by Dean R. Snow
Tracking the migration of Gaelic speakers who crossed the Irish Sea 1,700 years ago and became the Scots
Ireland in the Early Christian period (A.D. 400-1177) was made up of at least 120 chiefdoms, usually described in surviving documents as petty kingdoms, typically having about 700 warriors. One of these petty kingdoms was Dál Riata, which occupied a corner of County Antrim, the island’s northeasternmost part. Around A.D. 400, people from Dál Riata began to settle across the Irish Sea along the Scottish coast in County Argyll. Other Irish migrants were also establishing footholds along the coast farther south, as far as Wales and even Cornwall, but the migrants from Dál Riata were especially noteworthy because they were known to the Romans as “Scotti” and they would eventually give their Gaelic language and their name to all of what is now known as Scotland.
So far as we know, the only people already living in Scotland in A.D. 400 were the Picts, who were first mentioned by Roman writers in A.D. 297. This was in connection with an attack along Hadrian’s Wall, in which the Picts had the help of Irish (Scotti) allies, so connections across the Irish Sea must have already been strong. Roman sources predictably describe their Pictish adversaries as barbarians and mention their use of blue paint, which some historians later interpreted perhaps too literally (Mel Gibson and his friends show up in the film Braveheart slathered with gallons of it). More likely the Picts were heavily tattooed.
The Picts lived mainly in eastern Scotland, north of modern Edinburgh. We know their homeland both from the distributions of Pictish place-names (which typically begin with “Pett” or “Pit”) and the distribution of Pictish symbol stones, which were Pictish equivalents of a medieval coat of arms, each typically bearing the crest of a petty king and that of his father. The rugged west coast was only lightly occupied by Picts or some other Celtic-speaking people. Settlers from Dál Riata apparently established themselves along the west coast without much opposition. By A.D. 490 the population of Scotti was large enough that the head of the little kingdom moved the family seat across from Ireland. The Scotti alternately cooperated with and fought against the Picts for the next few centuries until the two were unified into a single kingdom under Cináed (Kenneth) mac Ailp’n in A.D. 844. After that the Pictish language disappeared, along with the symbol stones and other archaeological traits that had distinguished them from the Scotti.
What the Scottish case and others like it tells us is that migrations by relatively small dominant societies are much more common in human history than many archaeologists have been willing to admit (much less assume), particularly in North America. Typically, the signatures of it have been explained away too easily as evolutionary change in place. There are so many good examples of change associated with the migration of whole societies or dominant subsets of them, that any major change over time that can be observed archaeologically is likely to have involved migration in one of its many forms, however minor. We should be assuming population movement as a first principle rather than denying it.
Take your Pict
From A.D. 400 to 1000, northern Great Britain saw the withdrawal of Roman forces, arrival of the Scotti from northeastern Ireland, disappearance of the Picts, formation of a united kingdom of Scotland, and colonization by the Norse. [Click here for animated map.]
- A.D. 400. Settlers from the Irish petty kingdom of Dál Riata were beginning to establishing themselves in what would later be called Scotland. Picts were well established north of other Celtic speakers except perhaps on the west coast and in the Hebrides.
- A.D. 500. Departure of Roman legions in A.D. 407 left Britain to Picts, other Celtic speakers, and growing numbers of Irish settlers. Enough Scotti were in place by A.D. 490 to allow them to move the seat of Dál Riata from across the Irish Sea.
- A.D. 600. Colum Cille left Ireland and established a monastery on Iona in 563. From this time on expansion of the Irish Scotti was assisted in part by the spread of Christianity.
- A.D. 700. As the Scottish presence in Britain grew, so did that of the Angles and Saxons, many the descendants of Roman mercenaries. Angle settlements expanded south and east of Scottish territory.
- A.D. 800. As both Angle and Scottish communities grew, small Norse settlements began to appear in the islands of Orkney and the Outer Hebrides.
- A.D. 900. Competition from the Norse and Angles probably contributed to the unification of Scots and Picts into a single kingdom in 844. Pictish language and culture disappeared. Norse raids forced the abandonment of Iona by 878.
- A.D. 1000. By 1,000 years ago the Picts were a memory and the united kingdom of Scotland was caught between Germanic Norse and Angle settlers.
Dean R. Snow, a professor of anthropology at the Pennsylvania State University, has studied Iroquoian archaeology since 1969. His work in Northern Ireland and Scotland was supported by the British Council.
via Scotland’s Irish Origins, Volume 54 Number 4, July/August 2001, Archaeology.org.
Tags: Ireland, Picts, Scotland
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Following his death, Alexander’s empire broke up into smaller, competing states whose rulers sometimes hired mercenaries to supplement their own armies. In 278 B.C., King Nicomedes I of Bithynia welcomed as allies 20,000 European Celts, veterans who had successfully invaded Macedonia two years earlier. These warriors, who called themselves the Galatai, marched into northwestern Anatolia with 2,000 baggage wagons and 10,000 noncombatants: provisioners and merchants as well as wives and children. Ancient texts tell us that some of these immigrants settled at Gordion, the old Phrygian capital of King Midas, about 60 miles southwest of modern Ankara. Exactly when Galatians took over the town is unknown, but archaeological evidence suggests they were there soon after 270 B.C., the time when documentary sources tell us that Celts began raiding in central Anatolia.
via Celtic Sacrifice.
Tags: Anatolia, Archaeology, Galatians, Sacrifice, Turkey
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How is Samhain celebrated in Ireland?
Traditionally, Samhain was celebrated with feasting and guising. It was customary to eat certain meals at this time, such as colcannon a mixture of mashed potato, cabbage, and red onion. Another food associated with this festival is fruitcake or bairin breac barmbrack which had items in it that were used for foretelling the future–a pea or rag meant poverty, a bean meant wealth, a religious medal meant the finder may enter a convent or seminary, a ring meant marriage, and a stick meant that the person who received this in their slice of cake would be beaten by the marriage partner. Nowadays, a barmbrack can be bought in the supermarket but doesnt usually contain all of the above-listed items–many cakes only contain a ring. This change in the objects placed into the brack may reflect a change in attitudes; societal norms have changed and the stick that foretells a future of being beaten by a partner may no longer be acceptable in the modern mindset!
One theory on the origins of guising and dressing as ghosts may be in the notion that the dead are returning on this night and the change of appearance may protect the human from being recognized by the returning spirits of the dead. The sense of things being topsy-turvy and inverted may have given rise to people having fun and using an opportunity to change their appearance into something they are not ordinarily. Today, children dress up in various different costumes, some inspired by the latest films, characters from fantasy stories, and other areas of popular culture. Children trick-or-treat in Ireland nowadays but this tradition may have come back to Ireland from America. In pre-modern Ireland, it was known that Samhain was a time when people could play practical jokes and hoaxes, being a liminal time when such activity would be acceptable, but the custom of going door-to-door threatening to play pranks if candy and other treats are not received seems to be a later development. There seem to be many more organized childrens Halloween parties these days and a fear of allowing small children out at night might be a factor in this. Irish society, as with society generally, has changed in major ways since the time of small communities where locals knew each others children and would look out for them, into a very diversified and in many ways more dangerous society where children need to be accompanied by adults thus lessoning the leeway to do tricks on niggardly people who dont deliver the goods!. The private Halloween parties of today tend to move towards fancy dress. We can still see similarities in the games played at Halloween and those of an older time–snap-apple, bobbing for apples, and dares are still very prominent at parties.
In olden-day Ireland, jack-olanterns would be made by hollowing out a turnip or sugar beet and carving bits out to represent facial features and would then be lit from a candle placed in the inside. The dual idea behind this may have been to at once light the way for the souls of the dead ancestors who are returning to visit the human world and to frighten off any supernatural forces that might be about on this night. Today in Ireland, people carve faces on pumpkins, which are again an American import.
via Halloweens Celtic Roots.
Tags: Halloween, Samhain
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Samhain marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Beltane on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. For it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground. Whereas Beltane welcomes in the summer with joyous celebrations at dawn, the most magically potent time of this festival is November Eve, the night of October 31st, known today, of course, as Halloween.
Samhain ushers in the dark half of the year. October 31st precedes Day of the Dead / All Soul’s Day, which takes place November 1-2, honoring those who have crossed over. This year, in the USA, November 1st also coincides with the return to standard time from daylight savings. Clearly, the dark side — what remains hidden from view — is calling.
This is an excellent time to explore what is ending, or “dying”, within our own beings. What do you need to release in order to move forward in your life? Now, when the veils between worlds are thin, is a ripe moment to embrace transformation.
In early Ireland, people gathered at the ritual centers of the tribes, for Samhain was the principal calendar feast of the year. The greatest assembly was the ‘Feast of Tara,’ focusing on the royal seat of the High King as the heart of the sacred land, the point of conception for the new year. In every household throughout the country, hearth-fires were extinguished. All waited for the Druids to light the new fire of the year — not at Tara, but at Tlachtga, a hill twelve miles to the north-west. It marked the burial-place of Tlachtga, daughter of the great druid, Mogh Ruith, who may once have been a goddess in her own right in a former age.
Tags: Celtic Festivals, Samhain
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It suggests that the creators of Stonehenge originally built two circles – one with 56 stones at Stonehenge, and another with 27 at Bluehenge. The stones of the smaller circle were eventually incorporated into the bigger one.
Bluehenge was discovered by Professor Mike Parker Pearson, of Sheffield University, who argues the monuments were linked to rituals of life and death.
via Henge with no stones: Unearthed, the site that could be monument’s little sister
| Mail Online.
Tags: Archaeology, Bluehenge, Stonehenge, UK
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by Aine MacDermot
These are good times for some perceptual changes in human systems of belief and thought, and the general human frame of mind. We can start by recognizing the beautiful open-minded holistic feminine goddesses whose existence in pre-Indo-European cultures precedes that of the patriarchal “old men” – the old white bearded masculine gods.
It is wrong to say that this is just a woman’s culture, that there was just a Goddess and there were no Gods. There is a balance between the sexes throughout, in religion and in life. In all mythologies, for instance in Europe, Germanic or Celtic or Baltic, you will find the Earth Mother or Earth Goddess and her male companion or counterpart next to her.
However, more than ninety percent of the Neolithic figurines found in Bulgaria are female. Of the two hundred fifty figurines from Marija Gimbutas’ excavation at Sitagroi, northern Greece, “not one can be clearly identified as male.” Interestingly, before cemeteries came into use, c. 5000 BC, adult male burials are conspicuously rare in settlements in southeast Europe during the Early Neolithic period (7th-6th millennia BC), though women and girls have been found buried in the floors of their homes. Houses, therefore, functioned as abodes for the living as well as for the ancestors.
This is not feminist bias seeping into non-scientific neopagan goddess-centered archaelogy; this is the evidence we have at hand.
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