bookingscotland.com - Your Scotland trade reference
Dutch
France
Russia
Chinese
Sweden
Germany
Spain
Italy
History and Culture
Discover Scotland
Scotland is known to have been inhabited for about 6-8000 years, with successive waves of settlers and invaders. Celts from north-west Europe arrived about 500BC. They were called Britons by the later invading Romans. Although these temporary conquerors referred to the northern lands above the line of the Forth and Clyde as Caledonia, they alternatively named the northern tribes Picts and all of these terms are used today in describing the early history of Scotland.
The name Scotland derives from the Scoti, another Celtic tribe, who came from Ireland and in the 5th and 6th centuries and settled on the western seaboard in present-day Argyll in sufficient numbers to form the Kingdom of Dalriada. They spoke Gaelic.
The first thousand years AD is a story of warfare in which the peoples of Scotland - Scot, Pict, Briton and Anglian – gradually came together. By 843AD a united Scottish/Pictish kingdom had emerged.
In 1018, the Northern English were defeated at the Battle of Carham and the border came to be fixed along the River Tweed. By 1034, the Strathclyde Britons were added to the larger kingdom, making it much the same shape as Scotland today.
For more info about Scotland's history and culture, please download the factsheet as a PDF click here
