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This map shows the approximate location of the major tribes who lived in Britain at the time of the Roman Conquest of Britain in the First Century AD. The sole source for the existence and location of these tribes are Roman writers who visited Britain.
One of the best observers of the tribes of Celtic Britain was Tacitus who wrote on historical events in Britain. Another was a Roman geographer called Ptolemy who wrote a description of Britain, listing the names of the many British tribes.
I am of the 'Silurian' tribe (number 19).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        01: Caledones         02: Taexali         03: Carvetii         04: Venicones         05: Epidii        06: Damnonii        07: Novantae         08: Selgovae         09: Votadini        10: Brigantes      11: Parisi       12: Cornovii        13: Deceangli        14: Ordovices        15: Corieltauvi        16: Iceni         17: Demetae         18: Catuvellauni        19: Silures         20: Dubunni        21: Dumnonii        22: Durotriges         23: Belgae        24: Atrebates        25: Regni         26: Cantiaci This is the name of peoples who lived in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. The Romans used the word Caledones to describe both a single tribe who lived in the Great Glen between the modern towns of Inverness and Fort William. They also called all the tribes living in the north Caledonians. We know the names of some of these other tribes. They include the Cornovii and Smertae who probably lived in Caithness, the Caereni who lived in the far west of the Highlands, the Carnonacae and the Creones in the Western Highlands. The Vacomagi lived in and around the Cairngorns. Other unknown tribes lived in Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides. Warriors from many of these tribes came together to resist the Romans under a leader called Calgacus at battle of Mons Graupius in AD 84. Although the Romans won this battle, they never successfully conquered the Highlands. The Romans admired the Caledonii for their ability to endure cold, hunger and hardship. Tacitus described them as red-haired and large-limbed. All these tribes lived very different lifestyles than neighbouring peoples in other parts of Scotland. In many areas they lived in tall stone towers, called Brochs, or other fortified sites, called Duns. Unlike the Taexali and Venicones, the Caledones rarely made religious offerings of fine metal objects.  Little is known about this group who lived in what is today Grampian, except that the people lived in small undefended farms and hamlets. They shared much with their neighbours the Venicones to the south. Although the Taexali were defeated by the Romans in AD 84, they were never permanently occupied. Like the Venicones and Caledones, they lived beyond the northern most frontier of the Roman Empire; the Antonine Wall.  This tribe lived in what is today Cumbria. They are a poorly known group which were made into their own civitas (an administrative units or 'county') in the Roman Province. There is very little archaeological evidence for the people who lived in this area before the Roman Conquest. Like their neighbours, the Novantae, these peoples probably lived in small farms and did not use coins or have big hillforts. The Carvetti might have been a smaller tribe within the large kingdom or federation of the Brigantes. This tribe lived in what is today Tayside. The Roman army campaigned several times in the territory of this people, but they were never permanently conquered and occupied. The archaeological evidence shows that this people and their northern neighbours, the Taexali, had much in common. The Venicones were one of the few groups in northern Britain at this time that buried their dead in stone lined graves, such graves and cremation burials are very rare in other parts of Britain before the Roman period. The Venicones and Taexali also made offerings of prestigious decorated locally made metal objects in bogs and lakes, including massive bronze armlets.  Little is known about this mysterious tribe except that they lived in the modern region of Kintyre and probably the islands of Arran, Jura and Islay.  This is the tribe or people who lived in the central part of Scotland around what is today Glasgow and Strathclyde. The name of this tribe could be spelt either as Damnonii or as Dumnonii although the Dumnonii is also the name of the people who lived in Devon and Cornwall at this time. The Damnonii were conquered by the Romans and for many years their territory was occupied by the Roman army before they retreated further south to the line of Hadrians Wall.  The Novantae were a little known tribe or people who lived in what is today south-west Scotland. The people living in this area did not build massive forts on the tops of mountains, as did the Votandini, nor did the make many offerings of fine metal objects. Like their neighbours to the south, the Carvetii, archaeologists have found little evidence for the lives of these peoples before the Roman Conquest. They were clearly farmers and herders, but few of their farms and other settlements have been excavated by archaeologists so far. A British tribe of Scotland, the name is thought to mean 'hunters'. The Roman geographer Ptolemy places them in the Southern uplands of Scotland, although it is not clear from the little evidence we have as to exactly where this people lived. Some scholars place their location as the upper Tweed Basin, and it is unclear if they were part of the Votadini. The Selgovae might have used Eildon Seat as their principal settlement, but this might have been a Votadinian site. Like the Votandini, they were conquered in AD 79-80 by the Roman army. The Votadini were a very large tribe or people that lived in the south east of Scotland. In the north, their territory started at Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth and stretched as far south as Northumberland in northern England. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. The Votadini, like the Brigantes, were a group made up of smaller tribes, unfortunately the names of these smaller tribes and communities remain unknown. Archaeologically, the territory of the Votadini was very different to that of either the Venicones or the Novantae. Large walls, banks and ditches surrounded most of their farms and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Seat and Traprain Law), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies.  This large tribe was, like the Votandini, a federation of smaller communities. The name means 'upland people' or 'hill dwellers'. This name is very appropriate as the Pennines formed the heart of their territory. After the Roman Conquest, the Brigantes were formed into a very large civitates, or administrative unit that covered most of Yorkshire, Cleveland, Durham and Lancashire. It stretched from the North Sea to the Irish Sea. We know the names of some of the smaller tribes they made up the Brigantes at the time of the Roman Conquest. They include the Setanti in Lancashire , the Lopocares, the Corionototae and the Tectoverdi around the Tyne valley. This huge area was very varied. As well as people living in the Dales and hills, many people farmed the fertile land in Durham, Tyneside and Teeside. At the time of the Roman Conquest people in this region wore swords carried in distinctive local metal scabbards that were highly decorated. An important centre for the Brigantes was built at Stanwick in North Yorkshire in the first century AD. This was probably the capital of Queen Cartimandua who ruled the Brigantes. Cartimandua was friendly towards the Romans, but her husband was anti-Roman. The Romans invaded and occupied the territory in AD79.  The Parisi lived in East Yorkshire. They were a small, but distinctive group of people who farmed the chalk hills of the Yorkshire Wolds. The Parisi share their name with the people who lived in France around what is today Paris although whether both tribes shared strong links is hotly debated. The British Parisi are known for their unusual 'chariot-burials' and cemeteries. Unlike other people living in Britain between about 300 and 100 BC, the people in East Yorkshire buried their dead in large cemeteries. This was much like the way many peoples in France and Germany buried their dead at the same time. However, in other respects, the East Yorkshire Parisi lived in British style houses, wore British style ornaments and used British style pottery. At the time of the Romans, the Parisi had stopped burying they dead in this unusual way. However, the carried on other distinctive styles of life and remained separate from their large, powerful neighbours, the Brigantes. After the Roman Conquest they were made into their own small civitas with their capital at Petuaria (modern Brough on Humber)  The Cornovii are a surprisingly obscure tribe, given that they lay well within the boundaries of the Roman province and their civitas capital, Wroxeter, was one of the largest in Britain. They share their name with a Caledonian tribe who lived in the far north of Scotland. The name probably means 'people of the horn'. There is no reason to think that this group shared any common ancestry with the group in Caithness. Many tribes or peoples in Europe at the time of the Roman Conquest shared similar names. This might be because these tribes had contacts with each other. But it is just as likely to be a coincidence, as people used similar types of names for themselves such as 'the people of the mountains' or 'the brave people' etc. The Cornovii never issued coinage and before the Roman Conquest left little evidence to recognise them. They probably lived in what are today the modern counties of Staffordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire.  The Deceangli, the Ordovices and the Silures were the three main tribe groups who lived in the mountains of what is today called Wales. However, in prehistory Wales, England and Scotland did not exist in anyway as distinctive entities in the ways they have done so for the last 1000 years. The Deceangli were the peoples of what is today north Wales and probably included the peoples who lived on the Isle of Anglesey. The Romans considered Anglesey, or Mona as they and the locals at the time called it, as a stronghold of the Druids. Because the Druids played an important role in encouraging the recently conquered Britons to resist the Roman Conquers, the Roman army specifically targeted Anglesey for destruction. On the eve of Boudicca's revolt in what is today East Anglia, the Roman Army has only just completed the long and difficult task of conquering the tribes living in the Welsh Mountains. The final episode of that conquest was the invasion of Anglesey and the slaughter of the Druids there. This group covered much of the mountains and valleys of what is today mid-Wales. They were the northern neighbours of the Silures and the Southern neighbours of the Degeangli. Like the Silures and Degeangli, these peoples lived in small farms, often defended against attack. After the emperor Claudius invaded southern England in AD 43, one of the main leaders of the Britons, called Caratacus escaped to the Ordovices and the Silures. They were stirred into rebellion by Caratacus and for a long time successfully resisted the Romans. The Roman general Agricola only finally defeated the Ordovices in 77-8. The tribe was incorporated into Britannia and became a civitas (an administrative district). This large tribe appears to have been created only shortly before the Roman Conquest of Britain.
These low lying and fertile parts of eastern Scotland provide archaeological evidence for different types of settlement and rituals compared to those of the Highlands and Islands to the west and north.
Archaeologists suspect many Iron Age peoples often practised complex funeral rituals in which bodies were naturally allowed to decompose.
Only the Venicones and Taexali wore these unusual ornaments, which could weigh over 1.5 kg each and were worn one on each arm.
Many tribes in Britain and France at the time of the Roman Conquest shared similar names which may have been as a result of inter-tribal contact. It could, however, be coincidence, as people used similar types of names for themselves such as 'the people of the mountains', 'people of the horn' or 'the brave people' etc.
(TO BE CONTINUED) . . . . [GONNA MAKE SOME TOAST AND MARMALADE] LOL
