shown by offerings imported from Cumbria and Wales left on the sacred hilltop at Cairnpapple Hill, West Lothian, as early as 3500 BC.
The Clava cairns and standing stones near Inverness show complex geometries and astronomical alignments, with smaller perhaps individual tombs instead of the communal Neolithic tombs.
Mummies dating from 1600-1300 B.C. have been discovered at Cladh Hallan on South Uist.
Hill forts were introduced, such as Eildon hill near Melrose in the Scottish Borders which goes back to around 1000 BC and which accommodated several hundred houses on a fortified hilltop. Excavation at Edinburgh Castle found late Bronze Age material from about 850 BC.
Brythonic Celtic culture and language spread into southern Scotland at some time after the 8th century BC, possibly through cultural contact rather than mass invasion, and systems of kingdoms developed.
Larger fortified settlements expanded, such as the Votadini stronghold of Traprain Law, East Lothian, which was the size of a town. Huge numbers of small duns, hill forts and ring forts were built on any suitable crag or hillock. The spectacular brochs were built, most impressively the near complete broch at Mousa on Shetland. Many Souterrain underground passageways were constructed, though their purpose is obscure. Island settlements linked with a causeway to land, the crannogs, became common; it is thought that their function was defensive.
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The extent of open countryside untouched by intensive farming, together with past availability of stone rather than timber, has given Scotland a wealth of accessible sites where the ancient past can be seen.
| History of Scotland |
|---|
| Chronological Eras |
| Prehistoric Scotland |
| Scotland in the Early Middle Ages |
| Scotland in the High Middle Ages |
| Wars of Scottish Independence |
| Scotland in the Late Middle Ages |
| Scotland in the Early Modern Era |
| Scottish Enlightenment |
| Scotland in the Modern Era |
| Dynasties and Regimes |
| House of Alpin (843–878) & (889–1040) |
| House of Moray (1040–1058) |
| House of Dunkeld (1058–1286) |
| House of Balliol (1292–1296) |
| House of Bruce (1306–1371) |
| House of Stuart (1371–1707) |
| Act of Union (1707) |
| Topical |
| Art history |
| Colonial history |
| Culture |
| Economic history |
| Historiography |
| Literary history |
| Military history |
| Politics |
| Timeline of Scottish history |
The deep prehistory of Scotland
Scotland is geologically alien to Europe, comprising a lost sliver of the ancient continent of Laurentia (which later formed the bulk of North America). During the Cambrian period the crustal region which became Scotland formed part of the continental shelf of Laurentia, then still south of the equator. Laurentia was separated from the continent of Baltica (which later became Scandinavia and the Baltic region) by the diminishing Iapetus Ocean. The two ancient continents moved toward one another through the Cambrian and Ordovician periods, with tectonic folding during the Silurian pushing the first Scottish land above water. The final collision occurred during the Devonian period, with the Scottish segment of the Laurentian plate smashing into Avalonia (which contained what is now most of England and Wales), a motile subcontinent which had previously joined with Baltica. This impact threw up a massive chain of mountains (at least as tall as the present-day Alps) and saw the formation of the granitic West Highland and Grampian mountain chains and (through the Carboniferous) a period of volcanic activity in central and eastern Scotland. During the Permian and Triassic periods, with the Iapetus Ocean entirely closed, Scotland lay near the centre of the Pangaean supercontinent. With the advent of the Tertiary, a constructive plate boundary became active between Laurentia and Eurasia, pushing the two apart (and parting Scotland from Laurentia forever). This recession opened the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, and the consequent subduction zone at the western plate margin led to a renewed period of vulcanism, this time on Scotland's west coast, producing fresh mountains on Skye, Jura, Mull, Rùm, and Arran.This tectonic activity produced the basis of Scotland's topography: ancient mountains in the North and South of the country, partially eroded by 400 million years of water and ice with a wide fertile valley between them, and a newer, wilder western terrain. With Scotland now in the northern temperate zone, it was subjected to numerous glaciations in the Neogene and Quaternary periods, the ice sheets and their attendant glaciers carving the landscape into a typical postglacial one, overdeeping river valleys into the characteristic U-shape and leaving the upland areas covered with glacial corries and dramatic pyramidal peaks. In lowland areas the ice deposited rich fields of fertile glacial till and eroded the softer material surrounding the extinct volcanoes (particularly the older Carboniferous ones), leaving many crags.
Before modern humans
During the last interglacial, around 130,000 - 70,000 BC, there were times when climate in Europe was warmer than it is today, and after the Neanderthals came to prominence there was another mild spell around 40,000 BC. Neanderthal sites have been found in the south of England, and it is possible that early humans made their way to Scotland, though no traces have been found.Glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and it was only after the ice retreated that Scotland again became habitable, around 9600 BC.
Hunter-gatherers
As the climate improved mesolithic hunter-gatherers extended their range into Scotland.An early settlement at Cramond, near what is today Edinburgh, has been dated to around 8500 BC. Pits and stakeholes suggest a hunter-gatherer encampment, and microlith stone tools made at the site predate finds of similar style in England. Although no bones or shells had survived the acid soil, numerous carbonised hazelnut shells indicate cooking in a similar way to finds at other Mesolithic period sites including the slightly earlier Star Carr and Britain's oldest house, the Howick house in Northumberland dated to 7600 BC, where post holes indicate a very substantial construction, and the finds are interpreted as being a permanent residence for hunting people. This suggests that hunter-gatherers could also have settled down in Scotland.
Other sites on the east coast and at lochs and rivers, and large numbers of rock shelters and shell middens around the west coast and islands, build up a picture of highly mobile people, often using sites seasonally and having boats for fishing and for transporting stone tools from sites where suitable materials are found. Finds of flint tools on Ben Lawers and at Glen Dee (a mountain pass through the Cairngorms) show that these people were capable of travelling well inland across the hills.
At a rock shelter and shell midden at Sand, Applecross on Wester Ross facing Skye, excavations have shown that around 7500 BC people had tools of bone, stone and antler, were living off shellfish, fish and deer using pot-boiler stones as a cooking method, were making beads from seashells and had ochre pigment and used shellfish which can produce purple dye.
Farmers and monument builders
)
The remainder of this section focuses mainly on the Orkney Islands, where there is a Neolithic landscape rich in sites amazingly preserved by prevalent use of the local stone which appears on the shore ready split into convenient building slabs. This is only a selection of highlights and there are many other examples across the country, often under the care of Historic Scotland.
At the wonderfully well preserved stone house at Knap of Howar on the Orkney island of Papa Westray (occupied from 3500 BC to 3100 BC) the walls stand to a low eaves height, and the stone furniture is intact. Evidence from middens shows that the inhabitants were keeping cattle, sheep and pigs, farming barley and wheat and gathering shellfish as well as fishing for species which have to be line caught using boats. Finely made and decorated Unstan ware pottery links the inhabitants to chambered cairn tombs nearby and to sites far afield including Balbrindi and Eilean Domhnuill.
The houses at Skara Brae on the Mainland of the Orkney Islands are very similar, but grouped into a village linked by low passageways. This settlement was occupied from about 3000 BC to 2500 BC. Pottery found here is of the grooved ware style which is found across Britain as far away as Wessex.
About 6 miles (10km) from Skara Brae, grooved ware pottery was found at the Standing Stones of Stenness (originally a circle) which lie centrally in a close group of three major monuments. Maeshowe, the finest example of the passage grave type of chambered cairn (radiocarbon dated to before 2700 BC) lies just to the east. The magnificent Ring of Brodgar circle of standing stones is across a bridge immediately to the north. This circle was one of the first to be analysed by Professor Alexander Thom to establish the likely use of standing stones as astronomical observatories. Another Neolithic village has been found nearby at Barnhouse Settlement, and the inference is that these farming people were the builders and users of these mysterious structures.
As with the standing stones at Callanish on Lewis and other standing stones across Scotland, these monuments form part of the Europe wide Megalithic culture which also produced Stonehenge in Wiltshire and the stone rows at Carnac in Brittany.
The widespread connections these people had is shown by offerings imported from Cumbria and Wales left on the sacred hilltop at Cairnpapple Hill, West Lothian, as early as 3500 BC.
Bronze age
The cairns and Megalithic monuments continued into the Bronze age, which saw metals as an additional material rather than a replacement for flint.The Clava cairns and standing stones near Inverness show complex geometries and astronomical alignments, with smaller perhaps individual tombs instead of the communal Neolithic tombs.
Mummies dating from 1600-1300 B.C. have been discovered at Cladh Hallan on South Uist.
Hill forts were introduced, such as Eildon hill near Melrose in the Scottish Borders which goes back to around 1000 BC and which accommodated several hundred houses on a fortified hilltop. Excavation at Edinburgh Castle found late Bronze Age material from about 850 BC.
Iron age
From around 700 BC extending into Roman times the Iron age brought an age of forts and defended farmsteads, which supports the image of quarrelsome tribes and petty kingdoms recorded by the Romans. Evidence that at times occupants neglected the defences might suggest that symbolic power was as significant as warfare.Brythonic Celtic culture and language spread into southern Scotland at some time after the 8th century BC, possibly through cultural contact rather than mass invasion, and systems of kingdoms developed.
Larger fortified settlements expanded, such as the Votadini stronghold of Traprain Law, East Lothian, which was the size of a town. Huge numbers of small duns, hill forts and ring forts were built on any suitable crag or hillock. The spectacular brochs were built, most impressively the near complete broch at Mousa on Shetland. Many Souterrain underground passageways were constructed, though their purpose is obscure. Island settlements linked with a causeway to land, the crannogs, became common; it is thought that their function was defensive.
Access - guide books
Historic Scotland provides access to many sites and monuments including most of those mentioned above, and others are freely accessible making exploring the distant past open to anyone with a guide book and map. The following were used as references.- Scotland Before History - Stuart Piggott, Edinburgh University Press 1982, ISBN 0-7524-1400-3
- Scotland's Hidden History - Ian Armit, Tempus (in association with Historic Scotland) 1998, ISBN 0-85224-348-0
References
- ScottishGeology.com
- Toghill, Peter, The Geology of Britain, an introduction, Airlife (2000), ISBN 1-84037-404-7
- Scotland's Past
- BBC - History - Britain's Oldest House? A Journey into the Stone Age
- History Scotland Magazine: First Settlers - Sand
- The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map: Rubbish dump reveals time-capsule of Scotland's earliest settlements
- The National Trust for Scotland - Press Releases - Archaeological find at Mar Lodge Estate
- The Other Orkney Book - Gordon Thomson, Northabout Publishing 1980, ISBN 0-907200-00-1
External links
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Oceanic crust 0-20 Ma
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The Roman Empire is the name given to both the imperial domain developed by the city-state of Rome and also the corresponding phase of that civilization, characterized by an autocratic form of government. This article however is about the latter.
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history of Scotland begins around 10,000 years ago, when humans first began to inhabit Scotland after the end of the Devensian glaciation, the last ice age. Of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age civilization that existed in the country, many artifacts remain, but few written
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Motto
Nemo me impune lacessit (Latin)
"No one provokes me with impunity"
"Cha togar m'fhearg gun dioladh"
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Nemo me impune lacessit (Latin)
"No one provokes me with impunity"
"Cha togar m'fhearg gun dioladh"
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history of Scotland begins around 10,000 years ago, when humans first began to inhabit Scotland after the end of the Devensian glaciation, the last ice age. Of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age civilization that existed in the country, many artifacts remain, but few written
..... Click the link for more information.
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Motto
Nemo me impune lacessit (Latin)
"No one provokes me with impunity"
"Cha togar m'fhearg gun dioladh"
..... Click the link for more information.
Nemo me impune lacessit (Latin)
"No one provokes me with impunity"
"Cha togar m'fhearg gun dioladh"
..... Click the link for more information.
Scotland in the High Middle Ages covers Scotland in the era between the death of Domnall II in 900 AD and the death of king Alexander III in 1286, which led indirectly to the Scottish Wars of Independence.
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The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
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The history of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages might be said to be dominated by the twin themes of crisis and transition. It is a period where the boundaries are set by the death of kings-that of Alexander III in 1286 and James IV in 1513, one by accident and the other by
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The Scottish Enlightenment refers to a remarkable period in 18th century Scotland characterized by a great outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments rivalling that of any other nation at any time in history.
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The House of Alpin is a dynasty of Scottish kings who ruled Pictland, later Alba, from 843 to 1034. Its name derives from the patronym of Kenneth MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín), king of the Picts and first of the dynasty which created Alba.
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The so-called House of Moray is a historiographical and genealogical construct to illustrate the succession of rulers whose base was at the region of Moray and who ruled sometimes a larger kingdom.
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The so-called House of Dunkeld is a historiographical and genealogical construct to illustrate the clear succession of Scottish kings from 1034 to 1040 and from 1058 to 1290.
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The House of Balliol was a Scottish royal family in the 13th and 14th centuries. Two members of the house were kings of Scotland:
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- John Balliol who ruled from 1292 to 1296, and claimed the throne as great-great-great-grandson of David I of Scotland of the House of Dunkeld.
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The House of Bruce was a Scottish Royal House in the 14th century. Two members of the house were kings of Scotland.
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History
The House of Bruce originated in Normandy in the 11th century, where the family took its name from Bruis (present-day Brix)...... Click the link for more information.
House of Stuart or Stewart was a royal house of the Kingdom of Scotland, later also of the Kingdom of England, and finally of the Kingdom of Great Britain. Mary Queen of Scots adopted the French spelling Stuart while in France to ensure that the Scots Stewart
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Scottish art, which we can take to mean the visual and plastic art produced within the modern political boundary of Scotland since the earliest times, forms a distinctive tradition within British and European art.
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Scottish colonization of the Americas consisted of a number of failed or abandoned Scottish settlements in North America, a colony at Darien, Panama and a number of wholly or largely Scottish settlements made after the Acts of Union 1707.
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Scottish culture is the national culture of Scotland. It originates from various differences, some entrenched as part of the Act of Union, others facets of nationhood not easily defined but readily identifiable.
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Scottish historiography refers to the sources and critical methods used by scholars to come to an understanding of the history of Scotland. Scottish historiography begins with Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, many of them written by monks in Latin.
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Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers. It includes literature written in English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Brythonic, French, Latin and any other language in which a piece of literature was ever written within the boundaries of modern
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Historically, Scotland has a long military tradition that predates the Act of Union with England. Its armed forces now form part of those of the United Kingdom and are known as the British Armed Forces.
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Scotland
This article is part of the series:
Politics of Scotland
Scottish Parliament
Scottish Executive
Presiding Officer
First Minister
Lord Advocate
Solicitor General
Members of Parliament (MSPs)
Local government
Elections
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This article is part of the series:
Politics of Scotland
Scottish Parliament
Scottish Executive
Presiding Officer
First Minister
Lord Advocate
Solicitor General
Members of Parliament (MSPs)
Local government
Elections
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This timeline outlines the main events in Scottish history.
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1st century - 9th century
- c.84: Romans defeat Caledonians at the Battle of Mons Graupius.
- c.143: Romans construct the Antonine Wall.
- c.163: Romans withdraw south to Trimontium and Hadrian's Wall.
- c.
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Laurentia (also known as the North American craton), like all craton land, was created as continents moved about the surface of the Earth, bumping into other continents and drifting away.
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North America is a continent [1] in the Earth's northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the south and west
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The Cambrian is a major division of the geologic timescale that begins about 542 ± 1.0 Ma (million years ago) at the end of the Proterozoic eon and ended about 488.3 ± 1.7 Ma with the beginning of the Ordovician period (ICS, 2004).
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Baltica is a Late Proterozoic-Early Palaeozoic continent that now includes the East European craton of northwestern Eurasia. Baltica was created as an entity not earlier than 1.8 Ga.
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Scandinavia is a historical and geographical region centred on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe which includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
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