Important Events In Hebridean History

The story of human occupation in the Islands starts with the arrival of hunter-gathers after the end of the last Ice Age, and progresses through the establishment of early farming in the Neolithic period, the remarkable development of the standing stones, the period of monumental stone building in the Iron Age, the arrival of Christianity and the Vikings, and the period of the Lordship of the Isles, until the time of the Clearances, and the creation of the crofting landscape.

The Interactive Explorer gives you a unique interactive way of exploring the islands' archaeological heritage, featuring an interactive timeline with important events placed within their historical context.

For those site visitors who are unable to access this feature of the site, the following list details all of the events featured.

Items marked with "with audio" have an associated audio interpretation for you to listen to; those with "with video" have an associated video to watch.

• Before People (9000 BC — 8000 BC)

  It is inevitable that early peoples were present in the Outer Hebrides in early prehistoric times, but all evidence of them has been swept away during successive Ice Ages, when ice sheets and glaciers scoured deep into the bedrock. The …
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• The Mesolithic Period (7001 BC — 4500 BC) with audio

  David Simon The last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago. The Islands emerged from under the ice, and began to take their modern pattern as the sea level slowly began to rise. Soon plants and trees began to colonise, and the …
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• Settlement at Langais (5000 BC)

  Sometime in the Mesolithic period, a small band of hunters and gatherers set up seasonal camp here on the slopes of Langais, on North Uist. They built shelters which left traces of small post-holes in the ground, and lit fires, the ashes …
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• The Neolithic Period (4499 BC — 2501 BC)

  David Simon Around 4,500 BC, far-reaching changes in lifestyle gradually began to take place. Agricultural practices - the raising of sheep and cattle and the growing of crops, especially early forms of wheat and barley - were added to the …
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• Neolithic Farmers (4400 BC) with audio

  We are farmers now. My father's people cleared some of the woods and bushes with these new shiny stone axes to make fields. That's where we graze our cattle and sheep. We have also learned how to plough the ground and grow wheat and …
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• Chambered Tomb (4300 BC)

  Neolithic peoples build a chambered tomb at Barpa Langais in North Uist. This remains the best preserved example of this type of construction, and this conjectural reconstruction shows an artist's representation of how it may have looked.
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• Neolithic Worship (4100 BC)

  That's our temple up on the hill there, but I don't know much about it. I go to ceremonies at the entrance with the rest of our clan, when the bones of one of our people go inside to join the spirits of the earth, after they have been …
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• Stone Voices (2500 BC)

  Here I stay, night after night, watching the skies. I know every star and every comet. I watch the sun as his chariot descends into the hills, and I mark how the darkness spreads across the heavens. Year after year I observe how the moon …
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• The Bronze Age (2500 BC — 801 BC)

  Beaker pot from Allt Easdal, Barra (Keith Branigan) There was no dramatic transition from the 'Stone Age' to the 'Bronze Age' in the Outer Hebrides. Life went on much as before, but slowly the way of life was evolving, and now and again …
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• Bronze Age Burial (1700 BC)

  Time Team artist Victor Ambrus's reconstructions of burials in a Bronze Age family cemetery at Allathasdal, Isle of Barra That's another child lost. It breaks my heart to think of her lying in that cold stone cist, with the remains of our …
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• Cladh Hallan (1100 BC)

  This remarkable site in the machair at Cladh Hallan in South Uist was excavated by archaeologists from the University of Sheffield. They revealed a group of roundhouses, built around 1100 BC, some of which continued in occupation for 900 …
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• Iron Age (800 BC — 400 AD)

  David Simon: Broch at Dun an Sticir, North Uist as it may have looked in the Iron Age.The roof, however, may have sat on the inner wallhead, leaving a parapet walkway around the top of the building. By 200 BC, a new range of monuments was …
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• Iron Age Wheelhouse (200 BC)

  I am helping my father build this wheelhouse. The family helps too, of course, and the others from the village, but we are the ones who know the language of stone. My father is the best stone master in the island. He chooses the stones …
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• The Picts and the Scots (402 AD — 800 AD) with audio

  The centuries between 400 and 800 AD are often referred to as 'the Pictish period'. This name describes the culture developed by the later Iron Age tribes of much of mainland Scotland, with its heartland in the east and north of Scotland. …
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• A Pictish Burial (600 AD) with audio

  David Simon Grandfather was a respected man. That's why we've given him this special grave. We're not like the old ones, who used to bury their people all bent double in small holes in the ground. First we built this fine square enclosure, …
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• Pictish Life (795 AD) with audio

  David Simon It is my job to mind the baby while the older ones work. The men are out on the shore, fishing for saithe while the boys gather bait. The women are up on the hill where the sheep are grazed, turning the peats. I have work to …
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• The Vikings and Norse Period (801 AD — 1266 AD) with audio

  Onund Wooden Leg, according to Norse sagasthe first Viking to visit Barra in 871, Copyright Victor Ambrus The year 795 is traditionally accepted as the point at which the Norsemen burst upon the European stage, with their raid on the …
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• Life in a Viking Longhouse (950 AD) with audio

  Artists impression of a Viking longhouse, by David Simon My husband and his men will be coming home soon for the harvest. I hope the voyage went well. If he got a good price for the fish and cloth, there will be feasting in the hall for …
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• Lordship of the Isles (1267 AD — 1493 AD)

  Keith Branigan In 1266 suzerainty of the Hebrides and Man passed from the Norwegian to the Scottish crown, confirmed in the Treaty of Perth in 1266. But despite the fact that the Islands could now be considered Scottish rather than …
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• Defending Dùn Èisdean (1490 AD)

  Last time I was here my father carried me across on his back, picking his way across the slippery boulders and up the rock on the other side. At the top he gave the word and we passed through a narrow gap into the fortress. I was scared …
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• Before and After the Clearances (1495 AD — 1900 AD) with audio

  The archaeology of more recent centuries in the Outer Hebrides differs from that of the preceding periods, in that remains of settlements and townships can be seen and visited throughout the islands. Settlement patterns varied from place to …
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• Life on North Rona (1500 AD) with audio

  This island is our whole world. This is where I was born, and where I will die. But I am never lonely here. As well as my family, there are four other families, nearly 30 people in all. We have everything we need here. We have sweet …
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• Clearance (1830 AD) with audio

  Sadness is all that we have left now. Cold is the hearth, with no one to tend it. Still is the quern, with no one to turn it. No cow left to be milked, no fleeces to be shorn and washed and dyed and spun and woven and fulled, and worn in …
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