Well, what can I say? I started this thread and got a fairly definitive answer from the editor in the first post. The rest has been utterly fascinating and I don't think it could have happened anywhere else but the Mudcat.

I was a chemist originally and have a simplistic understanding of knowledge and truth. I am unconvinced by strong assertions about people, culture and history based in very little evidence. I shared on office with a historian who felt the same way. We came to the conclusion that most accademic study works the same way. Evidence is gathered, hypothesies are constructed and tested and so on..... This strategy works well for most things except, unsurprisingly, religion, where people seem to say and think all sorts of things.

But back to the pipes.

One of the areas that has not been drawn upon, please forgive me if I missed this, is design and technology. Uillean pipes like Nothumbrian small pipes, concertinas etc. cannot be made without a fair degree of engeneering skill and accurate, sophisticated materials, design and technology. This makes these instruments post-industrial revolution.

Do we have any historians of science and technology who could chip in a bit of basic knowledge and understanding to re-assure a simple chemist?