User:Angusmclellan/scottish people

This is an attempt to rewrite the article from scratch.

Definitions

• The Scots are people living in Scotland. See Scottish Identity Today, Scottish national identity.
• The Scots are the descendants of Scots. This definition may be less commonly accepted in Scotland, but it is used regularly outwith Scotland. See Scottish Diaspora.
• Scot is not used as a synonym for Irish or Gael; the inhabitants of Dál Riata are thus Gaels.
• Scotland is a geographical expression. Unless qualified, Scotland means the geographical extent of present-day Scotland, the northern part of the island of Great Britain.

The Peopling of Scotland

The resettlement of Scotland after the last Ice Age began around 10,000 years ago, but recorded history did not begin until Classical Antiquity, 8,000 years later, with the conquest of Britannia by the Roman Empire in the 1st century.

In the millennia between the first settlers and the Romans there were a great many changes as can be seen in the archaeological record of Prehistoric Scotland. Forests were cleared on a large scale from the Neolithic onwards, so that the landscape of Scotland by the time of the Bronze Age may well have been similar to that of the Middle Ages. It is a matter of conjecture to whether changes in material culture seen in the record are an artefact of significant migration or not. Attempts to study the history of human population in the Britain and Ireland using genetic techniques have, to date, thrown very little light on migrations in prehistoric times. Insofar as any conclusion can be drawn from archaeology and genetics, it would appear to be the case that Scotland drew influences and migrants from Atlantic Europe as well as from Northern and Western Europe, while unique features, such as Iron Age brochs, show the importance of local developments.

Roman history adds but little to our knowledge of Scotland. Caledonia lay outwith the Roman Empire. It is not until the mis-named Dark Ages, after Rome, that the historical record, in the form of Irish, Welsh and Anglo-Saxon chronicles and hagiography, becomes more detailed.

In the 8th century, the Venerable Bede recorded that Scotland was inhabited by four peoples:

• North of the Forth and Clyde were the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts.
• South of the Forth and Clyde were the Britons of Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia or Northumbria which had conquered Lothian and Galloway.

These were quite similar groups, and the divisions between them were ephemeral political ones, rather than linguistic or ethnic ones. It is certain that Northumbria was created from a number of minor kingdoms which retained distinct identities over centuries, Dál Riata was composed of multiple kindreds, traces of which may exist in much later periods, and it is likely that Pictish kingship was not unitary.

From the 9th century and the Viking Age comes the first large-scale migration to Scotland of which we can be certain, that of the pagan Vikings. The evidence of place-names ((onomastics) and modern studies of genetics agree with the historical record; all three show that Norse settlers had a great influence in the Northern Isles and a sizable one in Galloway, the Hebrides, Caithness and Sutherland.

Further emigrants arrived in Scotland from England, France and Flanders in the High Middle Ages. The first such know are the of Anglo-Saxon exiles, including future queen and saint Margaret, who arrived as refugees from England after the Norman Conquest. From the time of David I,

• The Burghs: English, Flemings and Frenchmen
• The Nobles: same same

Modern:

• Irish
• English
• Italians
• Poles and DPs
• South Asians and Chinese
• Contemporary

The Scots Diaspora

Intro, Scotland exports people !

Emigration to 1707

Que d’Escossois, de rats, de poux,

Ceux qui voyagent jus qu’au bout

Du monde, en rencontrent partout. (Anonymous^[1])

Rats, lice and Scotsmen, you find them the whole world over.

• Scandinavia, Baltic
• Poland
• France
• Low Countries
• Ulster Plantations

Emigration after 1707

"But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!" Samuel Johnson^[2]

• England
• The Americas
• The Antipodes
• The Highland Clearances
• The Lowland Clearances
• C20th Emigration
• Modern Emigration (or combine with C20th)

Scottish Identity Today

"Importance of Markers of Scottishness: 1997^[3]"

%	Birth	Residency	Ancestry
Very Important	52.4	30.2	38.9
Fairly Important	30.6	36.8	36.6
Not Very Important	12.2	23.4	18.6
Not at all Important	3.5	8.3	4.6
Don’t Know/NA	1.3	1.4	1.3

Refers:

• British_Nationality_Act_1981
• History of British nationality law
• "How English am I ?" Etext (pdf)
• "OSI Report - Muslims in the UK (Overview)" Etext (pdf)
• Weber, "Scottish, English, British, European Identities: A Literature Review" Etext (pdf)
• Nations and Regions Research Programme, Public Opinion Summary

Scots You Never Thought Were Scots

• Byron and ?

Self-Identified Scots Today

Scots

[[Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg -->|300px]]
Regions with significant populations
Self-Identified Scots United States:    4,900,000 Scots [4] United States:    4,300,000 Scotch-Irish [5] Canada:    4,157,210 [6] Australia:    540,046 [7] New Zealand:    no figures on Stats NZ ? South Africa:    to check Where else ?

Notes

1. ^ Heath, Anthony, Roger Jowell & John Curtice (1997), British General Election Survey, Colchester: UK Data Archive, theoretically accessible on the ESDS site.
2. ^ F. Michel, Les Ecossais en France. Les Français en Ecosse. (1857)
3. ^ Wikiquote
4. ^ The US Census 2000
5. ^ Australian Census 2001
6. ^ Canadian Census 2001