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Archaeology is continuing 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.

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 Pangean supercontinent. With the advent of the Tertiary period the laurentian plate moved away from Europe, forming the Atlantic Ocean and tearing at the western margin of the now orphaned Scottish segment. This led to a renewed period of vulcanism, this time on Scotland's west coast, producing fresh mountains on Skye, Jura, Mull, Rum, 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 a number of crags.

Before modern humans

During the last interglacial, around 126,000 - 118,000 BC, there were times when climate in Europe was warmer than it is today, and after the Neandertals came to prominence there was another mild spell around 40,000 BC. Neandertal 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 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 indicated cooking. Large numbers of hazelnut shells were found at what BBC History describe as Britain's oldest house at Howick in Northumberland, dated to 7600 BC. Here 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 on Skye excavations have shown that around 7500 BC people had tools of bone, stone and antler, were living off shellfish, fish, deer using pot-boiler stones as a cooking method, were making beads from seashells and had ochre pigment and shellfish which produce purple dye.

Farmers and monument builders

Neolithic farming brought permanent settlements.

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 both nearby and as far afield as Aberdeenshire.

The houses at Skara Brae on the Mainland of the Orkney Islands are very similar, but grouped into village linked by low passageways. This settlement was occupied from about 3000 BC to 2500 BC). Here grooved ware pottery links the inhabitants to tombs including the nearby Maes Howe and its neighbour the magnificent Ring of Brodgar circle of standing stones. 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. Along with the standing stones at Callanish on Lewis these form part of the Europe wide Megalithic culture which also produced Stonehenge in Wiltshire.

The widespread connections these people had is shown by offerings imported from Cumbria and Wales left on the sacred hilltop at Cairnpapple, West Lothian, as early as 3000 BC.

Bronze age and Iron age

The cairns and Megalithic monuments continued into the Bronze age, and hillforts 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.

Brythonic Celtic culture and language spread into the Scotland at some time after the 8th century BC, possibly through cultural contact rather than mass invasion, and systems of kingdoms developed.

From around 700 BC the Iron age brought numerous hillforts, brochs and fortified settlements which support the image of quarrelsome tribes and petty kingdoms later recorded by the Romans, though evidence that at times occupants neglected the defences might suggest that symbolic power was as significant as warfare.

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
• Scotland's Hidden History - Ian Armit, Tempus (in association with Historic Scotland) 1998

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
• 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