Reconsidering Scotland's Past

reply to post by Flavian


Yes something crucial.

Britain at the time although not recorded as such may have represented a real threat to Rome. Cesar wrote that his invasion flotilla was attacked by the British navy. Larger masted ships that set high out of the water. Doesn't sound like a bunch of barbarians really.

Logarock
Doesn't sound like a bunch of barbarians really.

That's what I was saying earlier in the thread - being a "barbarian" didn't mean primitive, it merely was saying you weren't Latin/Hellenic and supposedly was a reference to the way they spoke.

Most "barbarian" societies, including the Celts, were actually quite advanced and in some area's, such as metalwork, it could be argued more advanced than the Romans.

reply to post by stumason


Agreed absolutely. I would go further and say it was a slur, deliberate propaganda to demean the peoples.

Here's something you just reminded me about:

Archaeologists have identified the earliest use of steel in the British Isles from a site in East Lothian.

They now believe artifacts recovered from the site of the Broxmouth Iron Age hill fort were made from high-carbon steel.

This would have been deliberately heated and quenched in water, indicating "sophisticated blacksmithing skills".

The steel objects were manufactured in the years 490-375BC.

Because of their condition, it has not been possible to say definitively if the objects were tools, weapons, or served some other purpose.

Full article at BBC

reply to post by Logarock


Yes, archaeologists have confirmed that:

“The civilisation in Shetland at the time was Pictish, and had boats. There is also good evidence that they had sails: there is a model boat from Ireland that dates from about 100 BC that has a mast, which could be a model for Celtic boats more generally.”

“There is not so much evidence of sails in Norway until as late as 700 AD. It is therefore more likely that these early Faroese settlers came from the British Isles.”

Source

Good points you raise, Logarock.
What, I wonder, did the Romans want so badly?

reply to post by beansidhe

I am thoroughly enjoying your thread & the education I am receiving.
I am fascinated to learn more about Scottish history, my family history (N Scotland)
& the people. S & F for you!

I will visit some day & wish it would have been this year. The World Sheepdog Finals
will be held in Ross-shire Scotland 3-6 Sept 2014.

Cheers
Ektar

stumason

Logarock
Doesn't sound like a bunch of barbarians really.

That's what I was saying earlier in the thread - being a "barbarian" didn't mean primitive, it merely was saying you weren't Latin/Hellenic and supposedly was a reference to the way they spoke.

Most "barbarian" societies, including the Celts, were actually quite advanced and in some area's, such as metalwork, it could be argued more advanced than the Romans.

Well we must know that the inhabitants of Ireland and Britain were very early on acquainted with the most modern ship designs going back to the Phoenicians. Considering the roots of the Irish Royal lines coming out of Iberia and the Mediterranean they were certainly accustomed to what constituted a fine sailing vessel from the beginning. History has it that the Irish Kings ruled Britain and territory in Scandinavia and well that couldn't be done without the finest sailing vessels.

I would say that early on the Brits were a well developed and traveled culture in all things. Certainly by the time of the Romans.

reply to post by Logarock


Actually,
The Phoenicians were johnny come latelys on the British isle.
The iberians were there looking for tin , then the Minoans cut out the Iberian middle men, to be followed by the Myceneans, then came the phonecians following Minoan trade routes.
And don't forget that cattle from Britain turn up in north Africa by 6000bc, the only way that could happen is by large sailing vessels.

Ektar
reply to post by beansidhe

 

I am thoroughly enjoying your thread & the education I am receiving.
I am fascinated to learn more about Scottish history, my family history (N Scotland)
& the people. S & F for you!

I will visit some day & wish it would have been this year. The World Sheepdog Finals
will be held in Ross-shire Scotland 3-6 Sept 2014.

Cheers
Ektar

edit on 2312014 by Ektar because: removed extra letter

Thank you, Ektar. You could very easily have Pictish blood in your veins.
Ross-shire is a beautiful part of the world; my maternal family is from Sutherland, I know Ross-shire a bit, but mostly just to travel through.



Hope you make it home someday soon.

B x

punkinworks10
reply to post by Logarock

 

Actually,
The Phoenicians were johnny come latelys on the British isle.
The iberians were there looking for tin , then the Minoans cut out the Iberian middle men, to be followed by the Myceneans, then came the phonecians following Minoan trade routes.
And don't forget that cattle from Britain turn up in north Africa by 6000bc, the only way that could happen is by large sailing vessels.

You have probably seen where Egyptian jewelry was dug up around an ancient Cornwall tin mine settlement? I cant recall the location but remember seeing museum photos of the find. But yea, tin and copper were driving ships and traders all over the world during the bronze age.

reply to post by beansidhe


I have a question for you. If the Picts are considered of some sort of mysterious whereabouts why did the Irish complain about Picts being sent to Northern Ireland to work the English plantations? That's fairly recent history and they seemed to know who the Picts were.

Irish tradition tells us that both the Scots and Irish are one and the same people, Scythians who traveled into Egypt were somehow connected with the Israelite and were kicked out of Egypt for helping them escape, fled to Spain, stayed there for a bit before traveling to Scotland and later moving to Ireland. The leader of their clan Mil was married to the princess, the daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh (very possibly one of Akhenaten's children). Princess Scota (from which Scotland gets its name) arrived with a fleet of ships from Egypt.

This is why King tuts DNA has a close match with Scots and Irish




Scota's grave in Ireland:

reply to post by Logarock


Hi Logarock
My contention at the start of this thread was that the Picts were neither a separate tribe who came from the around the Black Sea in around 3AD, nor did they succumb to the Scots of Dal Riada. Instead, using McHardy's work as a structure, I'm wondering if they were in fact the indigenous people of the north of Britain, who have left neolithic monuments such as Maes Howe in Orkney.
In recent times they have been known as Picts - the Irish would almost certainly have known them - but my current understanding is a) they were not a separate tribe and b) they never left Scotland.
It is the name Pict itself which has coloured Scottish history and led us to think of these people in a certain way. It is my contention that the name Pict could have simply been a misheard approximation of the word Pecht (ancestor).

So in terms of your question, yes the Irish would know of the people, but to what extent did they know their history?

I always felt that the people living in the coldest climates had to be very clever, strong, aggressive. Those who stayed in Africa did not have an altered gene pool in a warm temperate climate. Those who walked North had those with the dumb genes die off. The weak also died off from disease, starvation, danger, other tribe aggressions. Those who were the strongest of will left Scotland in the early 1700s and came to America. They didn't want to be Catholic or give up their guns to a monarchy. My family were such people. I am Irish, Scottish, British, Danish and German. These people hacked their way through the unknown wilderness of this country. The strongest smartest and those who get along well while being aggressive survive in any place on the Earth.

reply to post by beansidhe

Hi Bean yes I very well may have Pict in my blood.
I forgot to mention we are Urquhart. Funny how I gave up a prominent
career in music to compete in Sheepdog Herding which comes from the
borders of Wales & Scotland. At least the herding came later so I was
able to do both.

Cheers
Ektar

reply to post by punkinworks10

And don't forget that cattle from Britain turn up in north Africa by 6000bc, the only way that could happen is by large sailing vessels.

Hi punkinworks, thanks for coming by.
6000 bc is around the same time that cattle were thought to have been domesticated. Are you saying that not only did the people in Britain begin to farm cattle at that time, they were also capable of ferrying herds to Africa? That is a really staggering proposition.

beansidhe

reply to post by punkinworks10

 

And don't forget that cattle from Britain turn up in north Africa by 6000bc, the only way that could happen is by large sailing vessels.

Hi punkinworks, thanks for coming by.
6000 bc is around the same time that cattle were thought to have been domesticated. Are you saying that not only did the people in Britain begin to farm cattle at that time, they were also capable of ferrying herds to Africa? That is a really staggering proposition.

It is a staggering proposal, but all of the islands of the med were colonized by that time, and people brought cattle, sheep, goats and pigs with them.
I wish I could relocate the article I read that in, but haven't been able to. Some ancient cattle in north Africa were a mix of Anatolian domestic cattle and wild aurochs from Britain. It's in this same time period that cheese making shows up in north Africa as well.
By the time the henges were built Britain had a thriving cattle industry, as evidenced by the truely impressive numbers of cattle remains found near stonehenge.

frugal
Those who were the strongest of will left Scotland in the early 1700s and came to America. They didn't want to be Catholic or give up their guns to a monarchy. My family were such people. I am Irish, Scottish, British, Danish and German.

edit on 24-1-2014 by frugal because: sp

Hi frugal,
On my mothers, mothers side I'm Scott's Irish , English, and Ukrainian German on my mothers fathers side.
There is a book entitled "The Westering Man" about the early nineteenth century explorer/mountain man Joseph Walker. Walker was the first white man to view Yosemite valley as he explored calaifornia in the 1820's. There are many land marks that bear his name, Walker lake in Nevada,, walker pass in the southern sierras, a road called Walkers grade that follows his trail into the san Joaquin valley from the Sierra.
Anyway his family were Scotts Irish, and the first part of the book covers the families history.
They were originally highlanders, that were forcibly resettled into an inhospitable area near the Welsh /Scottish border. Then after cromwells genocide in Ireland they were again forcibly resettled to Ireland. They then came to America in the mid eighteenth century. They then moved to the most remote wilderness in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
There is humorous anecdote in the book, when they first settled in the wilderness, they survived on "pioneer sandwiches" which consisted of a piece of wild turkey breast between to pieces of bear meat. It was so fatty that only whisky would wash away

reply to post by punkinworks10


Hi

I can't find anything about that either but I don't really know what I'm looking for. On the plus side, I now know an incredible amount about why parmesan cheese is made to remove the maximum amount of lactose. So not all bad news.

In one of those weird, round about ways that seems to happen to me on ATS, I stumbled across this:

New research carried out on an ancient site that was excavated by the National Trust for Scotland in 2004 has revealed that it contained a sophisticated calendar system that is approximately 10,000 years old, making it the oldest calendar ever discovered in the world.

The site – at Warren Field, Crathes, Aberdeenshire – contains a 50 metre long row of twelve pits which were created by Stone Age Britons and which were in use from around 8000 BC (the early Mesolithic period) to around 4,000 BC (the early Neolithic). The recent analysis on the site, which was carried out by a team of scientists from the University of Birmingham, used specially designed software to explore the relationship between the pits, the topography and the movements of the moon and sun.

Surprisingly, the results revealed that the pits appear to represent the months of the year as well as the lunar phases of the moon making this remarkable ancient site 5,000 years older that the oldest known calendar from Bronze Age Mesopotamia. But this is no primitive or simplistic calendar. The pits were formed in a complex arc design in which each lunar month was divided into three roughly ten day weeks – representing the waxing moon, the full moon and the waning moon. It also allowed the observation of the mid-winter sunrise so that the lunar calendar could be recalibrated each year to bring it back in line with the solar year. The entire arc represents a whole year and may also reflect the movements of the moon across the size.

Full article



The article was written last summer. This proves nothing about cattle, but it does tell us that in 8000 bc, the people in Scotland, and presumably the whole of Britain, were far more advanced than previously thought. Is it such a stretch to think that 2000 years later these people were moving cattle to other lands? Well, no, not now.
I'm so glad you dropped in!

Here is a very recent Irish ballad that refers to the Picts at 1:48.

reply to post by Logarock


He's a passionate man. I think he says 'anglo-pigs and scotties' rather than picts, but I could be wrong. Whatever it is, it's meant to be derogatory. I don't really want to get into this, since it's worth a thread on it's own, but I think he's referring to Bloody Sunday in Derry when the British army shot civilian protestors, in the 1970's.

Interesting if he does say Picts, because that would be a great example of the term being used as a slur, in modern times.