Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History

There is still a tendency today to regard history as `the story of man's progress from prehistoric savagery to modern sophistication', and yet the people who lived in Scotland 10,000 years ago would have acted and thought in similar ways to us. So argues Alexander Moffat in the introduction to his fascinating and very easy to read survey of Scotland's environment and the people who affected it from the end of the Ice Age to AD 900 when the term `Alba' was created. The study clearly guides us through the formation of Scotland's dramatic landscape and the arrival of the first hunter-gatherer-fisher settlers, tempted by the warming climate. Moffat presents the archaeological evidence for the first buildings, boats, and artefacts but he also looks beneath the surface to consider how human needs, sensibilities and beliefs shaped these remains, such as the layout of a house and the construction of the earliest stone monuments in Britain. Throughout, side panels present Moffat's reflections and digressions on a whole range of topics, such as examples of modern echoes of ancient behaviour, catastrophes, the age of the earth, Himalayan prawns, the creation of a perfect henge circle and Native Americans. This is a good book that cannot fail to convey to the general reader the author's expert enthusiasm for Scotland's past.