A New History of the Picts

This is an accessible history of the oft misunderstood Picts, discrediting the idea that the Picts were a strange historical anomaly and showing them to be the indiginous people of Scotland. The Picts hold a special place in the Scottish mindset � a mysterious race of painted warriors, leaving behind imposing standing stones and not much more. Stuart McHardy challenges these long-held historical assumptions. He aims to get to the truth of who the Picts really were, and what their influence has been on Scotland�s past and present. Far from being wild barbarians, the Picts had a complex society. They fought off continuous threats of invasion from imposing adversaries: Romans, Vikings, Angles. Although Roman texts claim a major victory against the Picts, McHardy reveals that the Roman retreat from Scotland shows that the opposite may well be true. The Picts were not wiped out in battle, but gradually integrated with the Scots to form Alba. McHardy demonstrates that rather than being some historical group of outsiders, or mysterious invaders, the Picts were in fact the indigenous people of Scotland and the most significant of our tribal ancestors. Their descendants walk our streets today. When the Romans came north to what is now modern Scotland they encountered the fierce and proud warrior society known as the Picts, who despite their lack of discipline and arms, managed to prevent the undefeated Roman Army from conquering the northern part of Britain, just as they later repulsed the Angles and the Vikings. A New History of the Picts is an accessible true history of the Picts, who are so often misunderstood. New historical analysis, recently discovered evidence and an innovative Scottish perspective will expose long held assumptions about the native people. This controversial text contests that Scottish history has long since been dominated and distorted by misleading perspectives. A New History of the Picts discredits the idea that the Picts were a strange historical anomaly and shows them to be the descendants of the original inhabitants of the land, living in a series of loose tribal confederations gradually brought together by external forces to create one of the earliest states in Europe: a people, who after repulsing all invaders, merged with their cousins, the Scots of Argyll, to create modern Scotland. All of Scotland descends from the fierce Picts.