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7500 years ago, immigrants were still walking into the region across what was to become the bed of the southern North Sea (Doggerland) and the English Channel. The sea levels were to rise a further 3 metres over a few hundred years soon afterwards, inundating mesolithic settlements off the coast of southern England and the Isle of Man. This was caused by a relatively small pulse of ice melt-water. In the previous 7000 years there had been two step changes in sea-level, each with a magnitude of the order of 20m, as the planet re-adjusted from the weight of massive ice sheets, and the resulting flow of meltwater into the seas. Following this third sea-level rise, we were collection of islands, and the sea was to figure more strongly in our cultures.

The western Celts probably arrived by sea and colonised Hibernia, the isle of Man and western Scotland. As anyone who has read Sellers and Yeatman will know, the “Scots” originated from Ireland. (It is likely that these folk never called themselves “Scots”, but were named by the Romans as “outsiders” or “raiders”). Meanwhile, the Gaels came in from central Europe and ended up in Wales, Cumbria and, possibly, Galloway. They spoke a form of gaelic that is now called brythonic, as distinct from the goldelic languages of their western cousins. The Romans wrote about them living in the Borders and Lothians.