East Lomond: The Development of the Southern Pictish Kingdoms

In this talk Prof Gordon Noble will outline the latest progress on work on the southern Pictish kingdoms. The Picts – ‘the painted people’ – were first mentioned in late Roman sources in AD 297 as a collective name for troublesome, barbaric peoples, living north of the Roman frontier. The Picts went on to become the dominant kingdom in northern Britain, forming the precursor to the medieval kingdom of Alba and latterly of Scotland. The Picts have long remained an enigma due to the dearth of historical sources they left behind, and the archaeological record has been very difficult to populate too. The lecture will focus on some recent discoveries at East Lomond, Fife, a majorhill fort where the sequence extends from the 3rd to the 7th century AD. The talk will outline the latest finds and contextualize the site in terms of developments in the Roman Iron Age and the post-Roman period.