Just Finished Reading: The Makers of Scotland – Picts, Romans, Gaels and Vikings by Tim Clarkson (FP: 2011) [230pp] 

I’ll be the first to admit that my knowledge of Scottish history – from any period – is scant at best. Apart from the existence of Hadrian's Wall my knowledge of early Scottish history was effectively zero - until now. For instance, although we studied Hadrian's Wall in school (and the fact I’ve walked along part of it) I had no idea, or maybe I’d forgotten, that there was another Roman ‘wall’ even further north. Although nowhere near as substantial as Hadrian’s effort or as well defended, it did play its part (albeit briefly) in the Roman occupation of Britainnia and the suppression of the unruly Scots (who, obviously at that time neither called themselves Scots nor were called that except in the generic Roman term Scotti for people in the North). Interestingly, the area between the two walls was kept as a buffer zone with (mostly) friendly tribes living there often dependent on Roman aid. Naturally this all fell apart when the Romans left and (mostly) returned to the troubled heart of their crumbling Empire. 

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that there is a gap in our knowledge of events in Scotland after the Romans left and before more modern, early Medieval times. The Romans were notorious record keepers, builders and distributors of coins and other items so loved by archaeologists and treasure hunters whereas the peoples who immediately followed them were anything but. What little we do know often has to be handled with care as myth, self-promotion and history are all too often mixed to a greater of lesser extent. As you can well imagine caveats galore are sprinkled throughout the entire book – which is, in my mind, a good thing! Saying that we don’t know, and in some cases can never know, something is much better than idle speculation which can rest on very narrow or very suspect ‘evidence’ such as the similarity of words or placenames coupled with Latinisation of people's often embellished family history. 

I did, being honest, skim through some parts of a chapter or so on the Church History of the Region which really doesn’t interest me. I understand why it's there – Christianity did have a significant impact on the UK and, indeed, Europe during this time, so passing over such history just isn’t an option. Plus, naturally, the early Church kept reasonable, indeed often the only, records from that time (even if they did sometimes shade into propaganda) and it would be unreasonable not to use them. Because of its remoteness from English and European affairs we are sometimes left with little more than lists of Kings and mention of battles – although surprisingly despite being ‘important’ enough to mention few seemed important enough to locate accurately – and these ‘histories’ being compiled by authors hundreds of miles and sometimes hundreds of years after the events.  

Despite the caveats above I thought this was fairly good read overall. I did find it particularly interesting how populations mixed from Ireland, England, Scandinavia and further afield which gave an extra layer of understanding to my ‘quest’ to uncover where my Scottish DNA comes from. My DNA profile shows 5% Scottish DNA from ‘Parent 1’ (presumably my father) and 16% from Parent 2’ (my mother) which makes sense from what else I know already as well as what I know of the history of the Isles. I’m looking forward to finding out more. Worth a read for anyone interested in the very earliest history of Scotland.  

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