It is believed that the first people who inhabited Scotland came from the south. What we know today is that they lived in shelters made of wood and skins and that they made different kinds of stone tools (arrowheads, blades, flakes and awls).
They were nomadic communities who lived by hunting and fishing. They used fire for cooking and warmth and animal skins to dress.
Traces of their way of life were found at Kinloch on the Island of Rum in the Inner Hebrides.
As time went by, these communities became permanent and started to work the land.
They made all sorts of stone jewelry and their houses were of stone, like the ones found on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Orkney. Some of these places were abandoned and Archeologists can’t explain why. However, they left magnificent stone circles like the ones at Stenness, the Ring of Brogar and Callanish on the Isle of Lewis.
Until today these stones circles are an enigma. Yet, Archeologists don’t know if these places were temples or astronomical observatories.

Picts, Scots, Britons, Angles and other minorities.

Scotland was populated by four separate groups of people. The Picts lived mostly in the north and northeast and they spoke a kind of Celtic language which was lost completely.
The Scots were Celtic settlers who moved into the western Highlands from Ireland in the fourth century.
The third group were the Britons, who inhabited the Lowlands. It’s believed that they gave up their old tribal way of life by the sixth century.
Finally, the last group were the Angles from Northumbria who lived in the Lowlands.

The Picts: They occupied the north and northeast of Scotland. They were excellent warriors and the Romans called them “Picti” (The Painted ones) since most of the times they went into battle completely naked to show their tattooed bodies. They were in fact Celts, the ancestors of the people who built the stone circles.
The Picts inherited their rights, their names and property from their mothers.

They were a cultured society which could afford to employ learned craftsmen of all kinds, particularly the sculptors who left us their wonderful legacy of carved stones.
These stones were studied and classified by Joseph Anderson and Romilly Allen about sixty years ago. Part of their work was the classification of the stones into three distinct groups:
· Class I comprise designs which are incised onto natural rocks. These contain no Christian references. They are thought to date from a period between the 4th and 9th centuries.
· Class II stones are typically a heavy upright slab, with Christian carvings on one face, and designs on the other face. The edges are sometimes covered with intricate patterns. A notable exception is Dyce II which has Christian and Pictish symbols carved on the same face.
· Class III stones are similar to Class II, but without the pre-Christian designs.
The figures on some stones are usually dressed in long cloaks, with long hair. Some have belts, swords, shields and lances. These shields are generally small round targes. There are men on foot with axes but none of the horsemen are armed.
The hunters are usually accompanied by greyhound-like dogs and some stags appear as their trophies.

The Gododdin: They occupied the area in the south of the Firth of Forth, in the Lothians. Romans called them “Votadini” and they lived peacefully under Roman subjugation. Their stronghold was in “Din Eidyn” today Edinburgh.

The Angles: came from northern Germany and settled first in the south east of England and they helped the Romans to keep their possession of Britannia.
In the fifth century they invaded England and created their own kingdom, Anglia. They were tough and brave warriors.
The Angles expanded their possessions beyond Edinburgh into the southern part of the Pictland.
From the years 653 to 685 much of the southern Pict land was under the Angles’ control. In 672 there was a fierce Pictish uprising and many of the Pictish aristocracy were massacred.
In 685 king Ecgfrith led an army to attack Pictland under King Bridei Mac Bili, this historical event was known as the Battle of Dunnichen which ended with their power over Pictish territory.
Mac Bili is buried in the royal cemetery on Iona. He died in 693.

The Britons: They occupied the west part of the Lowlands from Clyde, over Hadrian’s Wall and to the present Lake District.

The Scots: The Romans called the “Scoti” and originally they came from Ireland led by King Fergus Mor Mac Eirc .
The Scots raided in the Hebrides and the western mainland of Scotland.
They spoke Gaelic and established a new kingdom in the territory of modern Argyll which was known as Dalriada.

St. Ninian and St. Columba

St. Ninian was the first Christian missionary in Scotland. Around the seventh century he had become a cult saint and many churches were dedicated to him in different parts of Scotland.

St. Columba is the man closely associated with the spread of Christianity in the sixth century. In 563 he set sail from Ireland with twelve companions to christianize Scotland.
Christianity helped in the assimilation of the Picts into the Gaelic culture of the Scots, St. Columba was also the first learned man who saw Nessie – The Loch Ness Monster.

The Vikings

They came from Scandinavia and they had a profound effect on the existing kingdoms.
In 795 they raided Iona and this raid marked the beginning of the Viking Age (800-1050).
While Danish invaders attached the Continent and southern England, Norwegian invaders established a Norse earldom in Shetland and Orkney which lasted more than 300 years from the 9th to the 13th centuries.
Today the inhabitants of Shetland celebrate their Norse heritage on the last Tuesday of every January with the Viking Fire Festival called “Up-Helly-Aa”

It was probably from Orkney that they mounted the early raids on Iona to later exercise the dominion over the Western Isles.
Viking armies inflicted heavy defeats on the Scots and Picts alike. On the west coast, in 870 they attacked the fortress of Dumbarton and on the east coast in 890 they captured the Pictish fortress of Dunnottar.

Kenneth Mac Alpin (800-858) The Union of Picts and Scots

Gradually, Picts and Scots were united against one common enemy, the Vikings. In the middle of the ninth century the Picts and Scots were ruled by one king “Kenneth Mac Alpin”. Kenneth was first king of Dalriada and then king of Pictish Fortriu.

He had a reputation of being both skilful in politics and in warfare.
The king moved away from the Dalriada and established a new royal seat at Scone, near Perth and brought with him the “Stone of Destiny”.
Mac Alpin’s authority extended from Moray Firth in the north to the Firth of Forth in the south. Soon his kingdom was known as Alba.
Due to the lack of written records it is not known what happened to the Picts after the unification. The future of the land was now Scottish.

The House of Alpin