Wind power in Scotland at 10 MW full power 38% of the time (3300 hours per year). In January 2010 contracts were awarded for a major expansion of offshore wind power in the seas around Scotland. Moray Offshore Renewables will develop offshore wind power in the Moray Firth, and SeaGreen Wind Energy will develop offshore wind in the Firth of Forth. These developments could lead to 1,000 new wind turbines generating nearly 5,000 MW of power. Jobs "could also be created in manufacturing, research, engineering, installation, operation and services". In July 2016, RSPB challenged development in the Firth of Forth and Firth of Tay.
Agriculture in prehistoric Scotland of Britain, and only after the ice retreated did Scotland again become habitable, around 9600 BCE. Mesolithic hunter-gatherer encampments formed the first known settlements, and archaeologists have dated an encampment near Biggar to around 8500 BCE. Numerous other sites found around Scotland build up a picture of highly mobile boat-using people making tools from bone, stone and antlers. The oldest house for which there is evidence in Britain is the oval structure of wooden posts found at South Queensferry near the Firth of Forth, dating from the Mesolithic period, about 8240 BCE. From the Neolithic period, beginning around 6,000 years