Scotland: history to 1058

With the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age and the improvement of the climate from around 8000 BC, Mesolithic hunter‐gatherer bands began to spread along the coast and islands of Scotland and into the river valleys. Caves were sometimes inhabited, and stone, flint, and bone implements were in use.

The Neolithic period
The first Neolithic farmers arrived around 4000–3500 BC, bringing pottery‐making skills. Using polished stone axes – some imported from the north of Ireland – the Neolithic farmers began the process of clearing forest for cereal cultivation and pasture for livestock. Skara Brae, on Mainland in the Orkney Islands, is a remarkably well‐preserved Neolithic settlement. Megaliths in the form of chambered tombs are found in western and northern Scotland (for example, Maes Howe in Orkney), but in eastern Scotland tombs from this period lack stone chambers in their long mounds. Megalithic tombs were built and used for two millennia. In the late Neolithic period the construction of ritual monuments began.

The Bronze and Iron Ages
In the ensuing Bronze Age, the ritual monuments exhibit considerable structural variety (for example, recumbent stone circles in the northeast). From around 2000 BC the Beaker people settled in Scotland, and seem to have introduced copper‐ and bronze‐working. Beaker settlement was primarily coastal. Cairnpapple Hill in West Lothian is an important ritual site. The Bronze Age is subdivided on the basis of changing implement types, sometimes found in hoards. Gold and jet ornaments have also been found.

In the 1st millennium BC there were various settlement types, dating to the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. In the south, timber houses, sometimes enclosed by a palisade, represent farmsteads. Farther north, numerous stone‐hut circles with field systems are recorded. Mounds of burnt stones, for example in Orkney, indicate cooking places. Lake‐edge settlements (called crannogs) began, especially in southwest Scotland. The most impressive sites are hill forts, for example, Traprain Law in East Lothian. Some have very complex defences, and internal evidence of industry. On the northern and west coasts, brochs (defensive stone towers) began to be built in the later Iron Age. The Celts probably arrived in the last few centuries BC, and a few fine pieces of decorated Celtic metalwork, perhaps belonging to the nobility, have been found.

For further details of life elsewhere in Britain before the Roman occupation, see Britain, ancient.

The Roman military occupation
The first historical connection between Scotland (known as Caledonia to the Romans) and Roman Britain to the south was in AD 79–80. It was then that the Roman governor, Agricola, reached as far north as the Firth of Tay in his expedition to subdue the Caledonian tribes, notably the Picti or Picts, a generic name given by the Romans to the native people north of the River Tay (see also Roman Britain). In the Battle of Mons Graupius fought in AD 84 (perhaps near Inverurie, Gordon) he broke resistance in the Highlands and gained control of the Lowlands. But his victory was short‐lived, and his legionary fort in the Tay valley was abandoned in around AD 86.

By about AD 127 the Emperor Hadrian had defined the frontier by the great military barrier known as Hadrian's Wall, which stretched across northern England from the River Tyne to the River Solway. A further campaign took place in 142–143, when a new wall of simpler design was built between the rivers Forth and Clyde by Lollius Urbicus, governor under the Emperor Antoninus Pius. The so‐called Antonine Wall was in effect a heavily fortified turf dyke. During the period 155–184 both walls were taken by the Caledonian tribes and retaken by Roman forces, but the Antonine Wall was abandoned in around 200. In 208 the Emperor Severus led a punitive expedition north of Hadrian's Wall, into the territory of tribes known to the Romans as the Votadini, Damnonii, Selgovae, and Novantae. After this, southeastern Scotland appears to have enjoyed a century or so of relative peace.

Hadrian's Wall came to an end as a frontier defence in 388 after its evacuation by the usurper, Magnus Maximus, in his bid to control the Roman Empire. During these years the volume of reciprocal trade between Roman Britain and Scotland was considerable, both by the Wall and by the eastern and western coast routes, and recent archaeological research, particularly the use of aerial photography, has suggested that Roman influence in Scotland was much greater than was previously supposed.

The peoples of Scotland in the early Middle Ages
By 350–360 the Picts, together with the Irish and Saxons, had begun to harry Britain by sea. After the initial invasions of the Anglo‐Saxon tribes (beginning in the 5th century), the Angles formed the kingdom of Bernicia, which extended from the River Tees to the Forth. This settlement was made by Ida, who established his chief fortress and political centre at Bamburgh. In the 7th century this kingdom, together with the kingdom of Deira, which stretched from the Tees to the River Humber, was united to make the kingdom of Northumbria.

Anglo‐Saxon settlement extended into southeast Scotland, in this context usually referred to as Lothian. Meanwhile, in the 5th–6th centuries the Scots, or Dalriads, a Gaelic‐speaking Celtic people from Ireland, settled in that part of western Scotland now known as Argyll and then referred to as Dalriada. They were Christian, and followed the rule of the Celtic Church.

Thus Scotland at this time was divided into the following regions: in the north and east were the Picts; south of the Forth, the Anglo‐Saxons in Lothian; in Argyll, the Scots; and in the southwest the Welsh (the remnants of the Celtic Britons) in the kingdom of Strathclyde. Of these peoples, only the Welsh and the Scots were Christian.

The spread of Christianity
In 563 St Columba came from Ireland and settled on the island of Iona. From there he set out on a missionary journey to the king of the Picts, whom he converted. The Anglo‐Saxons, however, still adhered to the old Germanic gods, but at the beginning of the 7th century King Oswald of Northumbria came to Iona while in exile, and there learnt Christianity. When he returned to Northumbria he sent for missionaries, and soon his people were converted to Christianity by the Celtic Church. Paulinus, the Roman missionary, had earlier failed to convert them, but after the Synod of Whitby (664) had declared itself in favour of the Roman rather than the Celtic system of church government, the whole of Scotland also fell slowly into line.

Towards unification
For a time the kingdom of Northumbria exercised an overlordship over all the kingdoms of the north. But its power waned after the annihilation of its armies by the Picts at the Battle of Nechtansmere (685), north of the River Tay, and the northern kingdoms were free to quarrel amongst themselves. The unity of their religion had prepared the way, as it had in England, for ultimate national unity; however, for some considerable time constant struggles took place between the Picts and Scots, ending with the Picts extending their rule over the Scots.

However, the invasions of the Vikings (largely from Norway) from around 800 so weakened the Picts that they were conquered with ease by Kenneth (I) MacAlpin, king of the Scots of Dalriada, who was descended on his mother's side from the Pictish royal house. In 844 he became the ruler of the Picts and Scots, and the country began to be called Scotland. In the meantime, the Vikings settled in the Orkneys, Shetlands, and Hebrides, and in some northern and western parts of mainland Scotland. MacAlpin was able, owing to the weakness of Northumbria, to extend his rule over Lothian; he formed an alliance with Strathclyde, and in that way prepared for the ultimate union of the whole of Scotland.

The early history of unified Scotland
As soon as Scotland emerged as a united nation, the vexed question arose of the exact position of the Scottish kings in relation to the kings of England. The Scottish kings conceded that they were vassals of the English kings in relation to the English possessions that they held, while the English kings held that it was as suzerains (overall sovereigns) of Scotland that they received the homage of the Scottish monarchs.

The early history of a united Scotland is very obscure. The succession question seems to have been based upon a system of tanistry (elective monarchy), although Malcolm II attempted to base it upon primogeniture (by which the succession passes to the monarch's first born) by naming his grandson Duncan I as his successor. Although Duncan brought the Welsh kingdom of Strathclyde into the kingdom of Scotland, his accession in 1034 was followed by quarrels over the succession. It was during these quarrels that Macbeth, sub‐king of Moray, and mormaor or earl, came to the fore. The story of Macbeth as given by Shakespeare is unhistorical. Macbeth certainly did rebel against Duncan and kill him (1040), but Duncan himself was regarded as a usurper by many of his own subjects. Macbeth was defeated by Siward, but not deposed, and his reign appears to have been a time of prosperity for Scotland. Finally, however, he was overthrown by Malcolm Canmore, the son of Duncan (1057).

For subsequent events in Scottish history, see Scotland: history 1058 to 1513, Scotland: history 1513 to 1603, Scotland: history 1603 to 1746, and Scotland: history from 1746. For the history of England during this period, see England: history to 1485.