Northwest Europe, Britain, 05A SCOTLAND (Caledonia), Scottish Islands, Northern Isles, Shetland:  Islands and Main Towns; Megalithic Monuments, etc. (4320-100 BC)

Islands and Main Towns

Megalithic Monuments, etc (BC)

Earlier dwellings were built using timber and turf but the later Bronze Age is typified by stone-based circular huts (the building of which continued into the Iron Age), clearance cairns, field systems, burial cairns, cists and standing stones. 

From around 500 BC Celts from mainland Europe brought Iron Age skills to the islands and built Atlantic roundhouses (brochs, duns and wheelhouses), crannogs and souterrains similar to those found in many other parts of Scotland.

Starting in the third century AD the Scoti tribe of Dál Riata completed their colonization of western Scotland (Inner Hebrides and Argyll) in the late fifth century. To the north of the Dál Riata, the islands were nominally under the Picts at this time although the historical record is vague at this time.

The first written records came with St Columba (521-597), who came from Ireland in 563 and exiled himself to Iona.