History - The Rough Guide to Scottish Highlands and Islands - page 403

The Beaker people also brought the Bronze Age to Scotland. New materials led directly
to the development of more effective weapons, and the sword and the shield made their
first appearance around 1000 BC. Agricultural needs plus new weaponry added up to a
state of endemic warfare as villagers raided their neighbours to steal livestock and grain.
The Bronze Age peoples responded to the danger by developing a range of defences,
among them the spectacular hillforts , great earthwork defences, many of which are
thought to have been occupied from around 1000 BC and remained in use throughout
the Iron Age, sometimes far longer. Less spectacular but equally practical were the
crannogs , smaller settlements built on artificial islands constructed of logs, earth, stones
and brush, such as those found on Loch Tay (see p.143).

The Celts and the Picts
Conflict in Scotland intensified in the first millennium BC as successive waves of Celtic
settlers, arriving from the south, increased competition for land. Around 400 BC, the
Celts brought the technology of iron with them. These fractious times witnessed the
construction of hundreds of brochs or fortified towers. Concentrated along the Atlantic
coast and in the Northern and Western Isles, the brochs were dry-stone fortifications
(built without mortar or cement) often over 40ft in height. Some historians claim they
provided protection for small coastal settlements from the attentions of Roman
slave-traders. Much the best-preserved broch is on the Shetland island of Mousa (see
p.382); its double walls rise to about 40ft, only a little short of their original height.
The Celts continued to migrate north almost up until Julius Caesar's first incursion
into Britain in 55 BC.
At the end of the prehistoric period, immediately prior to the arrival of the Romans,
Scotland was divided among a number of warring Iron Age tribes, who, apart from the
raiding, were preoccupied with wresting a living from the land, growing barley and
oats, rearing sheep, hunting deer and fishing for salmon. The Romans were to write
these people into history under the collective name Picti, or Picts , meaning “painted
people”, after their body tattoos.

The Romans
he Roman conquest of Britain began in 43 AD, almost a century after Caesar's first
invasion. By 80 AD the Roman governor Agricola felt secure enough in the south of
Britain to begin an invasion of the north, building a string of forts along the southern
edge of the Highlands and defeating a large force of Scottish tribes at Mons Graupius.
Precisely where this is remains a puzzle for historians, though most place it somewhere
in the northeast, possibly on the slopes of Bennachie, near Inverurie in Aberdeenshire.
The long-term effect of his campaign, however, was slight. Work on a major fort - to
be the base for 5000 soldiers - at Inchtuthill, north of Perth on the Tay, was abandoned
before it was finished, and the legions withdrew south. In 123 AD Emperor Hadrian
decided to seal the frontier against the northern tribes and built Hadrian's Wall , which
stretched from the Solway Firth to the Tyne and was the first formal division of the
mainland of Britain. Twenty years later, the Romans again ventured north and built the
Antonine Wall between the Clyde and the Forth rivers, a clear statement of the hostility
they perceived to the north. This was occupied for about forty years, but thereafter the

43 AD 83 142 162

Britain is
invaded by
the Romans

British tribes defeated
by the Romans at the
Battle of Mons Graupius in
northeast Scotland

The Romans build the
Antonine Wall between
the Firth of Forth and the
Firth of Clyde

The Roman army
retreat behind
Hadrian's Wall