As always, I’m impressed by FR’s level of discussion on something that’s really kind of arcane, nice job, all.
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.
The Scoti were a tribe in Ireland that colonized from Ireland in the early Middle Ages.
The Romans invaded Scotland a couple of times, but wrapping up the conquest wound up taking a back seat to some much more pressing issue elsewhere in the Roman Empire, so it never got finished. The full extent of Roman presence in highland Scotland is not yet known — that’s a guess based on the discovery of a Roman settlement found in NE Ireland — but there was never any “Eagle of the Ninth” loss of a Roman legion in Scotland. That’s a fun book for kids and younger teens, BTW, that whole series was a fave back then for yours truly, though I never re-read it.
The extent of the threat from the Caledonians can be summed up by the fact that the Romans manned a 70+ mile long Hadrian’s Wall with a minimum complement of legionaries and relied on imported auxiliaries (such as Sarmatian cavalry) to provide a deterrent, like a security guard does in a shopping mall.
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.
I ‘ve often wondered if the Sarmatian presence in Roman times was the reason for all the black haired Scots in history.
