Wilfred Owen

The scots weren't even a tribe when the gauls were around! There were Picts, but no scots.

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Kaelith

didn't the scots appear from ireland? i thought the picts were the natives but they got pushed to one side by the scots coming over. and then sort of intergrated. or something?

Stewan Seagull

Scots coming from Ireland?

Yes, that?s what i heard to. Don?t ask for sources though
But there were also Scots transferred to Ireland (about 17th century-ish).

Kaelith

I think this is aroudn the time of roman occupation. with the celtic peoples being pushed north by the romans and then saxons the celtic tribes had to move home and i'm not entirely sure why, but the scots moved across from ireland to settle in scotland. maybe ireland was getting crowded with celts coming across from wales and northern england?

cherry

first off - "celt" is a very emotive word and often used to describe a wide array of peoples and cultures.....trying to pin down what someone actually means by Celt can lead to interesting debates - theres certainly many a book being written on the subject.

As far as tribes during the Roman period - those in Scotland were the Caledonii, the Vacomagi, the Taexali, the Venicones and the Dumnonii. I guess it might be that these later came to be referred to as the picts. There is some evidence that tribes moved from Ireland into Scotland.....probably due to a whole host of reasons ranging from political to explorartory.

As for celtic tribes moving north because of the Romans. In Britain there is no evidence for this that I can recall. Much of the Roman conquest gradually assimilated England into the Roman Empire successfully - usually by method of client kings and kingdoms. One exception being Cornwall where there is little evidence of so called romanisation.

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Kaelith

I take it those tribe names are the latin names for the tribes? would you know what they called themselves? or is that an obsurdly hard question to answer?

Rabid Bogling

Cherry's right, Celtic is a very, very, VERY loose term. It could be applied to any number of people, but ultimately it's just a tag with which we can group together a number of languages and cultures sharing either similarities or a point of origin. Some people apply Celtic as an ethnicity. I'm really not too sure about this. I think you had two very seperate ethnic groups within the Celtic culture-sphere; the Irish-British-Iberian group, and the Gallic-Celtiberian-Belgic-Boii group. I'd argue that it's only the latter that could be called 'Celtic'. The former had been Western Europe considerably longer, while the latter originated somewhat East, in Central Europe. That said, I imagine there was a great deal of intermarrying going on, due to the nature of trade and diplomacy across the 'Celtic' world, even with their none-Celtic neighbours (e.g. the Belgic tribes with the Germanic tribes, the Galatians with the Greeks etc.). Plus you had migrations, such as the Belgae to Ireland, and the Gallo-Belgae Catuvellauni/Cassi to South-East Britain.

Yes, the Scots were Irish in origin. There's nothing new there, though. The Irish had been the dominant force in the Isles for a remarkably long period of time. They colonised the length of Britain's West Coast from Skye to Cornwall on a number of occasions, and had rather solid connections with Gaul and Iberia. Scotland as a nation traces it's origin back to Dal Riata, which was essentially a vassal of Ulster (I forget it's true name). Similarly you had Dyfed in Wales, which was initially a vassal and colony of another of Irish Kingdom. That isn't to say that the Scots are Irish in ancestry. As with the English they're something of a polygot.

The Roman Conquest of Southern Britain.. ah.. fwell.. A number of Kings refusing to accept Roman authority did indeed take their families and retinues North. Though I doubt it could be called a Folk Movement of any sort. Incidentally, Cherry, this Dumnonii tribe wouldn't happen to of any relation to the later Kingdom of Dumnonia in the West Country, would it?

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cherry

the problem with the term Celtic is that it doesnt just cross borders, peoples and cultures it also crosses vast swathes of time....some people might instantly envision a "celtic" item to be the Book of Kells for example and associated Irish art which has a very Christian flavour to it. Whereas others see Celtic as being represented by the likes of the beautiful La Tene objects of the late Iron Age....for me I always imagine the latter, with objects like the copper alloy mirror found in Holcombe, Devon being an absolute classic piece of Celtic art.Associated with this was a complex society with structured heirarchy readily geared up for warfare. And yes it was a time when the irish were also strong.....though how often they settled at this period rather than just making slave raids into the lands who knows

As for the south western Dumnonia tribe - cant find any link tothe northern one

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Kaelith

I don't know much about celtic society and only marginally more about the saxon society that followed in england, but I certainly have a great deal of admiration for them. Having very little to no respect for organised religion I almost feel britain was better off in the hands of our early ancestors. When the Normans came they seemed to just rip the whole of english society apart and replace it with the european fuedalism that basically destroyed the well organised hierachy we previously had and just replaced it with a master and slave society, where most of the population became slaves and only a very few were the masters. A society that would rob every penny from it's peasants so they could build a church...

Kaelith

although in retrospect, normans, crusades and religious oppression is all very cool and great for material for RP!

Gorthyn

The Picts are a very mysterious people - very little is known about them partly I believe as they left no written records behind them.

The Scots certainly do originate in Ireland I think their migration did nt happen until after the Roman occupation had ended in the tumult of migrations that occured all over europe as Roman power ebbed.

There was Scot and English migration to Ireland as colonists as stated from 16/17th century onwards these folk being the ancestors of todays Unionist community in the north.

Celtic covers an entire culture that was also very widespread in mainland europe - the Roman conquests ensured that western european culture became predominantly classical rather than celtic.

Its also important to not always get hung up on the traditional view which has mass migrations and invasions sweeping away whole idiginous peoples. Often its as much about cultural exchange and change as it is physical movement of people.

For instance there is a new school of thought amongst various eminent scholars that claims that there was in fact no great anglo-saxon invasion/colonisation of what became England. There is little historical or arcahelogical evedence for such an event and this view is being increasingly supported by adavnces in dna and other analysis techniques that can determine someones origins.

Rather the theory goes it was a case of the Romano British staying put and gradually adopting Saxon customs. Though of course there were individual saxon warbands and clusters of migrants who did settle in England it was not a case of mass invasion and ethnic cleansing in the shape of forcing the natives out to the celtic fringes of the British Isles..

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Kaelith

That's an interesting idea about the saxons. I spose in a way it makes sense. especially when you consider that the normans only came across with a few thousand men and were able to over throw the whole country. It can't be that far fetch to suggest the saxons did something similar 600 years before. you just got to remove those men in power and place your own people in their place and sufficiently suppress the population until they just accept your presence. then with a steady influx of saxon people to back it up it seems entirely possible

Ta'Samsca'Rial

I was under the impression that DNA supported the big invasion theory. This being based on the fact that the English share a large proportion of their DNA with people in the Netherlands/Germany/Denmark to the point of similarity and yet there are major differences with the DNA of people in wales and the west country for example.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5192634.stm

Seems to suggest that while it may not have been ethnic cleansing, they were not intermingling to form a fusion culture.

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Rabid Bogling

DNA in the British isles are about as reliable as a chocolate fireguard. I've encountered some in recent years claiming that the populace of England are anywhere between 90% and 0% Germanic. And then there's the issue of the Cheddar Man being Swedish. I personally think that people who claim the English are purely one or the other have their heads in the bloody clouds. It seems to me that the Anglo-Saxons, having rebelled from their initial Foederati status, seized power over their former masters and established themselves as an aristocracy (particularly in Kent, Deira, and Bernicia, less so in the Saxon Kingdoms). Over the following period migrations started to take place at the promise of wealth, land, and maybe power. People pour in over the course of a few generations - be they Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Franks, Geats, or anything else - but at the same time intermarry with the native Britons. Intermarriage becomes increasingly common as they push west, and their cultures become less alien. Eventually the arrival of Christianity breaks down any taboos in these relationships, and it becomes increasingly common. By this point all Conquests are purely political rather than typical Migration-Period land-grabbing - e.g. Rheged, Cornwall, and later Wales itself etc. I don't know if ethnic cleansing ever took place. I'd rather compare it to modern Tibet, and the flow of Han Chinese immigrants into the region.

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Kaelith

well i spose another way of finding a logical solution is to look at what was happening at the time.

weren't there mongols and other tribes pushing west, which was pushing other tribes west and the saxons made a gamble to take england so firstly sold themselves as mercs to the romans, then as rome weakened they started to take more and more land, which suggests they were bringing across family. and when you consider the time scale this all happened its not hard to imagine that potentially a large portion of the saxon populace could have made its way across to england and settled, without it seeming like one huge incursion over the course of a year or so.

i'd probably go for a mix of the two ideas tbh. i think a lot of saxons probably came across during the period of their coming to power and their communities would have grown very well over here in the wake of the romans leaving and the fertility of the ground. i can imagine they probably intergrated well in some areas andin others they had to fight the "natives" away. but whatever happened they eventually seised control of the country and built several large kingdoms which eventually moved towards the foundation of england.

so to conclude I'd say there was probably a large portion of germanic blood in the english especially, but i'd expect the english to have the greatest variation in their DNA roots than other parts of britain also. i'd have thought the irish would have the most localised DNA history, although a healthy dose of viking in some areas. as with scotland. the welsh are probably more like the english, but still a little more localised.