Ancient People of Scotland - The Celts

There are times we all find conflicting information on the Web. When I started my search to find more about the Celts in Scotland I expected the WWW to be full of abundant information. Well, information as always was to be found but much of it was confusing and contradictory. Scotland is called a Celtic country and its music is included in the genre of "Celtic." But, most of the information I found did not indicate the Celts being settlers in Scotland. The first story I found which spoke definitely of Scotland's Celts said they arrived in Scotland around 700 BC. They were farmers, cultivating wheat, oats and barley, and keeping pigs, herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep and goats. They depended on their livestock for food much more than they did their crops. The Celts were never one kingdom. They ruled most of Europe but never as one people. They had families, which gathered and formed clans, which gathered and formed tribes. By this time Scotland had at least 16 tribes. More about the Scottish Celts can be found at Fortrose Academy's site including a map of the location of the various tribes.

Another belief related to the Celts is the Picts and Celts are one and the same people. It was this belief I found the most prevalent. I found Britannia's Sites Scottish history viewpoint a little different. For example:

The Picts of Celtic, perhaps of Scythian stock, predominated lived from Caithness in the north to the Forth in the south. The Britons of Strathclyde stretched from the Clyde to the Solway and further south into Cumbria. The late arriving Teutonic Anglo-Saxons, held the lands to the east south of the Forth into Northumbria and the kingdom of Dalriada, to the west, including present-day Argyll, (the land of the Gael). The Scots, from Northern Ireland occupied Kintyre and the neighboring islands in the third and fourth centuries. In perhaps typical Celtic fashion, the Picts and Scots spent more time fighting against each other than against their common enemies.

The Britannia site has a good history of Scotland and worth a long visit.

Another site with a well done history of the Celts is Taste of Scotland.

Celtic Corner's Site has some very good information on the language and the physical appearance of the Celts.

I am still thoroughly confused who the Celts of Scotland were. Were they a separate tribe or were they the people called the Picts? Patterson Ford Booksellers has a good supply of used books which might help unravel who the Celts of Scotland really were.

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