It is believed
that Vikings came to Orkney late in the 8th century. It is not known whether Vikings came
as "landtakers", dispossessing indigenous peoples, or whether Viking farmers
settled peacefully among the natives of Orkney or some of both. According to Scandinavian
historical sources, the Orkney islands were either deserted at the time of the earliest
Norse settlement or their inhabitants were slaughtered. Very few Celtic place names
survive, lending weight to this picture of desertion or wholesale genocide. But by the end
of the 9th century, the colonisation of Orkney had been so successful that it had become a
Norwegian earldom. The very strength of this Norse settlement would ensure that in time the
pre-Norse names would disappear, and we simply do not know how quickly that happened. We
have no written records left by the ordinary people who lived in areas that were taken
over by the Vikings. . In any case, it appears that the Norse immigrants soon assumed
dominance over any communities there. There is no way that we can tell for certain what
happened, but we can use the evidence of artefacts from excavations as clues.
Orkney, perhaps the first place to be colonised, is an ideal place to search. The original
people who were living in Orkney at the start of the Viking Age were Celtic-speakers. They
were known as Picts, and inhabited part of the Kingdom of the Picts which made up most of
mainland Scotland. The question of what happened to them is still hotly debated,
especially between historians, linguists and archaeologists. Orkney was never an
independent state in the Viking days.
