Hadrian's Wall is often given the brunt of the blame for the division of Ancient Britain, but newly published archaeological research shows that the divide of Scotland and England was already underway before the Romans arrived, culturally speaking.
     This has been proven through an array of brochs, duns, crannogs and souterrains, which are found widely throughout Scotland but have not been proven in northern England or further south. "The underlying implication of the settlement distribution patterns is that Iron Age societies across Scotland were open to the building and occupation of brochs, crannogs, duns and souterrains but that Iron Age societies further south were not," said GUARD Archaeologist Ronan Toolis, who conducted the research. "This was the result of cultural choices taken by households and communities, not environmental constraints, and suggests that Iron Age societies north and south of the Tweed-Solway zone were perceptibly dissimilar."
     This archaeological division is interesting because it proves that much of the division happened long before the arrival of the romans between the 4th and 2nd centuries. Apart from this, Dr. Toolis notes that the differences in culture follow the Anglo-Scottish border rather than Hadrian's Wall, which is believed to have been placed from a strategic standpoint rather than as a tool of division. This is even further underlined by the late 'adoption' of Roman culture in the 5th century CE by the Scots.
     "This only occurred when Iron Age society in Scotland had become hierarchical," said Dr Toolis. "The evidence implies that far from being passive participants in acculturation, it was only with their active participation and likely at their own instigation and on their own terms, that communities in Scotland truly adopted aspects of Roman culture."
     The archaeological evidence suggests then that the construction of Hadrian's Wall was not caused by the cultural difference, but rather the effect of these cultural differences between the peoples of the two regions. This division continued well into the medieval period where the separate trajectories led to the formation of the two kingdoms, independent of Hadrian's Wall.

Edited from GUARD Archaeology (7 December 2021)