Prehistoric art in Scotland is visual art created or found within the modern borders of Scotland, before the departure of the Romans from southern and central Britain in the early fifth century CE, which is usually seen as the beginning of the early historic or Medieval era. There is no clear definition of prehistoric art among scholars and objects that may involve creativity often lack a context that would allow them to be understood.

The earliest examples of portable art from what is now Scotland are highly decorated carved stone balls from the Neolithic period, which share patterns with Irish and Scottish stone carvings. Other items from this period include elaborate carved maceheads and figurines from Links of Noltland, including the Westray Wife, which is the earliest known depiction of a human face from Scotland.

From the Bronze Age there are examples of carvings, including the first representations of objects, and cup and ring marks. Representations of an axe and a boat at the Ri Cruin Cairn in Kilmartin, and a boat pecked into Wemyss Cave, are probably the oldest two-dimensional representations of real objects that survive in Scotland. Elaborate carved stone battle-axes may be symbolic representations of power. Surviving metalwork includes gold lunula or neckplates, jet beaded necklaces and elaborate weaponry, such as leaf swords and ceremonial shields of sheet bronze.

From the Iron Age there are more extensive examples of patterned objects and gold work. Evidence of the wider La Tène culture includes the Torrs Pony-cap and Horns. The Stirling torcs demonstrate common styles found in Scotland and Ireland and continental workmanship. One of the most impressive items from this period is the boar's head fragment of the Deskford carnyx. From the first century CE, as Rome carried out a series of occupations, there are Roman artifacts like the Cramond Lioness and Roman influence on material culture can be seen in local stone carvings.

Definitions and meanings

The ability to study prehistoric art is dependent on surviving artifacts. Art created in mediums such as sand, bark, hides and textiles has not normally endured, while less-perishable materials, such as rock, stone, bone, ivory (and to a lesser extent wood), later pottery and metal, are more likely to be extant. Whether all these artifacts can be defined as works of art is contested between scholars. Alexander Marshack argued that the earliest, non-representational incisions on rock mark the beginnings of human art. More cautiously, Paul Mellars suggests that the relative rarity of these works means they cannot be seen as integral to early human society and evidence of an artistic culture.G. Berghaus, "The discovery and study of prehistoric art", in G. Berghaus, ed., New Perspectives on Prehistoric Art (London: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004), , pp. 1–2.

Colin Renfrew has pointed out the dangers of applying modern values of art to past societies and cultures.R. Bradley, Image and Audience: Rethinking Prehistoric Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), , p. 4. Günter Berghaus argues that these works have often been approached with a set of post-Renaissance aesthetic values that distinguish between artists and craftsman and art and artifact, although these categories are not universal and may be inappropriate for understanding prehistoric society.G. Berghaus, "The discovery and study of prehistoric art", p. 5. Duncan Garrow has pointed to the difficulties of the modern distinction drawn between form and decoration. The emphasis in studies of prehistoric art tend to be placed on decoration in objects such as ceramics and ignores the importance of form, found in objects such as weapons.N. Sharples, "Comment I. Contextualising Iron Age art", in D. Garrow, ed., Rethinking Celtic Art (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2008), , p. 206.

Many meanings have been suggested for the advent and nature of prehistoric art. It may have helped develop human solidarity in its early stages. Open air rock art may have acted as signposts for the route of animal migrations. Cave art may have had a ritual role in rites of initiation, vision quests or totemic ceremonies. Portable objects may have acted as notation systems and anthropomorphic figures may have had a role in religious rituals. However, most artifacts can only be understood in their context, which is often lost or poorly understood.G. Berghaus, "The discovery and study of prehistoric art", p. 7.

Stone Age

Scotland was occupied by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from around 8500 BCE, who were highly mobile boat-using people making tools from bone, stone and antlers.P. J. Ashmore, Neolithic and Bronze Age Scotland: an Authoritative and Lively Account of an Enigmatic Period of Scottish Prehistory (London: Batsford, 2003), , p. 46. Neolithic farming brought permanent settlements, like the stone house at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray, dating from around 3500 BCE.I. Maxwell, "A History of Scotland’s Masonry Construction" in P. Wilson, ed., Building with Scottish Stone (Edinburgh: Arcamedia, 2005), , p. 19. The settlers also introduced chambered cairn tombs, as at Maeshowe,F. Somerset Fry and P. Somerset Fry, The History of Scotland (London: Routledge, 1992), , p. 7. and the many standing stones and circles such as those at Stenness on the mainland of Orkney, which dates from about 3100 BCE,C. Wickham-Jones, Orkney: A Historical Guide (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2007), , p. 28. and similar stones to which are found across Europe from about the same time.F. Lynch, Megalithic Tombs and Long Barrows in Britain (Bodley: Osprey, 1997), , p. 9.

There is no surviving art from the Mesolithic period in Scotland, probably because the mobile peoples of the period would have made this on perishable organic items.G. Warren, Mesolithic Lives in Scotland (Tempus, 2005), p. 16. Probably the oldest surviving portable visual art from Scotland are carved stone balls, or petrospheres, that date from the late Neolithic era. They are a uniquely Scottish phenomenon, with over 425 known examples. Most are from modern Aberdeenshire,"Carved stone ball found at Towie, Aberdeenshire", National Museums of Scotland, retrieved 14 May 2012. but a handful of examples are known from Iona, Skye, Harris, Uist, Lewis, Arran, Hawick, Wigtownshire and fifteen from Orkney, five of which were found at the Neolithic village of Skara Brae.D. N. Marshall, "Carved Stone Balls", Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 108 (1976/77), pp. 62–3. Many functions have been suggested for these objects, most indicating that they were prestigious and powerful possessions. Their production may have continued into the Iron Age.J. Neil, G. Ritchie and A. Ritchie, Scotland, Archaeology and Early History, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2nd end., 1991), , p. 46. The complex carved circles and spirals on these balls can be seen mirrored in the carving on what was probably a lintel from a chambered cairn at Pierowall on Westray, Orkney, which seem to be part of the same culture that produced carvings at Newgrange in Ireland.M. MacDonald, Scottish Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 2000), , pp. 10–11. Similarly, elaborately carved maceheads are often found in burial sites, like that found at Airdens in Sutherland, which has a pattern of interlocking diamond-shaped facets, similar to those found across Neolithic Britain and Europe.

Pottery appeared in the Neolithic period once hunters and gatherers transitioned to a sedentary lifestyle, until then they needed to use lightweight, mobile containers.P. G. Bahn, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), , p. 100. Finely made and decorated Unstan ware, survives from the fourth and third millennia BCE and is named after the Unstan Chambered Cairn on the Mainland of the Orkney Islands.A. Ritchie, "The First Settlers", in C. Renfrew, ed., The Prehistory of Orkney BC 4000–1000 AD (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1985), , p. 48. Typical are elegant and distinctive shallow bowls with a band of grooved patterning below the rim,A. Henshall, "The Chambered Cairns", in C. Renfrew, ed., The Prehistory of Orkney BC 4000–1000 AD (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1985), . p. 88. using a technique known as "stab-and-drag". A second variation consists of undecorated, round-bottomed bowls.L. Laing, Orkney and Shetland: An Archaeological Guide (Newton Abbott: David and Charles Ltd, 1974), , p. 51. Unstan ware is mostly found in tombs, specifically tombs of the Orkney-Cromarty type,Henshall, "The Chambered Cairns", p. 110. that include the so-called Tomb of the Eagles at Isbister on South Ronaldsay, and Taversoe Tuick and Midhowe on Rousay, but has occasionally been found outside of tombs, as at the farmstead of Knap of Howar on Papa Westray.A. Ritchie, Prehistoric Orkney (London: B.T. Batsford Ltd, 1995), , pp. 52 and 54. There are scattered occurrences of Unstan ware on the Scottish Mainland, as at Balbridie,N. Reynolds, and I. Ralston, Balbridie, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1979 (Edinburgh: Council for British Archaeology: Scottish Regional Group, 1979). and in the Western Isles, as at Eilean Domhnuill.A. Henshall, The Chambered Tombs of Scotland Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 1979), p. 177. Unstan ware may have evolved into the later grooved ware style,D. V. Clarke, "Rinyo and the Orcadian Neolithic", in A. O'Connor and D. V. Clarke, eds, From the Stone Age to the 'Forty Five: Studies presented to R. B. K. Stevenson (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1983), , pp. 49–51. associated with the builders of the Maeshowe class of chambered tomb, which began on Orkney early in the third millennium BCE, and was soon adopted throughout Britain and Ireland.J. W. Hedges, Tomb of the Eagles: Death and Life in a Stone Age Tribe (New York: New Amsterdam, 1985), , pp. 118–119. Grooved ware vessels are often highly decorated and flat bottomed, often with patterns similar to those on petrospheres and carved maceheads.G. Noble, Neolithic Scotland: Timber, Stone, Earth and Fire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), , p. 19.

In 2009 the Westray Wife, a lozenge-shaped figurine that is believed to be the earliest representation of a human face found in Scotland, was discovered at the site of a Neolithic village at Links of Noltland near Grobust Bay on the north coast of Westray. The figurine's face has two dots for eyes, heavy brows and an oblong nose and a pattern of hatches on the body could represent clothing. Two figurines were subsequently found at the site in 2010 and 2012.

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age began in Scotland about 2000 BCE as new techniques of metalworking began to reach northern Britain. The creation of cairns and Megalithic monuments continued.C. Scarre, Monuments and Landscape in Atlantic Europe: Perception and Society during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (New York: Routledge, 2002), , p. 125. There was probably a fall in population in this period.A. Moffat, Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History (London. Thames & Hudson, 2005), , p. 154. There is evidence of cellular round houses of stone in ShetlandB. Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain: An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC until the Roman Conquest (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004), , p. 60. and wooden crannogs, roundhouses partially or entirely built on artificial islands.N. Dixon The Crannogs of Scotland: An Underwater Archaeology (Stroud: Tempus, 2004), . As elsewhere in Europe, hill forts were first introduced in this period.A. Moffat, Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005), , p. 182.