Two major theories about the mysterious ancient Picts have been refuted

Ancient DNA analysis has disproved two main theories about the Picts. He showed that the Picts who fought the Romans

did not migrate from distant countries.It turns out that Scotland’s “painted people” had local roots. They were also associated with other Iron Age people in Britain. Also, according to an article published in the journal PLOS Genetics, the Picts did not organize their society around female ancestry, contrary to historians' assumptions.

In a recently published studyAn international team of researchers has extracted genetic information from eight human skeletons buried in two Pictish cemeteries - seven of them found at Lundin Links and one at Balintor in present-day Scotland.

The name "Picts" comes from the Latinthe words "picti" because they used body paint or tattoos (hence why they were called "painted people"). In the 3rd century AD, the people resisted Roman rule and formed their own kingdom in northern Britain, which lasted until about 900 AD. There is very little written information about the Picts—most of what they wrote was written in a unique and difficult-to-translate script, or Ogham. In addition, archaeologists have found only a few of their settlements and cemeteries.

General lack of sources about the pictsand their way of life has led historians over the centuries to make many assumptions about the life and history of these ancient people. For example, the Picts were thought to have emigrated from areas around the Aegean Sea or Eastern Europe. In recent years, archaeologists and historians have begun to study the “Pict problem” in order to better understand this culture.

Scientists have extracted an almost complete genomefrom one skeleton from each of two cemeteries. Both genomes, when compared with samples from other ancient and modern groups from the British Isles, "revealed close genetic relationships with Iron Age populations from Britain." Differences that experts also found are related to travel and mixed marriages.

To explore the assumption of matrilinealPicts, researchers extracted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) information from all seven Lundin Lynx skeletons. Its peculiarity is that it is transmitted from mother to child. It turned out that none of the Picts whose mtDNA they analyzed had a common maternal ancestor. This means they were “unlikely to practice matrilocality,” the scientists conclude.

The team of experts also found that the genesPicts survived among modern people living in western Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Northumbria (a medieval kingdom that now includes parts of northern England and southeastern Scotland), indicating that although their culture has disappeared, their genes are No.

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Cover photo: Lundin Links excavation in 1965, showing a close-up of the burial.
Image courtesy of Moira Greig

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