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This paper examines recent developments in the study of the historical geography of rural settlement in Scotland from early medieval times until the onset of improvement in the later eighteenth century. Advances in theoretical approaches and practical techniques are discussed, and the significance of recent landscape survey work is emphasised. The need to link such surveys with more detailed excavation of sites, the better use of surviving historical sources and more interdisciplinary research is urged.

While a good deal is known concerning the evolution of rural settlement patterns and characteristics in medieval and modern times for many parts of Europe, the basic frameworks for studying Scottish rural settlement during these periods are still unclear. This article considers aspects of pre‐improvement rural settlement in Scotland, reviewing some of the approaches which have been used in the past and suggesting some possible directions for future work in the light of recent research.

This article examines some of the problems of studying patterns of internal trading and the operation of periodic market centres in the context of seventeenth‐century Scotland. The changing distribution of periodic market centres throughout the century is discussed, and the difficulties of moving from a theoretical framework based on networks of authorised centres, towards the one which existed in practice, is examined by means of a case study from Perthshire.