Lewis and Harris form the northernmost island of the Outer Hebrides, but there the similarity ends. Lewis is, for the most part, fairly flat and treeless with enormous peat bogs and literally thousands of lochs. About 100 villages are scattered over Lewis, more like spread out communities rather than villages due to their crofting way of life and human life has been here for over 5000 years. The standing stones at Callanish bear witness to an old civilisation here on Lewis and there are Iron Age forts and other archaeological sites all over the island. Although the island may appear very boggy and peaty, this was not always the case for 1,500 years ago the island was quite fertile, probably warmer and with less rain! These people were Celts and they had a hard time defending themselves from other Celt raiders , thus many fortifications were built , many duns and brochs. These were days before the Vikings arrived in the early 800s AD and stayed until 1263 when King Ha ... < more >