Ancient Lives provides new perspectives on objects, people and place in early Scotland and beyond.This scholarly and accessible volume provides a show-case of new information and new perspectives on material culture linked, but not limited to, Scotland.

12 papers from specialists covering a wide array of time periods and subject areas, this volume explores the links between identity and nationhood throughout the history of Scotland from the prehistory of northern Britain to the more recent heralding of Scottish identity as a multi-ethnic construction and the possibility of Scottish independence.

Based on lectures given at the Conference of the British Summer School of Archaeology at Edinburgh in 1954, this book, published in 1962, surveys the general field of pre-historic Scotland, five archaeologists each contributing chapters discussing the main aspects and problems that have presented themselves in specialised research areas. From the first peopling of the area by human communities with hunting and food-gathering economies, to field antiquities and the introduction of copper and bronze metallurgy and on to the first settlement by Celtic speakers and the links to the first historically documented Scotland. Contributors: R.J.C. Atkinson, G.E. Daniel, T.G.E. Powell and C.A.R. Radford.

This edited volume explores how (what is today) Scotland can be compared with, contrasted to, or was connected with other parts of Early Medieval Europe. Far from a 'dark age', Early Medieval Scotland (AD 300-900) was a crucible of different languages and cultures, the world of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Anglo-Saxons. Though long regarded as somehow peripheral to continental Europe, people in Early Medieval Scotland had mastered complex technologies and were part of sophisticated intellectual networks.This cross-disciplinary volume includes contributions focussing on archaeology, artefacts, art-history and history, and considers themes that connect Scotland with key processes and phenomena happening elsewhere in Europe. Topics explored include the transition from Iron Age to Early Medieval societies and the development of secular power centres, the Early Medieval intervention in prehistoric landscapes, and the management of resources necessary to build kingdoms.

This book argues that while Anglo-Saxon culture has given rise to virtually no myths at all, myth has played a central role in the historical development of Scottish identity. Hugh Trevor-Roper explores three myths across 400 years of Scottish history: the political myth of the "ancient constitution" of Scotland; the literary myth, including Walter Scott as well as Ossian and ancient poetry; and the sartorial myth of tartan and the kilt, invented--ironically, by Englishmen--in quite modern times. Trevor-Roper reveals myth as an often deliberate cultural construction used to enshrine a people's identity. While his treatment of Scottish myth is highly critical, indeed debunking, he shows how the ritualization and domestication of Scotland's myths as local color diverted the Scottish intelligentsia from the path that led German intellectuals to a dangerous myth of racial supremacy. This compelling manuscript was left unpublished on Trevor-Roper's death in 2003 and is now made available for the first time. Written with characteristic elegance, lucidity, and wit, and containing defiant and challenging opinions, it will absorb and provoke Scottish readers while intriguing many others. "I believe that the whole history of Scotland has been coloured by myth; and that myth, in Scotland, is never driven out by reality, or by reason, but lingers on until another myth has been discovered, or elaborated, to replace it."-Hugh Trevor-Roper