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Before Scotland: A Prehistory
The story of the land that became Scotland is one of dramatic geological events and impressive human endeavour. Alistair Moffats gripping narrative ranges from the great thaw at the end of the Ice Age which was instrumental in shaping Scotlands magnificent landscape through the megalith builders, the Celts and the Picts, to the ascension of King Constantine II.
Moffat deploys his knowledge with wit and deftness, interweaving the story with numerous special features on topics as diverse as cave drawings of dancing girls, natural birth control, the myth of Atlantis and the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence all of them valuable, sometimes quirky, additions to the whole picture. Rounding out the account is a selection of carefully chosen colour photographs that give a strong sense of the Scottish landscape and monuments.
Erudite and entertaining, Before Scotland transforms our understanding of a neglected period. A story of dramatic geological events and impressive human endeavour, it is essential reading for anyone interested in the land that became Scotland.
Moffat deploys his knowledge with wit and deftness, interweaving the story with numerous special features on topics as diverse as cave drawings of dancing girls, natural birth control, the myth of Atlantis and the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence all of them valuable, sometimes quirky, additions to the whole picture. Rounding out the account is a selection of carefully chosen colour photographs that give a strong sense of the Scottish landscape and monuments.
Erudite and entertaining, Before Scotland transforms our understanding of a neglected period. A story of dramatic geological events and impressive human endeavour, it is essential reading for anyone interested in the land that became Scotland.
400 pages, Paperback
First published April 3, 2005
66 people are currently reading
1582 people want to read
About the author
Alistair Moffat
58 books211 followersAlistair Moffat is an award winning writer, historian and former Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Director of Programmes at Scottish Television.
Moffat was educated at the University of St Andrews, graduating in 1972 with a degree in Medieval History. He is the founder of the Borders Book Festival and Co-Chairman of The Great Tapestry of Scotland.
Moffat was educated at the University of St Andrews, graduating in 1972 with a degree in Medieval History. He is the founder of the Borders Book Festival and Co-Chairman of The Great Tapestry of Scotland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
August 13, 2013
The problem with prehistory is that there is no history. That is, there are no stories, no names, none of the usual hooks upon which we hang our understanding to enlighten, entertain and help us remember to guide us through the greater part of human existence. All there are, are mute remains and although these can be eloquent in their own way, notably the village excavated at Skara Brae in Orkney, yet they are essentially still silent about the men, women and children who once lived. So, it's a measure of Moffat's achievement here that he makes the silent people before Scotland existed come alive, at least as far as is possible, and without entering into speculation and fantasy. He does this through a disciplined use of ethnographic parallels and examples drawn from Scotland's historic past which, he believes, were continuations of pre-historic practices. The writing is lively and entertaining throughout, the text studded with fascinating little boxes giving insights into other parts of the world apart from Scotland, and the book taught me a great deal about prehistory in general, not just that of Scotland. Recommended.
August 11, 2018
The author takes on a pretty huge task here - the history of the country we now call Scotland before it was called that. As such it runs from the settling of the land after the ice age, through the Celts, the Romans, the Picts and the Danes, before finishing in AD 900.
I enjoyed the book with some caveats. For one, the author likes to remind us that much of this was prehistory - before the written record - and speculation would be pointless, before going on to do a whole lot of speculating of his own. While some of the points he was making were valid and quite possibly accurate, it hurts the narrative.
On a more practical note, this book had some nice colour plates but could really have done with more lines drawings and detailed maps. Instead we get a single generic map at the end which is next to useless, and a lot of boxes breaking up the text to tell us some supposed related fact. You could have lost these quite easily as they added little to the book.
Nonetheless, a pretty good read.
I enjoyed the book with some caveats. For one, the author likes to remind us that much of this was prehistory - before the written record - and speculation would be pointless, before going on to do a whole lot of speculating of his own. While some of the points he was making were valid and quite possibly accurate, it hurts the narrative.
On a more practical note, this book had some nice colour plates but could really have done with more lines drawings and detailed maps. Instead we get a single generic map at the end which is next to useless, and a lot of boxes breaking up the text to tell us some supposed related fact. You could have lost these quite easily as they added little to the book.
Nonetheless, a pretty good read.
March 31, 2009
I found this book to be both interesting and boring in places . It tells the story of the land we know as Scotland before it became Scotland. The narrative begins 10,000 years ago and continues up until AD900 when the last of the native British kingdoms in the north were effaced.
The fact that I can even write that last sentence shows how much I learnt from this book. Before reading it I had wrongly thought that the Gaelic speaking Scots were the original inhabitants of Scotland and the English their bitter enemies. Turns out that Gaelic speaking Scots are just a different branch of English invaders. The original inhabitants of the land before Scotland were British people, named so because they lived in Pretannike which translated as 'Land of the Painted People' (they tattooed themselves). The Romans mangled this into Britannica which in turn became Britain. The Pretannikai spoke a Celtic language closely related to Welsh. I also learnt a lot about the Picts who I had heard of but knew absolutely nothing about. It's a shame we know so little about them. Some of the carved stones they have left behind are beautiful and very mysterious.
I enjoyed the earlier chapters of the book the most. These were set in the most distant past and explained all the geologic and climatic changes that helped shape the land and frame the way of life of the inhabitants of that land. And I learned of the existence of Doggerland which I had never heard of before.
The middle chapters bored me a bit with their descriptions of Roman battles as I've never been interested in warfare. It was interesting to learn a bit more about Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall. It was also interesting to see that the divisions between lowland and highland inhabitants seemed to exist even back then with the lowlanders collaborating most shamelessly with their Roman oppressors.
So all in all it was mostly an interesting read but it could probably have been a third less long and been even better!
The fact that I can even write that last sentence shows how much I learnt from this book. Before reading it I had wrongly thought that the Gaelic speaking Scots were the original inhabitants of Scotland and the English their bitter enemies. Turns out that Gaelic speaking Scots are just a different branch of English invaders. The original inhabitants of the land before Scotland were British people, named so because they lived in Pretannike which translated as 'Land of the Painted People' (they tattooed themselves). The Romans mangled this into Britannica which in turn became Britain. The Pretannikai spoke a Celtic language closely related to Welsh. I also learnt a lot about the Picts who I had heard of but knew absolutely nothing about. It's a shame we know so little about them. Some of the carved stones they have left behind are beautiful and very mysterious.
I enjoyed the earlier chapters of the book the most. These were set in the most distant past and explained all the geologic and climatic changes that helped shape the land and frame the way of life of the inhabitants of that land. And I learned of the existence of Doggerland which I had never heard of before.
The middle chapters bored me a bit with their descriptions of Roman battles as I've never been interested in warfare. It was interesting to learn a bit more about Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall. It was also interesting to see that the divisions between lowland and highland inhabitants seemed to exist even back then with the lowlanders collaborating most shamelessly with their Roman oppressors.
So all in all it was mostly an interesting read but it could probably have been a third less long and been even better!
August 3, 2023
“We find it difficult to believe that 10,000 years ago people who looked very like us lived on this island, hunted and gathered their food, had families that they cared for, talked about ideas, about the mundane, gossiped, told funny stories, told lies, sat on a summer riverbank and threw stones into the water, believed in gods and were worried about the future…All evidence shows that they were indeed like us, and, further, that they were in fact our direct ancestors. And as such they deserve a history.”
Alistair Moffat's goal with this book was to show that prehistory is just as important and relevant as our more modern history. The time period known as 'prehistory' is so long ago that there are no written records and no one alive to remember what it was like. All we have are stones, ruins, bones, primitive tools, and the occasional preserved body. It can be hard to imagine what those long ago days were like, what the people were like. Alistair traces the connections between then and now, us and them, arguing that it isn't such a stretch of the imagination to understand prehistory.
He really made the past come alive. For the most part, I really enjoyed this read. I learned about several fascinating prehistoric locations to visit if I can ever go to Scotland someday, such as Masehowe, Skara Brae, and the Tomb of the Eagles. My favourite topic was the significance of language in prehistory. It was integral to the survival of the people. I am in awe of Gaelic. It's stunning. The precision of it is unbelievable. Learning about it was probably my favourite part of this book.
What I didn't love about this book was that after a while it got hard to keep track of the timeline and follow his references to topics he'd already discussed. This is a very dense book and I often got confused by those references. I also needed a dictionary for this because there were a lot of words I didn't know. All this took away from my enjoyment but this was still a very informative book.
“In order to cope with the diversity of nature, the weather, geography, agriculture, fishing and much else, Gaelic had to develop a huge vocabulary and demand a lexical skill and facilities of recall which would stretch a speaker of standard English to breaking point. When it came to matters of ownership – of cattle, for example – or considerations of the weather – if sea travel was being proposed – then it was extremely important, sometimes a matter of life and death, to be precise…And it is very likely that [prehistoric peoples] spoke a language of greater richness, complexity and detail than we use now.”
Alistair Moffat's goal with this book was to show that prehistory is just as important and relevant as our more modern history. The time period known as 'prehistory' is so long ago that there are no written records and no one alive to remember what it was like. All we have are stones, ruins, bones, primitive tools, and the occasional preserved body. It can be hard to imagine what those long ago days were like, what the people were like. Alistair traces the connections between then and now, us and them, arguing that it isn't such a stretch of the imagination to understand prehistory.
He really made the past come alive. For the most part, I really enjoyed this read. I learned about several fascinating prehistoric locations to visit if I can ever go to Scotland someday, such as Masehowe, Skara Brae, and the Tomb of the Eagles. My favourite topic was the significance of language in prehistory. It was integral to the survival of the people. I am in awe of Gaelic. It's stunning. The precision of it is unbelievable. Learning about it was probably my favourite part of this book.
What I didn't love about this book was that after a while it got hard to keep track of the timeline and follow his references to topics he'd already discussed. This is a very dense book and I often got confused by those references. I also needed a dictionary for this because there were a lot of words I didn't know. All this took away from my enjoyment but this was still a very informative book.
“In order to cope with the diversity of nature, the weather, geography, agriculture, fishing and much else, Gaelic had to develop a huge vocabulary and demand a lexical skill and facilities of recall which would stretch a speaker of standard English to breaking point. When it came to matters of ownership – of cattle, for example – or considerations of the weather – if sea travel was being proposed – then it was extremely important, sometimes a matter of life and death, to be precise…And it is very likely that [prehistoric peoples] spoke a language of greater richness, complexity and detail than we use now.”
July 12, 2025
Moffat humanizes some of the earliest people to walk the British Isles in this prehistory. The book is a great walk through the days before Scotland. Moffat is upfront about the uncertainties of prehistory, and does a great job involving the reader in the process of discovery as he explains not only what is believed to have happened on the isles before we have a written record, but how we got that story from a combination of anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and looking at the traditions that have persisted into the modern era.
I read this book as an exploration of my heritage, but I recommend it to anyone interested in our development from “cavemen” to the modern human.
I read this book as an exploration of my heritage, but I recommend it to anyone interested in our development from “cavemen” to the modern human.
December 23, 2025
On a recent visit to Portree on the Isle of Skye, I came across this book while perusing the shelves. There were a good number of books about Scotland to choose from but I was particularly interested in the prehistoric era of Scotland.
This book did not disappoint - it was everything I had hoped for and more! It gives an excellent overview of an immense time span and is chock full of additional inserts with interesting information.
It may be helpful for the non-native reader to have a current map of Scotland on hand in order to identify the location of many of the place names mentioned.
This book did not disappoint - it was everything I had hoped for and more! It gives an excellent overview of an immense time span and is chock full of additional inserts with interesting information.
It may be helpful for the non-native reader to have a current map of Scotland on hand in order to identify the location of many of the place names mentioned.
January 10, 2024
I’m a sucker for a National Trust gift shop book (I got this from the library but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it inside various castles) and this one did not disappoint. It was really interesting to read about the thousands of years so quickly glossed over in most history books. The book is highly readable and Moffat does an awesome job bringing ancient communities to life. My only quibble is that there are lots of info boxes throughout the book, and some of them almost seemed to be in the wrong spot as they didn’t really tie in the with surrounding text, but rather with sections several pages away. It was never terribly confusing, but it did pull me out of the flow of the narrative.
June 10, 2025
3.5. Old mate had a tendency to go off on a tangent and it definitely felt like too broad of a subject to have in a 300-odd page book but overall really interesting and I loved the asides!
August 23, 2025
there was a lot of interesting topics covered by this, but I didn't really care for how frequently it jumped topics. It made it so this book was pretty challenging to follow for me and I lost interest pretty easily.
August 21, 2025
A wonderful book and glimpse into the past. The true barbarians were by no means the Picts, the Celts, or the Druids, but the Romans and their Christianity. So much deleted and wiped away from history, a sad echoing of human history.
August 20, 2015
My biggest issue with this book is the author's soft spot for prehistory. While it makes him a values source for anything BC, once the time line hits 500 AD, he sabotages himself with outdated categorization and phrasing. By still using "The Dark Ages" as a time period, Moffat brings into question his credibility. By admitting that most of his peers have long moved past using this phrase, he destroys any semblance of trust one might have built while reading.
Combined with some pretty severely internalized misogyny (any time he mentions a woman or women, it is usually framed with a demeaning or superfluous remark), Moffat drags down his well-researched and accessible study. As a Scottish historian and a woman, I wanted this book to be a great source. What I got was a war and my own very angry marginalia.
Combined with some pretty severely internalized misogyny (any time he mentions a woman or women, it is usually framed with a demeaning or superfluous remark), Moffat drags down his well-researched and accessible study. As a Scottish historian and a woman, I wanted this book to be a great source. What I got was a war and my own very angry marginalia.
May 30, 2013
I read this straight after "Inside the Neolithic Mind" and it came as a welcome relief from that book's many frustrations. The timespan covered by the book could have made it very clinical, especially since so little is actually _known_ about the start of the period, but references to surviving ethnic peoples and some amusing little asides about daily life make it a pleasure to read. Particularly refreshing was the author's lack of assigning every single archeological find to some ancient religious significance - something that I have found all too common in this area - and when he speculates about something, he makes it quite clear than this is the case. The book is packed full of information and I am certain to return to it again in the future.
November 22, 2013
I love Scotland and after visiting it I wanted to learn more about its past. "Before Scotland" sounded just like the book that covered all that I wanted to know since I'm mainly interested in early history. And I was not dissapointed.
I very much like Alistair Moffat's writing style and the way he brings what happened way back then to todays readers attention. He's a storyteller, able to paint the past's picture.
A well researched history book that I've reread more than once and will certainly do so in the future.
I very much like Alistair Moffat's writing style and the way he brings what happened way back then to todays readers attention. He's a storyteller, able to paint the past's picture.
A well researched history book that I've reread more than once and will certainly do so in the future.
October 13, 2011
Moffat at his best. This book is evocative, informative and entertaining all the way through. His style is easy to digest without coming off as condescending. As the book ends around the time the most solid historical records begin, much is educated speculation, but you'll come away from it with a great sense of the people, culture, and landscape of Scotland. I've read it twice already, and know I'll return to it again.
June 9, 2012
Not an easy read, but this is a thoroughly fascinating history of the ancient early inhabitants of the area that would become Scotland. Even more interesting is the DNA evidence that shows that the majority of indigenous British people have this same DNA as these ancient people and that many of their customs and place names have endured to the present.
December 28, 2018
I learned a lot and enjoyed the book, but it did assume I know about Scotland geography, place locations and general history. Google close at hand helped me work out of confusion several times.
November 29, 2025
This is a fascinating exploration of Scotland's prehistory. It wasn't a fast read for me, but it's the first book of this time frame that I have managed to read, so it must be doing something right. I enjoyed the broad look at other prehistoric cultures to extrapolate potential ways in which the peoples in Scotland may have lived, giving a bit more narrative to a time for which there is so little evidence. New archaeological discoveries are still being made, making study of this time somewhat less vague. I liked the structure of the book, with the passages giving extra information being well placed so as not to interrupt the overall narrative too much. There is a *lot* of information covered over a considerable period, so there is a lot to absorb, but overall, I think it's well done.
September 29, 2019
This was a fascinating book. Moffat covered 6 or more thousand years of what it took for Scotland come into being. Now I'm not a Scotland native, so it was a challenge to follow all the Celtic, Gaelic, Anglo/Saxon and Roman names, but I was able to follow the concepts and got the gist of it. One of my biggest takeaways was just how advanced the people in Scotland were 4000 years ago with their language, commerce, community and trade. I will be keeping this book as a reference for future trips to Scotland and for researching my Scottish genealogy.
October 29, 2017
Got this book after seeing Alistair Moffat make an entertaining appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival a few years ago. Moffat's account of 'Scotland before history' is interesting and intriguing, drawing attention to the place names, people and artefacts that are routinely overlooked in most historical records. There is a distinct 'what did the Romans ever do for us' tone to some of the book, which is quite a refreshing perspective.
August 13, 2018
An interesting book that seems to be more for UK audiences, as places were often casually referred to. Could use more maps. It's not a scholarly book, and is sometimes rambling. But Moffat does provide sources at the end so you can check up on his research. I didn't always trust what he was saying to be scholarly consensus, but I was happy to learn *something* about a part of history I know nothing about.
April 17, 2024
Fascinating. The usual histories deal with the period before written history in a few vague paragraphs. This whole book is about that period and it brings it to life in a vivid and convincing way reminding us that those ancient peoples were really not so different from us. One thing I didn't like though were the endless little text boxes on specific topics. This is a silly affectation for a serious and well written book and a real distraction.
April 6, 2022
This was a highly engaging, informative read. So many interesting little anecdotes. and a respectful, even-handed approach to the subject. An impressive amount of research went into this book. Highly recommended, even for a more casual reader.
May 19, 2023
Excellent prehistory of a region that I'd never read about before. It often dovetails with a TV series I saw on BritBox about this time. The writing is very accessible, with humor, pictures, and several text boxes with interesting asides about various historical aspects of the time period.
September 29, 2024
I know barely anything about pre Scottish history and this was absolutely captivating to read. Really loved it, I feel like I learned so much and have a new appreciation for the locations around me.
Worth reading if you're in the same boat as I was.
Worth reading if you're in the same boat as I was.
March 16, 2019
Excellent history of Scotland before Scotland.
July 25, 2020
Very easy to read and lots of information. Gives a good understanding of the dynamics among the people in prehistoric Britain and how this eventually became Scotland.
April 16, 2021
An excellent account of the land and peoples we know today as Scotland covering the period from ancient prehistory to the end of the Pictish and Stathclyde Kingdoms just before 1000AD.
October 9, 2023
Mostly an interesting read but the author REALLY over-stretches the idea of using Indigenous North American cultures as a rough proxy for prehistoric Britain.
December 9, 2025
loved this book - so interesting!
January 3, 2013
This book was precisely what it set out to be. A well-documented book about prehistoric scottish history. That didn't stop me from losing interest, however. I got about halfway through before I gave up. I just wasn't interested anymore; it felt very repetitive. But it's well written, so don't take this as a warning against it, I just lost interest in the topic.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews