Talk:Picts

I've seen some references claiming they considered their first king to be Cruach & their language to have been Basque with Celtic influence, but they had taken on Celtic religious beliefs, for the most part. Anyone else noticed that Ireland preserved stories of a god named Crom Cruach/ Crom Dubh that make absolutely no sense with the rest of Irish mythology & has a lot of congruence with Basque mythology- election of standing stones, priests meeting with a sun God & earth goddess weekly to plan out the weather, etc? I just can't find any proper source for this info that Cruach was a Pictish King, though, so its driving me a bit insane. Anyway, the Irish stories give him as king of the Tuatha De Danaan instead of Dagda, Nuada & Bres, as husband to Brigid & many have noticed supposed rituals & celebrations in his honor are duplicates or overlapping those honoring Lugh &/ or Taranis in regular Celtic beliefs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobbotronica (talk • contribs) 13:29, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bobbotronica Bring sources here. Doug Weller talk 14:01, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The sources for everything else? Because the source for Cruach being associated with the Picts was what I am still looking for. Bobbotronica (talk) 20:50, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps confused with the eponymous founder Cruithne mentioned by Bede (see the Origins §), or linked etymologically? Regarding the language, I don’t think any non-Celtic hypotheses are still considered likely (aside from possible substrate influences), but over time there have been proposals relating it to everything from Basque to Elamite.—Odysseus1479 22:30, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Ceoil that the Columba picture is a bit rubbish... how about one of the cross slabs? Catfish Jim and the soapdish 18:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Or the Dupplin cross? Catfish Jim and the soapdish 18:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Would go with File:The Dupplin Cross - geograph.org.uk - 226741.jpg, though Dupplin_Cross_20090617_northwest.jpg is very fine also. Its at a good resolution and so could be cropped for detail. Ceoil (talk) 18:52, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Is it obviously Christian? Catfish Jim and the soapdish 18:55, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm confused. The lead sentance for Dupplin Cross says that is is a "a carved, monumental Pictish stone, which dates from around 800 AD". Also, you suggested it. Ceoil (talk) 19:01, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

I meant from the photo... whether it was obviously a cross. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 19:09, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

How about File:Pictish Stones in the Museum of ScotlandDSCF6254.jpg. Its taken from an odd angle, but the detail is great. Your the expert here Jim, so will defer. Ceoil (talk) 19:05, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

I really like the picture of Aberlemno I used in the lead, but I am slightly concerned about the use of "Serpent Stone". I have seen it being used in somewhat reliable sources, eg. , , , , including use by Gordon Noble here and it is used on the sign at the site . However, I'm worried that it is a case of WP:CITOGENESIS. I uploaded the image, calling it the "Serpent Stone" in 2008 before I really cared much about reliable sources... It's a cool stone with a serpent on it. I have been unable to find any earlier mention of it as the "Serpent Stone". Do we remove this potentially made up name (made up by me) or can anyone find earlier references to it under this name? Or does the repeated use of it in the past 15 years merit its use here. Potentially embarrassing! Catfish Jim and the soapdish 13:52, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Its nearly always the "Sculptured Stone of..." in sources have looked through via academic databases, so (1) it seems your right that you came up with "Serpent Stone" and (b) lets not use it here anymore. Ceoil (talk) 00:04, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. I've changed the caption in the article. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 15:16, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Theories,evidence,etc Kenn32 (talk) 20:39, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM Catfish Jim and the soapdish 20:53, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Kenn, read the above policy document. If you want to chat with people about this kind of thing, there are Reddit groups and groups on facebook that you'll love. The talk pages here are specifically for the improvement of the articles they are attached to, not for generalised discussion. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 20:57, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

We've had a few drive-by edits changing CE to AD. One edit amusingly changed the kingdom of Ce to AD, with the edit summary "These people gotta stop being nerd tf is "CE" just say AD people undertand that".

There were some inconsistencies of use of AD and CE in the text. I have changed them all to CE for the time being, with no prejudice as to which is preferable. I can see arguments on both sides... CE is religiously neutral; there is movement towards its use in Academic circles; it is anachronistic to be talking about the Pagan early Pictish period in Christian terminology. AD is arguably more familiar. The manual of style indicates that CE/AD should only be used where there is ambiguity, so we can probably remove most uses in this article. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 09:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I've reverted this, as our policy WP:ERA is very clear. This article was started as "AD" (like most ancient British topics) in 2001, and should retain the existing style in the absence of a clear consensus to change it (which I for one would oppose). I'll just say I think calling "AD" "Christian terminology" ridiculous, especially as "CE" uses exactly the same base year. But yes, we should not need many era indications in this article. Johnbod (talk) 15:04, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually, after reverting your changes, I could only find one single use of "CE" in the article, against 7 "AD"s removed by your edit. This makes your change even more naughty; I never had you down as an agent of American cultural imperialism! If I've missed any other "CE"s, please change them too. Most of the "AD"s are in picture captions, where I think they are ok. Johnbod (talk) 15:13, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Lol... as I said, with no prejudice as to which is preferable, hence this discussion. "AD" appears to be the norm in British history journals, so would support its use. Now... if they were Scythians... Catfish Jim and the soapdish 16:03, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

It's not a matter of what is preferable, it is a matter of Wiki Policy. 2603:6080:2100:5674:8C3A:D73B:6409:1E07 (talk) 05:55, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I think you caught them all. I've added an AD to the first indication of their time period in the main text... I think it's appropriate to have it both there and in the lead. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 16:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Yup, thanks. Johnbod (talk) 16:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

If there's only one DNA study related to the Picts it's too bad because a phrase like "local origin" shows no attempt to connect the Picts to some real source outside of Britain. Which we all know there had to be. Somebody needs to examine affinities with the Denmark woman known as "Lola" and with the Basques. Both have an origin prior to 10K BCE in NE Anatolia. 100.15.117.34 (talk) 14:49, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Picts had a typical northwestern European autosomal genetic profile. They were roughly 50% Western Steppeherder, 35% Early European Farmer and 15% Western Hunter-Gatherer. They clustered tightly genetically with neighboring contemporary British Isles populations and with Scandinavians, Dutch and northwestern Germans.

There is absolutely an external genetic origin for them. We know they pretty much wholly descended from Bronze Age migrants (Bell Beaker Culture) from the Lower Rhine region along with other contemporary British Isles populations.

This ancestry ultimately came into the British Isles from the Corded Ware Culture in eastern Central Europe. Which itself was a result of Bronze Age migrants from what is now Ukraine and southern Russia mixing with European Neolithic populations in eastern Central Europe.

Even their stonework has very close parallels in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and other high Steppe ancestry cultures (such as Scythians). ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 12:58, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

"Our analysis of the Medieval populations with f3-outgroup statistics demonstrated that all the Scythian groups shared more alleles with groups with ancestries from the Baltic region, Saxon/British Island, and Slavs than with South European and Caucasian populations"

More in the paper. Source: Genetic history of Scythia

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12285711/ 178.43.152.146 (talk) 17:08, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Not relevant, I'm afraid. The individuals tested in this study from the "British Island" were Vikings and Saxons, not Picts.Catfish Jim and the soapdish 13:17, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Picts genetically clustered tightly with Vikings and Saxons, and had the same Bronze Age ancestral admixture and ratio of WSH/EEF/WHG, along with other neighboring Northwestern European populations (Gaels, Britons etc.) So it is relevant.

Western Steppeherder ancestry literally comes from the geographical region historically known as Scythia.

So a Scythian (geographic) origin is actually factual for the Picts (along with countless other contemporary European peoples who professed Scythian origins) and not just origin myth.

You should look into the origins of the term Ashkenaz, btw. Jews in the Middle Ages were literally aware of and documenting the Scythian origins of northern and eastern European populations.

You have literally been in denial about this for years and trying to whitewash this from the article.

This is archaeogenetic fact. ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 12:46, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Our job here is to reflect current academic consensus. No historian claims the Scythian Origin Myth is true. This is not the place to debate whether the academic consensus is right either... see WP:V and WP:NOTTRUTH. And it is also not the place for people to attempt to interpret population genetics papers to say more than they do, per WP:NOR and especially WP:SYNTH. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 13:41, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Western Steppeherder ancestry (which accounts for around 50% of the Pictish genome on average) literally came into Europe in the Bronze Age and from the geographic region historically known as Scythia, to boot.

That is literally what every archaeogenetic study on Picts and contemporary neighboring peoples shows.

The Picts, and countless other contemporary neighboring European populations (Gaels, Franks, Norse, Slavs etc.) all had Scythian origin myths.

While the details of these myths may be embellishments, the core of the myth is accurate. Their ancestry does, broadly, trace back to a geographic region that, at the time these origin myths were being recorded, was known as Scythia.

Have you even read them? Are you familiar with archaeogenetics remotely?

I’m not interpreting anything. ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 14:28, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

How you incorporate that into the article, or whether you do at all, I don’t care.

I’m simply telling you it’s an archaeogenetic fact that Picts possessed a typical northwestern European autosomal genetic profile of around 50% Western Steppeherder, 35% Early European Farmer and 15% Western Hunter-Gatherer ancestry.

This isn’t OR. This isn’t interpretation. This is simply relating the data archaeogenetic studies on Picts and other neighboring contemporary European populations have shown.

Western Steppeherder ancestry spread into these regions in the Bronze Age from what is now Ukraine and southern Russia. A region which was, at the time these origin myths were being recorded, known as Scythia.

Many other articles on Wikipedia mention this about contemporary European populations and their genetics. There is absolutely no reason to neglect this for Picts.

Their ancestry did, broadly, come from a region known as Scythia. The remainder coming from Western Hunter-Gatherer admixed Early European Farmers that the Western Steppeherders mixed with in eastern Central Europe during the Corded Ware Culture phase.

These people subsequently spread westwards forming the Bell Beaker Culture before spreading into the British Isles from the Lower Rhine. This resulted in a 90% genetic turnover of the population of the British Isles, almost completely replacing the Neolithic population of the British Isles.

It’s from this population that Picts descended from.

Again, this is just what the studies themselves say. This is what the data says. This isn’t OR, or speculative theory. ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 14:54, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

There is nothing in the paper mentioned above about Pictish DNA. We cannot synthesise a statement about relationships between them and Scythians from it.

I have no objection to genetics being in an article... I work as a population geneticist, I'm a huge fan of it, but I'm also able to read genetics papers and see when they are of value and when they are not (which is challenging because there is a lot of technical language in them). The work that is of most value was published in PLOS Genetics in 2023 that demonstrated the Picts to be very closely related to the Welsh and not particularly distinct from other populations in the British Isles. Morez, Adeline; Briton, Kate; Noble, Gordon; Gunther, Torsten; Gotherstrom, Anders; Rodriguez-Varela, Ricardo; Kashuba, Natalija; Martiniano, Rui; Evans, Nicholas J.; Irish, Joel D.; Donald, Christina; Girland-Fink, Linus (2023), "Imputed genomes and haplotype-based analyses of the Picts of early medieval Scotland reveal fine-scale relatedness between Iron Age, early medieval and the modern people of the UK", PLOS Genetics, vol. 19, p. e1010360, doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1010360, retrieved 29 November 2025{{citation}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

The value in the Scythian paper (which is about the origin of the Scythians) is that it supports the well-established theory of a Middle Bronze Age migration of Proto-Indo-Europeans into Western Europe from the East. They weren't Scythians... they were the common ancestors of Western Europeans and Scythians. The Scythians were an Iron Age culture. They developed long after the Proto-Celtic ancestors of the Picts had settled in Britain. And while it's very interesting, it has no special relevance to the Picts. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 16:00, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Well actually, we could synthesize that. We know who Picts cluster genetically with and resemble autosomally (who ARE in fact mentioned in the paper) We know who Scythians resembled most autosomally. We know they both inherit large amounts of their ancestry from Western Steppeherders. So it is fair to synthesize that since Picts genetically clustered tightly with Saxons and Vikings (as all British Isles populations since the Bell Beaker turnover did/do both before and after historical Germanic admixture), who themselves resembled Scythians in many ways autosomally, that Picts resembled Scythians autosomally.

There is clearly a genetic, ancestral connection between historical Scythians and Vikings, Saxons and Picts due to their shared ancestral, genetic heritage from Proto-Indo-Europeans of the Steppe.

There is also, obviously, a clear cultural connection in their descended Indo-European languages and material cultures. ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 16:49, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

That's the point though... we are explicitly not allowed to synthesize conclusions from multiple sources. There are very good reasons for that and it is a source of frustration for academics who come onto Wikipedia. It's one of the reasons I don't write about the area in which I work... I have the luxury when I'm at work to take two facts and combine them to form a hypothesis and debate that or test it scientifically. We absolutely aren't allowed to do that here. That and the fact I go home and don't want to keep thinking about allele frequencies... Catfish Jim and the soapdish 17:06, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, okay. Well, I would suggest incorporating into this article a more in-depth explanation of Pictish autosomal ancestry including their heavy ancestral heritage from Western Steppeherders from Ukraine/southern Russia along with Western Hunter-Gatherer admixed Early European Farmers from the Globular Amphora Culture in eastern Central Europe.

Saying Picts were “of local origin” is not particularly enlightening or helpful. Explain what that “local origin” actually is and where it comes from. How it came to be. Because as we both agree that is highly fascinating and surely conducive to an article that is supposed to inform people on the Picts.

Because that isn’t synthesizing, that’s just stating what genetic studies have shown Picts and neighboring contemporary populations to have been. ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 17:23, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Picts weren’t descended from Proto-Celtic peoples though. They were descended from Lower Rhine Bell Beakers. The Proto-Celtic language is generally dated to far later and emerged in a part of Europe that was actually notably more genetically distant to the people in the British Isles than people from Scandinavia/northwestern Germany and the Netherlands were at that time, albeit still fairly close and similar to the populations of the British Isles (and Scandinavia/northwestern Germany/Netherlands) in an autosomal genetic sense (in the grand scheme of things).

Granted, the Indo-European languages spoken in the British Isles at the time of Proto-Celtic’s emergence likely wouldn’t have been all that drastically different to Proto-Celtic in its earliest stages, but neither were languages like Proto-Germanic and Proto-Italic.

As you know these languages all descend from a common proto language, and the further back in time you go the more similar they all are. ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 17:05, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Proto-Celtic as in Proto-Insular-Celtic. The people who came into the British Isles in the Bronze age speaking the ancestral languages of the Insular Celtic languages, which differentiated into P and Q Celtic around 3,000 years ago. You're right, I should be a bit more careful in terminology as there is a difference between how "Celtic" was defined in Antiquity and how modern (18th century to today) scholars use Celtic linguistically.

The Pictish origin myth is a red-herring. It has the Picts arriving somewhere around late antiquity when the Gaels were already established in Ireland. It comes from a misunderstanding of Servius' commentary on Virgil's Georgics. Basically Servius called the Agathyrsi "picts" because they were tattooed (that is his statement... "et ideo 'pictos', quia stigmata conpunctionum habent." "and they are 'picti' because they bear the marks of tattooing.")

The people who were reading Servius in early Medieval times were monks who for the most part weren't educated enough to understand it. "Picti" had been used by the Romans as a disparaging term for the people beyond the Antonine wall, probably because they were tattooed (as per Isidore of Seville)... 'picti' means painted. The people we know as Picts adopted it as an ethnonym long after the fall of Rome. The notion of a Scythian origin probably came about because a monk read Servius, saw the reference to "picti" and added a bit of Colossians 3:11, where the Scythians are mentioned as significant in the Bible. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 17:34, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

I don’t think I’m making my point very clearly to you here. I was never claiming the Pictish origin myth from Scythia was verbatim historical fact. In fact I believe I explicitly stated that earlier. Nor are any of the contemporary Scythian origin myths for neighboring European populations (Gaels, Franks, Norse, Slavs etc.) verbatim historical fact.

But all these groups did inherit a huge percentage of their autosomal ancestry from a geographic region that, at the time, was known as Scythia. And they all just so happened to have origin myths professing ancestry from Scythia.

So the core of their origin myths is actually validated by archaeogenetic data, albeit the embellishments of colorful journeys from Scythia to Europe and ancestral figures are no doubt likely false. But who knows, certainly we cannot validate these in the same way we can their large ancestral inheritance from Ukraine/southern Russia.

The language ancestral to Proto-Insular Celtic and Proto-Celtic was Proto-Indo-European. That was brought into Europe by Western Steppeherders from a geographic region historically known as Scythia.

All we can definitively say about the language that the Lower Rhine Bell Beakers would have spoken when they entered the British Isles is that it would have been something descended from Proto-Indo-European. Proto-Celtic emerged much later in Halstatt, Proto-Insular Celtic emerged even later still after Celtic languages were brought to the British Isles.

British Isles populations actually have fairly little autosomal genetic ancestry from Halstatt Proto-Celts.

While they were, of course, related populations of similar ancestral and cultural heritage, much like Picts and Scythians, they were not the same populations.

Bell Beakers did not descend from Proto-Celts. Rather they both descended from a Bronze Age population bloc of WSH/EEF/EHG in eastern Central Europe. ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 17:53, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

From what I understand the latest finescale archaeogenetic research shows 2 major prehistoric Indo-European migrations into the British Isles. One being the Lower Rhine Bell Beakers already mentioned, and another severely impacting England and Wales (but apparently not Scotland and Ireland). This second wave was supposedly slightly lower in Steppe admixture, albeit still around 40-50% or so. Compared to the Bell Beaker population of the British Isles at around 50% Steppe admixture.

If I had to theorize, I would suspect the latter migration brought Celtic language and culture to the British Isles, whereas the language, or languages, spoken by the Bell Beakers would likely have corrupted into a now lost Indo-European language family, or families. Or perhaps just remained an archaic, earlier form of Indo-European which still retained some degree of limited intelligibility with Proto-Celtic and later neighboring Indo-European daughter languages like Proto-Italic and Proto-Germanic.

Again the further back you go the more similar all these languages are to one another until they become the one proto language. In fact they were all still shockingly similar not anywhere near as far back as you imagine. ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 18:13, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

I will respond, but not tonight. Way too much going on for me to be as wiki-present as I used to be. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 18:18, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Well I’m now devolving into speculation and theory anyway so, no matter.

This is all hairsplitting anyway, as all these groups had heavy, significant ancestry from Western Steppeherders, who came from Ukraine/southern Russia and brought the language ancestral to all these (Proto-Indo-European) with them.

Which was my original point. The Picts article should really mention that Pictish autosomal genetic profiles were a typical northwestern European threeway split of WSH/EEF/WHG and that they clustered closely genetically with neighboring contemporary (and modern) northwestern European populations.

That’s all. ~2025-35829-97 (talk) 18:32, 29 November 2025 (UTC)