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Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba [ˈal̪ˠapə]) is a country [1] [2] that occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain and forms part of the United Kingdom. [1] The name of Scotland is derived from the Latin Scoti, the term applied to Gaels.
People lived in Scotland for at least 8,500 years before Britain's recorded history. At times during the last interglacial period (130,000–70,000 BC) Europe had a climate warmer than today's, and early humans may have made their way to Scotland, with the possible discovery of pre- Ice Age axes on Orkney and mainland Scotland. [ 5 ]
From the 5th century on, north Britain was divided into a series of petty kingdoms. Of these, the four most important were those of the Picts in the north-east, the Scots of Dál Riata in the west, the Britons of Strathclyde in the south-west and the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia (which united with Deira to form Northumbria in 653) in the south-east, stretching into modern northern England.
Very little is known about religion in Scotland before the arrival of Christianity. The lack of native written sources among the Picts means that it can only be judged from parallels elsewhere, occasional surviving archaeological evidence and hostile accounts of later Christian writers. It is generally presumed to have resembled Celtic polytheism.
Scotland had been inhabited for thousands of years before the Romans arrived. However, it is only during the Greco-Roman period that Scotland is recorded in writing. The work On the Cosmos by Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle mentions two "very large" islands called Albion ( Great Britain ) and Ierne ( Ireland ).
Scotland (Scots: Scotland; Scottish Gaelic: Alba) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom.It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjacent islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles.
—Pseudo-Aristotle, On the Universe, 393b Pliny the Elder, in the fourth book of his Natural History likewise calls Great Britain Albion. He begins his chapter on the British Isles as follows, after describing the Rhine delta: Ex adverso huius situs Britannia insula clara Graecis nostrisque monimentis inter septentrionem et occidentem iacet, Germaniae, Galliae, Hispaniae, multo maximis ...
Political centres in Scotland in the early Middle Ages. The Kingdom of Alba (Latin: Scotia; Scottish Gaelic: Alba) was the Kingdom of Scotland between the deaths of Donald II in 900 and of Alexander III in 1286. The latter's death led indirectly to an invasion of Scotland by Edward I of England in 1296 and the First War of Scottish Independence.