Scotland in the Early Middle Ages to be adopted for house building, often combining layers of stone with turf. Place-name evidence, particularly the use of the prefix "pit", meaning land or a field, suggests that the heaviest areas of Pictish settlement were in modern Fife, Perthshire, Angus, Aberdeen and around the Moray Firth, although later Gaelic migration may have erased some Pictish names from the record. Early Gaelic settlement appears to have been in the regions of the western mainland of Scotland between Cowal and Ardnamurchan, and the adjacent islands, later extending up the West coast in the 8th century. There is place name and archaeological
Mark Firth opened Firth College to teach arts and science subjects, which later became part of the University of Sheffield. Firth lends his name to the Firth Wing of the Northern General Hospital, and Firth Court of the University. He was a Methodist and a Liberal. On 16 November 1880 Firth was at his Norfolk Works when he suffered a stroke, and died 12 days later. He is buried in Sheffield General Cemetery on Cemetery Road, where his monument is Grade II listed. Firth was twice married and had twelve children. He first married Sarah Bingham Taylor (1818–1855) in Sheffield on 15