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Neanderthals v Humans
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Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger
986 posts

Re: Neanderthals v Humans
Oct 30, 2012, 17:02
GLADMAN wrote:
Us Homo Sapien Sapiens v The Neanderthals reminds me somewhat of Scots v The Picts.
No one really knows whether the former undertook ethnic cleansing or the latter simply gave up the fight?


So many more options than be "ethnically cleansed" or "give up" MR GLADMAN!

Someone doesn't really know what question to ask obviously! The change from Pictland to Scotland is mostly medieval mythmaking of the highest order. Some of which obviously has continued in a gentle trickledown system which has informed some of our Southern Neighbours.

Scots v The Picts - did the variety of incomers settle, trade, merge and intermarry over hundreds of years? Because that is what people do and that is what the archaeological record shows happened. The notion that the death of a named king, a treaty after a battle or a change of political leadership actually physically changes or even removes an entire population or culture is a strange one.

We know for instance that a Pictish King Elpin was attacked by bandits at Monid Croib in 728, that was very near modern Forteviot. We know that Kenny McAlpin was the first king of the unified kingdoms in 843. We know that the name of our king was changed from Rex Pictorum (King of Pictland) to Ri Alba when our area North of The Wall dropped the Latin Pish and started speaking in our vernacular language. That was in the early 10th century. That was at a time when the area North of The Wall was driving back Danes/ Vikings on the North-West and North-East coasts and Angles from the South. No-one "Pict" or "Scot" was "giving up" any fight... the people fought battles, maintained borders and struck a treaty with the Danes. Back at the end of the 11th Century we were back with the Latin Pish and referring to our kings as Rex Scottorum (King of Scotland).

The Picts are still here. The Scots are still here. They live in Scotland which has only really existed in its current (approximate) geographical form since the 9th century (excluding the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland). This might be slightly longer than England - I think some of which used to be in France.

What was England actually called before the Angles invaded? Did the romanised remnants of the Icenii and Trinovantes simply "give up" when the Angles and Saxons arrived? They hadn't been "ethnically cleansed" by the Romans as their continued existence and presence, post-AD61's revolt, is recorded by Ptolemy at Venta Icenorum and later in the Ravenna Cosmography. Did they move around a wee bit, intermarry, start wearing some new fashionable "jingle-jangle" jewellery and get pissed in the fashionable Grub Huts of the day. I am sure their descendants learned French, started building twee churches and making tapestries once the Normans arrived.

These days you don't see many Victorian gentlemen strutting around in cummerbunds and smoking jackets debating whether the future lies with the Penny Farthing or the Horseless Carriage. People move and groove with the times.
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Re: Neanderthals v Humans (GLADMAN)		 Replies:
Re: Neanderthals v Humans (thesweetcheat)
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