Feared by the Romans as fierce blue painted warriors, the Picts have captured the imagination of historians for centuries. Today we know them through the wonderful art they left carved on stones. But so little is known about a People who lived in a large part of Scotland from 300 – 850 AD, that myth has replaced factual evidence about their culture.

That may have changed as a new study has just been published by an international team led by researchers at the University of Aberdeen and Liverpool John Moores University. Archaeologists have conducted the first extensive analysis of Pictish genomes and their results have been published in the open access journal PLOS Genetics.

In 297, a document known as the Panegyric of Constantius Ceasar mentioned two barbarian peoples as troublesome foes of Roman Britain. One of these was the Hiberni, the inhabitants of Ireland. The other was a group whose name had not been encountered before: Picti, ‘The Picts’. The identity and ancestry of this new nation was made clear some years later when another Roman text referred to ‘the woods and marshes of the Caledonian and other Picts. Later still, in the 360s, the soldier and historian Marcellinus stated that the Picts were divided into two Peoples, the Dicalydones and Verturiones.

The Picts, A History by Tim Clarkson

The Romans referred to any peoples who they would not regard as ‘civilised’ like themselves as barbarians. It has become a term of insult , as if these people were ‘uncivilised’.

Bede (673 – 735) also said that the Picts were divided into two distinct groupings: the Northern Picts who lived beyond the great mountains, and the Southern Picts.

Myths grew up around the Picts about where they originated from but in his ‘History of Scotland’ J.D. Mackie states, ‘and there is no doubt that they were the original inhabitants of the land.’

The mysteries continued to haunt explanations of the origins of the Picts and their eventual disappearance.

In the 21st century we now have scientific methods which can be used by archaeologists and historians to confirm what many have come to understand about the Picts.

The researchers used Identity-By-Descent (IBD) methods to compare two high-quality Pictish genomes sequenced from individuals excavated from Pictish-era cemeteries at Lundin Links in Fife (Southern Pictland) and Balintore in Easter Ross (Northern Pictland) to those of previously published ancient genomes as well as the modern population of Britain.

Dr Linus Girdland Flink of the University of Aberdeen, senior corresponding author of the study, explained :

“Among the peoples present during the first millennium CE in Britain, the Picts are one of the most enigmatic.

“Their unique cultural features such as Pictish symbols and the scarcity of contemporary literary and archaeological sources resulted in many diverse hypotheses about their origin, lifestyle and culture, part of the so-called ‘Pictish problem’.

“We aimed to determine the genetic relationships between the Picts and neighbouring modern-day and ancient populations.

“Using DNA analysis, we have been able to fill a gap in an understudied area of Scotland’s past.”

“Our results show that individuals from western Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Northumbria display a higher degree of Identity-By-Descent (IBD) sharing with the Pictish genomes, meaning they are genetically most similar among modern populations.”

This genetic make-up was distinct from areas of southern England where there is a greater relative degree of Anglo-Saxon heritage.

Dr Adeline Morez from Liverpool John Moores University, lead corresponding author of the study, added:

“Our findings also support the idea of regional continuity between the Late Iron Age and early medieval periods and indicates that the Picts were local to the British Isles in their origin, as their gene pool is drawn from the older Iron Age, and not from large-scale migration, from exotic locations far to the east.

“However, by comparing the samples between southern and northern Pictland we can also see that they were not one homogenous group and that there are some distinct differences, which point to patterns of migration and life-time mobility that require further study.”

The analysis of mitochondrial genomes from Lundin Links has also provided an insight into another Pictish myth – that they practised a form of matriliny, with succession and perhaps inheritance going to the sister’s son rather than directly through the male line.

“In a matrilocal system we would expect to find females staying in their birthplace after their marriage and throughout their life.

“At Lundin Links, diversity in the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA suggests this was not the case. This finding challenges the older hypotheses that Pictish succession was passed along the mother’s side and raise further questions about our understanding of Pictish society and its organisation.”

See also:

Remarkable Pictish Stone Revealed

Fiona Grahame