PREHISTORIC MAN ON THE ROCK
The Rock on which Edinburgh castle stands was formed 70million years ago, during the period of violent volcanic activity In the series of ice age that followed, mighty glaciers ground away the softer stone. Leaving behind the hard basalt core of the rock. The debris was left as a sloping tail down which the Royal Mile runs today.
The first people to see the rock were probably the hunters who appeared in the region nine thousand years ago. Recent archaeological excavation here in the castle have uncovered evidence that Bronze-Age was living on the rock as long as 850 B.C..
Two thousand years ago, during the Iron Age, the rock was a busy hill fort settlement of the Votadini tribe. In the first century A.D., the tribesmen and women watch from these heights as the Roman Legion march by on their way to do battle in the highlands.
A.D.600
King Mynyddog and his War-Band Feast in Din-Eidyn
In about A.D. 600, three hundred men gathered around their King Mynyddog, in his stronghold of Din-Eidyn. This is the first mention of the place which we call "Edinburgh".
The War-Band were mainly from the local tribes, the Gododdin, part of the ancient Celtic population of Britain. The descendant of Votadinni. They were preparing to attack the Angles, recent heater invaders from Europe.
The taper-lit hall the War-Band pledged themselves in strong drink to die for their King. An almost all did die, on a raid into the territories of the Angles, Catterick in Yorkshire.
Shortly after A.D. 638 then Eidyn was besieged and taken by the Angles in the place seems then to have received the English name which it has kept ever since "Edinburgh".
