Paskal | 21 Nov 2018 12:39 a.m. PST |
Hello everyone, The Picts were they Celts ? Paskal |
advocate | 21 Nov 2018 1:04 a.m. PST |
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Darrell B D Day | 21 Nov 2018 2:48 a.m. PST |
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Yellow Admiral | 21 Nov 2018 2:49 a.m. PST |
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parrskool | 21 Nov 2018 3:00 a.m. PST |
……………. so. take your Pict, then. |
Earl of the North | 21 Nov 2018 4:27 a.m. PST |
We are here all week, try the veal. |
Wackmole9 | 21 Nov 2018 5:53 a.m. PST |
I don't know maybe we can ask them? |
Tired Mammal | 21 Nov 2018 5:57 a.m. PST |
As I believe that the current view is that Celts were just a group of people who lived in an area with similar technology rather than an ethnic group with a distinct gene pool then the answer is probably "sort off". I don't have the details to hand but the classification of Celtic is probably fairly recent (a few hundred years). TH Romans after all just used the term for the hairy ones in North Italy and everyone they met heading through France. Certainly the individual tribes or "nations" would not have felt much common heritage. (except dislike of Romans but not their money) |
GamesPoet | 21 Nov 2018 6:46 a.m. PST |
Some of us will be away for Thanksgiving. |
miniMo | 21 Nov 2018 6:52 a.m. PST |
Celtic is a language group, and a very broad branch of the Indo-European language tree at that. Pictish was originally thought to be a separate language, but by the time of the Roman conquest it was likely a branch of the Brittonic language and may have influenced the development of Scottish Gaelic. However, there is scant hard evidence, most coming from studying place names in Pictish areas. Current scholarly vote is they are probably Celtic. Keltoi is a Greek word for "Others". Just to confuse matters, Barbaroi were the over-civilised and soft Persians and Egyptians!
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robert piepenbrink | 21 Nov 2018 7:35 a.m. PST |
Yes, almost certainly. We have approximately zero evidence of language or genetic differences with people living to their immediate west and south. Some of the art is interesting though. Sometimes I look at the "Pictish Beast" and wonder whether somewhere somehow, someone influential had seen an elephant. I like Robert E. Howard as much as the next man--usually more so--but I don't think lowland Scots came from Atlantis, either. |
Aethelflaeda was framed | 21 Nov 2018 9:00 a.m. PST |
I have heard the romantic description of Picts and Cruthnie as a relic aboriginal people who became the basis for the "little people" legends such as chauns and pookas, while the Celts were Milesian invaders who assimilated them. Most of a my studies point to them as yet another Celtic people. Artistically they shared much of the same motifs that continental Celts used but have some distinctly unique motifs that they did not share. |
darthfozzywig | 21 Nov 2018 10:00 a.m. PST |
LOL parrskool, well played. |
Paskal | 21 Nov 2018 10:05 a.m. PST |
Probably not, very different origins they were probably the last of the native peoples of the continent. The Pictish culture was very different to Celto germanic tribes. little gold no metals, still using flint arrow heads, poisoned. Evolved very quickly and disappeared / absorbed by the Celtic Scotti. I'll have to re-read THE AGE OF ARTHUR by John Morris |
bruntonboy | 21 Nov 2018 12:42 p.m. PST |
I'm not sure re-reading John Morris' book is very relevant today. He isn't considered very reliable anymore. Plenty of more recent works by Clarkson/Laing/McHardy et al will give a review of the question- even if not give a definitive answer. My understanding is that the usual current view is that the Picts were Brythonic speakers and similar enough to other "celts" to intermarry and eventually amalgamate with the Scots.They certainly appear to be politically able to have more common ground with their immediate neighbours than the Anglians. But really the debate is probably a never ending one and the answer will change over time as new interpretations become fashionable or fade from popularity.recent archelogical evidence points to their being no less advanced than other contemporaneity groups in north Britain. |
Cerdic | 21 Nov 2018 4:09 p.m. PST |
But Paskal, the Picts using less metal is not necessarily a cultural thing. It is probably an environmental/economic thing. Picts probably lacked the wealth and resources of other Celtic peoples because of where they lived. Have you been to Northern Scotland? It's a harsh, desolate environment at the arse-end of nowhere! Very difficult place to make a living in a world of subsistence farming, let alone produce enough surplus for gold or fancy iron arrowheads… |
Aethelflaeda was framed | 21 Nov 2018 5:11 p.m. PST |
Not the arse end of nowhere. Really quite the center if you are a sailing culture. Cold maybe and lacking in resources but close to a lot of places by ship. |
jhancock | 21 Nov 2018 6:44 p.m. PST |
I guess we know even less about the Caledonians?! |
Paskal | 21 Nov 2018 9:33 p.m. PST |
So, were they Celts or not? Brythonic Celts? bruntonboy what are the works written by Clarkson / Laing / McHardy about which you speak? Yes jhancock we know even less about the Caledonians, after Septime Severe slaughtered them for three years, they were so weak that the Picts could absorb them … But they were certainly different from their Picts contemporaries. Certainly closer to the ancient Brittons than to the Picts, but with some differences to what it seems. |
Yellow Admiral | 21 Nov 2018 11:52 p.m. PST |
I like Robert E. Howard as much as the next man--usually more so--but I don't think lowland Scots came from Atlantis, either. Heretic! You're off the gift list! |
advocate | 22 Nov 2018 12:32 a.m. PST |
In Neolithic times it was arguably the centre of everything, having a massive temple complex earlier than Stonehenge. But poisoned flint arrowheads? Who suggested that? As far as I know, the iron age reached everywhere in the British Isles. |
bruntonboy | 22 Nov 2018 2:34 a.m. PST |
Paskal. The Picts: A History. Tim Clarkson 2008 A New History of the Picts. Stuart McHardy 2010 The Picts and the Scots. Lloyd Laing and Jennifer Laing 2001 In Search Of The Picts: A Celtic Dark Age People. Elizabeth Surherland 1995 Lots of stuff online if you look too. For example. link link link Regards, Graham |
Paskal | 22 Nov 2018 11:58 a.m. PST |
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Cerdic | 22 Nov 2018 12:59 p.m. PST |
Aethelflaeda was framed – Fair point! You'll have to forgive my slight exaggeration for emphasis… |
Yellow Admiral | 22 Nov 2018 4:13 p.m. PST |
Also keep in mind that Scotland was more forested before the early modern era. Not as much of it was "barren" as now. The current extent of forestation has apparently not fallen much since Elizabethan times, but before that there were larger forests the farther back in time you go. In the era of the Picts, there probably would have still been forests covering lowlands useful for agriculture and herding. - Ix |
aynsley683 | 23 Nov 2018 5:38 a.m. PST |
Personally I found Stuart McHardy's book on the Picts a basic regurragation of others with nothing new, with his main point being the Picts didn't disappear at all but were just assimilated into the nation of Scotland, which I think is one we all knew already. |
Paskal | 23 Nov 2018 9:14 a.m. PST |
Moreover, the Insular Bretons (whom an abusive and anachronistic Anglicism would like to designate under the name of Britons, an English term stemming from the Latin Brito and which means similarly) who, before the sixth century, lived in the island of Britain and who are the direct ancestors of the Bretons of Brittany without forgetting their northern neighbors the Caledonians painted also their bodies in blue as the Picts did, but the Picts did it until when? From south to north of the actual uk, Insular Bretons, Caledonians, Picts all had the same custom of painting their bodies in blue, would not they be Picts, Celts? (Some Gallic also Celts also had the same custom to paint their body in blue, but not so late as it seems …). |
Dagwood | 23 Nov 2018 9:35 a.m. PST |
Place name evidence suggests that the Picts spoke a Brythonic language, similar to what became Welsh. That's why there are so many Abers, Bens and Dees … |
Paskal | 24 Nov 2018 9:41 a.m. PST |
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Damion | 24 Nov 2018 3:08 p.m. PST |
Pict is a Roman term for the people north of Anthony's wall. The Irish Cruithne appears to reference them but the word is essentially the Irish version of Brython. [my theory] Picts became a distinct people in the eyes of Romano-Britons after a couple centuries of Roman rule made them stand out culturally from their more Romanised neighbours. It's possible they were always different but there were a couple of broad cultural regions in Britain. You had the Romano-Britons south of Hadrian's wall, the free Britons between the walls who came under occasional Roman rule, and the unspoiled Britons north of the Forth who were the least, if any, Romanised. It's the later group that are called Picts. I believe they were called Picts because they were the most foreign to Roman eyes. Still wondering why this old myth about Picts having no iron is still banging around. I keep coming across people who think they were stuck in the bronze age or earlier. |
kodiakblair | 24 Nov 2018 7:31 p.m. PST |
Don't put too much faith in Caesar and tattooed Britons,he also said camels lived under bushes in Germany. Woad or glastum isn't a native plant in Britain,it was Medieval period before the textile industry warranted widespread growing of it. While a seed pod was found in an Iron Age pit in Lincolnshire the next find was on an Anglo Saxon pot. Woad is also a lousy pigment for tattooing. I saw a claim that "Picti" came from the Northern British habit of painting their boats,a sort of sea camo. Can't remember offhand where I read it,hope it wasn't in a WRG book :-) Flint arrows is nonsense thanks to REH. Flint axeheads are called "Celts" which probably fired REH's imagination, fired it enough he thought there was evidence for Stone Age Picts. |
Paskal | 25 Nov 2018 5:59 a.m. PST |
In any case it seems that the further north you go, the further you get from Rome, the less the Celts are "evolved" and "civilized" in quotation marks – Gauls – Bretons (that we call today the Insular Bretons, whom an abusive and anachronistic Anglicism would like to designate under the name of Britons, an English term stemming from the Latin Brito and which means similarly and who, before the sixth century, lived in the island of Brittania,the Latin name of Great Britain and who are the direct ancestors of the actual Bretons of Brittany),Caledonians and Picts & Scots. |
kodiakblair | 25 Nov 2018 2:46 p.m. PST |
You can take the terms "Briton" and "British" with a pinch of salt too. Pytheas is quoted as using "Bretanike" and "Prettanike" for the British Isles. Most of the "Bretanike" quotes date from after Caesar,by which time Greek spelling had been altered to suit Roman tastes. Pritani is a Celtic word and lives on in modern Welsh. Ynys Pyrdain is Welsh for the British Isles |
Paskal | 27 Nov 2018 12:38 a.m. PST |
kodiakblair, they are not "Briton" or "British" but Bretons, you've already heard about Bretons? They come from the current great britain …. |
Paskal | 30 Nov 2018 5:07 a.m. PST |
Kodiakblair, The Bretons come from present-day British Cornwall, present-day Devon and present-day southern Wales. |
kodiakblair | 30 Nov 2018 9:59 a.m. PST |
Paskal I know where the Bretons hail from. My surname should give you a hint where my interest lies. |
Paskal | 01 Dec 2018 12:18 a.m. PST |
Yes, but there are many British people with non-Celtic origins, like the English, who forget it, but obviously not Scots like you … |