Discovery of early medieval royal stronghold in southwest Scotland [ the Picts ]

Past Horizons ^ | Thursday, July 26, 2012 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Trusty's Hill, near Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway, is best known for the Pictish Symbols carved into a natural rock outcrop at the fort's entrance. However, in recent years, many historians have begun to doubt whether these carvings were genuine, some even suggesting that the carvings are forgeries...

As well as an abundance of domestic waste, including animal bones, stone and metal tools and a spindle whorl, from 'dark soil' occupation deposits sealed by the collapsed ramparts of the fort, the excavators recovered numerous crucible and clay mould fragments, metalworking debris and a variety of iron pins and a possible Anglo-Saxon disc brooch, indicating the production of high status jewellery within the site... E-ware pottery from a secure occupation context... not only dates to the late sixth or early seventh centuries AD, exactly the right time for when Pictish Symbols were being carved in Scotland, but as an import from Western France is associated with high status, often royal, sites in Atlantic Britain such as Dunadd, Dumbarton Rock and Whithorn...

The excavation also revealed that the stone ramparts were laced with large vertical oak posts and that each of these was purposely set alight and stoked to the point where the stone rubble packed around them began to vitrify. Given the substantial fuel, oxygen and time required to accomplish this, it is likely that this deliberate and spectacular destruction of the ramparts took many days, even weeks, to complete...

...a team of stone conservators from the Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation LLP undertook a laser scan survey of the Pictish Symbol Stone... to enable specialist examination of the detail of how the Pictish Carvings were made and the translation of an ogham inscription that has been previously noted along the edge of the carved stone

[Sherman Logan]

The Picts are generally believed to have been Celts, related to the Brythons of the southern island conquered by the Romans.

[commonguymd]

I feel like I am reading a bunch of run on sentences.

[blam]

"The Picts were a Celtic people, probably P-Celtic (like the Welsh and Cornish for example), and this is based on the surviving snippets of their language. "

Watch your P's and Q's.

Two different DNA studies did not find any difference between the Picts and other people in the region.
Genetically, they're basically the same people...differences were culturally and probably due to some period of relative isolation.

[SunkenCiv]

My apologies.

[commonguymd]

Just had to read it a few times. LOL. Interesting stuff.

[BenLurkin]

I ‘ve often wondered if the Sarmatian presence in Roman times was the reason for all the black haired Scots in history.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks blam!

[SunkenCiv]

It may have left a trail of DNA, but unlikely, given that Scotland is a maritime country, many ports, heh heh...

[Verginius Rufus]

Q-Celtic and P-Celtic are linguistic realities which do not depend on the DNA of the speakers. The Celtic spoken in ancient Ireland (which later spread to Scotland and the Isle of Man) was Q-Celtic. The other Celtic languages were P-Celtic (of which only Welsh and Breton are still spoken--Cornish died out a couple of centuries ago).

There apparently was another Indo-European language spoken in the British Isles before the Celts arrived, or at least some of the river names seem to indicate that.

One example of the differences:

"Pinmore" (a place in Ayrshire mentioned in one of Dorothy Sayers' mysteries) is Q-Celtic and means "big hill."

Bryn Mawr has the same meaning but is P-Celtic.

[Conservative4Ever]

Thanks for the links. While visiting family in Ohio last year, we visited many of the Indian mounds in so Ohio. Do you know of any further reading on this subject. I was so impressed by one mound fenced in and sitting in a quiet neighborhood adjacent to someones backyard.

[blam]

"I ‘ve often wondered if the Sarmatian presence in Roman times was the reason for all the black haired Scots in history. "

Nope.

[GeronL]

With the Youtube Downloader you can copy them to your HD before they are pulled. Of course it doesn’t always work, but its better than not getting them.

[SunkenCiv]

There's loads of online articles on the Ohio mounds, including on FR. Not sure if it's on FR, but there are such mounds around these parts as well -- Indian Mounds park is right on the Grand River, and some simulated mounds (as a sort of nod-to) were built right by the public museum and the Gerald Ford museum.

Here's one idea. :')

cahokia site:freerepublic.com

Google

[SunkenCiv]

That’s a good idea, I may try that. I’ve got that somewhere, and could run with the laptop over to a restaurant with wi-fi.

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, blam, those tartans didn’t get from Central Asia to the Scottish highlands by themselves. :’)

VR, I think the last native speaker of Cornish died around 1900-1905.

[GeronL]

I haven’t used mine in a while, might need updated

[GeronL]

Yes, there is a new version.

[Conservative4Ever]

Thanks. Will check it out.

[Renfield]

It has been my understanding that the picts were small, dark people. If from the Nordic area wouldn’t they have been more like the saxons, tall and fair. Just asking.

Dale Drinnon, in his Frontiers of Anthropology blog, examined this issue in some detail this spring. He presented a great amount of evidence showing that the Picts were descended from relatively short, dark people who migrated from the northern Baltic-Northern Scandinavia area, and that those people were the original (i.e., pre-Germanic) inhabitants of that area.

[Conservative4Ever]

Thanks for the info.