Tribes and clans

Long before we had kings and queens or towns and counties, the land was dotted with settlements and hill forts where families, tribes and clans marked out their territory and defended themselves against neighbours and raiders.

Hill Fort locations around the Forth

I obtained these locations from a new on-line Atlas of Hill Forts where you can zoom in and out, and click on each location for more information. {Lock, G. and Ralston, I. 2017. Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. [Online] Available at https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk}

For many centuries, there was no concept of a single united nation. The land was populated by individual tribes with their own territories. They traded with their neighbours and further afield. Things changed as the Roman republic spread across Europe conquering lands as provinces of the republic and bringing the notion of centralized authority.