While it is often thought that Scottish history began with the Jacobites, there are thousands of much older historic sites and attractions in Scotland. These include Neolithic Standing stones and Stone Circles, Bronze Age settlements, Iron Age Brochs and Crannogs, Pictish stones, Roman forts and camps, Viking settlements, Mediaeval castles, and early Christian settlements. Scotland also played an important role in the development of the modern world, and there are many are industrial heritage sites and museums. A few of the best known are listed below:
Neolithic sites
- Scara Brae, Orkney
- Stones of Steness, Orkney
- Ring of Brodgar, Orkney
- Callanish, Lewis
- Corrimony, Glen Urquhart
- Croftmoraig, Perthshire
- Machrie Moor, Arran
- Groam House Museum, Black Isle, Highland
- Meigle Museum, Perthshire
- Dunfallandy Stone, Perthshire
- Antonine Wall, Scottish Lowlands
- Trimontium, Scottish Borders
- Castle Tioram, Moidart
- Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness
- Stirling Castle
- Edinburgh Castle
- Blair Castle, Perthshire
- Scone Palace, Perthshire
- Iona Abbey, Mull, Argyll
- Dunkeld Cathedral, Perthshire
- St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney
- Arbroath Abbey, Angus
- Fort Augustus Abbey
- Melrose Abbey, Scottish Borders
- Jedburgh Abbey, Scottish Borders
- Glasgow Cathedral
- Linlithgow Palace, Midlothian
- Traquair House, Scottish Borders
- Abbotsford House, Scottish Borders
- Palace of Holyrood, Edinburgh
- Wallace Monument, Stirling
- Stirling Bridge, 1297
- Bannockburn 1314
- Killiecrankie, 1689
- Glenfinnan, (Raising of Standard in 1745, see Jacobitism)
- Culloden, 1746
- Highland Folk Museum, Scottish Highlands
- Atholl Country Life Museum, Perthshire
- Georgian House, Edinburgh
- New Lanark, South Lanarkshire
- People's Palace, Glasgow
- Scotland Street School Museum, Glasgow
- Springburn Museum, Glasgow