8200–500 BC Earliest Times

ABERDEEN AND ITS hinterland have been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. Recent excavations at Crathes, west of Aberdeen, revealed remains of what is believed to be the world’s earliest calendar, created over several hundred years, starting in 8200 BC.

The first people who settled the area lived on the banks of the Rivers Dee and Don, which flow into the North Sea at Aberdeen. The area was covered by dense forest and so rivers and riverbanks were important for travel, the prehistoric equivalent of our roads and railways today. These early Mesolithic settlers would have used them to travel across the area with the seasons in their hunt for food. They ate what the land and water provided: ripe plants, berries and shellfish and they hunted wild animals and fish with their primitive weapons of flint and wood. Archaeologists have found pieces of flint and charcoal from this period near the River Dee at Crathes as well as traces of holes for wooden posts. These show that the Mesolithic people cleared areas of forest where they built settlements of small round huts.

Over the next 2,000 years farming gradually developed and spread across Europe. The new settlers who arrived on the banks of the Dee and Don about 6,000 years ago brought seeds to plant wheat and barley crops, as well as domestic animals.

These Neolithic, or New Stone Age, people also brought more advanced building techniques. In the 1970s, aerial photographs showed outlines in a field at Balbridie on the south bank of the Dee between Aberdeen and Crathes. Excavations provided exciting results – the foundations of a huge timber building more than 24 metres long and 13 metres wide, which would have had a roof 8.5 metres high. Inside, it had been divided by partitions providing communal living space for a family group and a grain storage barn, where thousands of grains of emmer wheat and barley were found. Though the first of its type to be excavated in Britain, the foundations were similar to those found previously in Central Europe and provided the first clue to the origins of these early farmers.

These New Stone Age people also left their mark around Aberdeen in the form of burial monuments. They lived in extended family groups and their dead were buried together in large communal chambers or tombs, which were used for long periods before finally being sealed. Some were rectangular or wedge-shaped and sealed with earth and turf, which was scraped up rather than dug up, and are called Long Barrows today. Others, known as Long Cairns, were sealed by covering them with piles of boulders to form a cairn, although some are now overgrown with turf. Some were built on hilltops, easily seen from the surrounding countryside or from the sea. Others were built on lower-lying terraces by the rivers. All are huge – up to 80 metres long, 28 metres wide and 2.5 metres high. Over a period of about 2,000 years, some were altered and extended. Long Barrows and Long Cairns can still be seen in many locations in and around Aberdeen.

Full-scale reconstruction of a Burial Kist by Dr Sue MacLaughlin-Black. (Photo taken with kind permission of the Grassic Gibbon Centre, Arbuthnott)

Towards the end of this period, about 4,500–5,000 years ago, ritual ceremonies were held in circular meeting places called Henges. These were level areas encircled by ditches with an outer bank of earth and were reached by a single, easily defended access or causeway through the bank and over the ditch. Today, we can only guess at the nature and meaning of the rituals held within these Henges.

The Beaker People, given that name because of their beaker-style pottery, came to north east Scotland about 4,500 years ago from what is now the Netherlands. Their dead were buried in individual graves with the corpse laid on its side with its legs drawn up. The grave was therefore quite small, only about 1 metre long. These are called Short Cists or Kists and were sometimes covered by a round cairn of stones – several of these can still be seen today in and around Aberdeen. Some Short Cists contain urns with cremated human remains. Also buried with these bodies were their distinctive pottery beakers and sometimes copper and bronze tools. However, it was the descendants of the Beaker People who really developed metal working skills, first in bronze and later in iron. This made tools and weapons much more efficient and gave rise to the Bronze and Iron Ages.

Around 4,000 years ago, the early Bronze Age people were responsible for constructing a large number of stone circles in north east Scotland. About a tenth of all the stone circles in Britain today are to be found in this area. Although those found here are relatively small, around 15 to 20 metres across, building them would have taken a huge amount of time and manpower. Stones were quarried and shaped with stone tools and moving each stone, even over flat ground, would have needed rollers underneath and two men for each tonne the stone weighed – some were around 24 tonnes! As most of these circles were set on high ground, many men would have been needed to manoeuvre the stones uphill and into position. Some would push, while others would move the rollers from the back to the front, so that the forward and upward momentum could be maintained.

WERE THE STONE CIRCLES PLACES OF SACRIFICE?

Why were these circles built? Were they used for rituals relating to death, ancestor worship or rites linked to the sun and the moon? Even within recent living memory, many people believed they were places of sacrifice where animals and perhaps even virgins were killed as an offering! It is certainly easy to imagine this when looking at the huge, altar-like recumbent slabs. However, today all have a peaceful unthreatening atmosphere and, as the sun and moon rise behind the recumbent at particular times of year, probably they were no more than a primitive form of calendar.

Stone circles found in and around Aberdeen are different from those elsewhere in Britain, for they have a flat-topped ‘recumbent’ stone, usually on the south west side. The upright stones were set in a circle, sometimes a flattened circle, and graded by height, with the tallest two on either side of a huge block laid on its side – the recumbent stone. Many circles were built around earlier burial sites, with small burial cairns and cremated remains at their centre.

Around 2,500 years ago, metalworking skills developed from bronze to iron, giving the name to this period – the Iron Age. Settlements were built behind defences for the first time, possibly because of the influx of people fleeing from the invading Romans. These defences were usually timber fences called palisades, banks and ditches or stone walls. Natural defensive features were also used and many settlements were built on hilltops or coastal promontories. Some, called Crannogs, were built on manmade islands in lochs. Ironworking skills also allowed the development of more effective weapons, including swords for slashing enemies from a high vantage point, such as the top of a wall or perhaps even from horseback.