Scottish Cultural Overview

The Scottish are the people of Scotland, a nation of northern Great Britain and member state of the United Kingdom.

Geography

Scotland covers the northern third of Great Britain, the largest of the British Isles off the coast of Europe. Southern plains and forested valleys, known as the Lowlands, lead north into the craggy and mountainous Highlands. Much of its Atlantic coastline is punctuated by fjords. The nation possesses abundant fresh- and saltwater lochs as well as numerous rivers running to the North Sea. Scotland sees a colder, snowier climate than the rest of the British Isles. Much of its Highlands region is still sparsely inhabited, a sanctuary for both aquatic and terrestrial life. To the far north, the Flow Country is home to the largest area of blanket bog in Europe.

• Climate: Temperate

• Capital: Edinburgh

• Total Population: 5,400,000 (2018 est.)

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History

Scotland’s history is closely tied to that of the wider British Isles. Its original inhabitants likely arrived via a land bridge from Europe about 9,000 years ago. They lived as hunters and gathers until around 4,000 BCE, when agriculture reached their lands. A new influx of migrating Celtic peoples reached what is now Scotland circa 400 BCE. They mixed with indigenous peoples and resisted Roman invasion, forming close connections with similar cultures in Ireland. Alongside the Germanic Angles, they formed the kingdoms of Dal Riata, Strathclyde, Bernicia, and Pictland. Like the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to their south, they gradually unified in response to Viking invasions and the later Kingdom of England.

During the Middle Ages, much of Scottish history revolved around its relationship with England. Progressing from early invasions to an uneasy truce, the two royal lines began to intermarry. This led to an uneasy rivalry in the Tudor era, when Catholic Queen Mary Stuart found herself locked in a decades-long rivalry with her cousin, the Anglican Queen Elizabeth. While Mary was eventually beheaded on Elizabeth’s orders, her son James inherited both thrones after Elizabeth’s death. The Stuarts oversaw a turbulent period in British history, when the question of Catholicism and Protestantism remained unsettled. After a disastrous civil war, the last Stuart monarch was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. This prompted a series of Scottish rebellions known as the Jacobite Uprisings.

In 1707, the crowns of England and Scotland united. After centuries of relative rural poverty, Scotland experienced an industrial boom in the late 1700s and 1800s. This led to a golden age in literature, philosophy, and the sciences, as well as a wide-reaching Scottish diaspora.

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Daily Life

The traditional lifestyles of Scotland primarily revolved around fishing and farming. Commoners ate little red meat, instead growing crops like oats, barley, turnips, cabbages, and later potatoes as well as livestock such as cattle, sheep, and pigs. They also pulled salmon and eels out of rivers and foraged for wild plants and shellfish. Their homes varied by culture, time, and place. In ancient times, families might live in lake-island crannogs, stone towers, or wicker roundhouses. Over time, the thatched cottage grew more common. Clothing was similarly regional; while urbanites tended to follow the trends of Europe, rural Highlanders developed what is now the national outfit of Scotland: the famous tartan kilt and mantle of men and similarly patterned earasaid dress for women. Today, Scottish people lead lives much like those of their counterparts across Europe.

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Society

During the medieval era, Scottish society organized along feudal lines. The Kingdoms of Alba and later Scotland formed through a unification of Picts, Gaels, Anglians, and Britons, who were increasingly influenced by their English neighbors. The Lowlands in particular adopted a feudal model of noble estates, castles, and burgh cities. The Highlands, meanwhile, practiced a more clan-based system; extended families vied for control of territories, often leading to longstanding feuds. The two regions coexisted in relative peace until the Protestant Reformation, when they split along mainly Catholic and Protestant lines. The Jacobite Uprisings saw much of the Highlands depopulated, their displaced people pushed to the outskirts of Scottish society.

As Scotland industrialized, its population began to diverge between wealthy city-dwellers and the rural poor. This pushed many to emigrate. Modern Scottish society has developed in part based on its history as well as the contributions of its many immigrants.

• Major Languages: English, Scots, Scottish Gaelic

• Urban Population: 83.4% (2018 est., United Kingdom total)

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Economy

Scotland’s economy remained mostly rural until the 18th or 19th century. Its subsistence economies ranged from sedentary agriculture to livestock herding, fishing, hunting, and gathering. Urbanization began in the 11th and 12th centuries, when rulers like King David I chartered royal burghs. These towns acted as trading hubs in Scotland, controlled by wealthy nobles, merchants, or clergymen. Among them were the modern cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Stirling. Following its unification with England, Scotland entered an industrial boom. Its factories processed imported colonial goods, while its mines extracted vast quantities of iron and coal. The manufacturing industry was sustained through the two World Wars but has dropped off since. More recently, its major industries have shifted to oil and gas, finance, service, technology, and tourism.

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Beliefs

Like the rest of the British Isles, the story of religion in Scotland is one of Catholic conversion from earlier polytheism, followed by the turbulent split of the Reformation. Christian missionaries such as Columba first entered the region around the 6th century CE. They founded a strong monastic culture closely tied to that of Ireland, centered on island monasteries such as Kells. With the exception of some Highland clans, much of Scotland adopted Protestantism enthusiastically, particularly the Presbyterian branch. This caused conflict with the Anglican Church founded by English King Henry VIII. By the 17th century, King Charles I’s attempt to impose Anglicanism on the Scottish public would play a major role in the British Civil Wars.

Modern Scotland is a religiously diverse nation and has given rise to a number of prominent philosophers. Today, the majority of the country claims to be non-religious.

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Arts & Music

Some of the oldest surviving art of Scotland are the carved stones left behind by its Celtic inhabitants and earlier indigenous peoples. Perhaps the most famous of these are the Pictish stones raised by their enigmatic namesakes. Like other Insular Celtic cultures, their work is characterized by spiral patterns. Later, with the adoption of Christianity, these stones transformed into the Celtic Crosses seen more wildly across the islands. This influenced the styles of neighboring monasteries, which produced illuminated manuscripts and metal objects all characterized by the same interlacing patterns.

In the early modern era, Scotland came to be associated with musical instruments like the Great Highland Bagpipes and fiddle. It was also known for a strong literary tradition, producing writers like Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Today, Scottish artists pursue any number of subjects across all media.

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**References

**Foyster, Elizabeth ed.

History of Everyday Life in Scotland, 1600 to 1800

. Edinburgh University Press. 2010.

Hill, Roland. Scotland: Land of Lochs and Glens. I.B. Tauris. 2002.

Lang, Andrew. A Short History of Scotland. Dodd, Mead, and Co. 1912.

Oliver, Neil. A History of Scotland. Orion Publishing Group. 2009.

Sanderson, William. Scottish Life and Character. MacMillan Co. 1904.

“The World Factbook: United Kingdom.” Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 4 June 2018, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html.

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