Bronze Age

With the advances that metal brought better weapons came and with this more warfare and the need to defend.

Brochs

In the Bronze Age period Brochs started to appear – around 1,000 BC. Protected from sea attacks. This was long before Vikings. This one we photographed on Shetland. This is The Broch of Mousa and is the best-preserved broch — still almost intact. Even centuries, after it ceased to function as designed, the Icelandic sagas say it was used on two occasions as a refuge for runaway lovers during Viking times.

Broch

There are still traces of some 500 brochs in Scotland today. Brochs are incorrectly also called ‘Pictish Towers’, but the Picts came later, they were not the original builders of the Brochs.

Bronze Balls

Carved stone balls like these (above) are another ubiquitous feature of Bronze Age Scottish sites, but to this day archaeologists have no idea what these were used for.