This is the story of Scotland's very fine people. From about 8000BC to 4000BC migrant hunter gatherers were slowly moving north as the great ice sheets of the last Ice Age gradually melted. This represents the longest single period in Scotland's past. These peoples did not use metals, farm, or build great monuments, but their success in harvesting the resources available to them allowed them to flourish for thousand of years. The land they lived in was far different from the Scotland of today, great swathes of coastline were under water and much that is now sea was the land. Bill Finlayson weaves a story of the ways of life and beliefs of these people often unfairly caricatured as squat, grunting savages. They have left but few traces on the landscape - the great shell mounds of Oronsay, cave shelters, scattered stone tools and hearths - but these few traces represent the first sign the first sign of man in Scotland.