Throughout history, the Scots, far more than any other people are noted for their practice of tossing odd objects about -- anything from hammers to tree trunks. In fact it is the practice of throwing hammers and tree trunks that probably best explains why archaeologists have found so few completed buildings from 12th and 13th century Scotland. With such a tradition of tossing and hurling, it is not surprising that it is primarily in Scotland that the flinging of cats enjoyed the greatest popularity and underwent its greatest development. It has been postulated, in fact, that the popularity of cat flinging was deliberately created in order to save the failing medieval Scottish housing industry.