 When the Roman Empire failed to acquire what is now Scotland as part of their absorption of land and culture, they described a fierce warrior-type civilization known to the Romans as the Picks. Throughout history, these people had been shadowy, enigmatic figures. From the outset, they were regarded as savage warriors, but by the time the Norsemen were compiling their sages and histories, the memory of the Picks had degenerated into a semi-mythical race of fairies. Theories abound, although these days it is generally accepted that the Picks were not, as we once believed, a new race, but were simply the descendants of the indigenous Iron Age people of Northern Scotland. The cloud of uncertainty that surrounds these people is simply because they left no written records that we know about. The Picks held their territory against the invading Romans in a number of engagements and, although they were defeated in battle, they won the war. Scotland holds the distinction of never failing to the invading armies of Rome, even though the Romans attempted conquest numerous times. The Picks exist in the written record from their first mention in 297 until 900, when no further mention is made of them. As modern scholars point out, their absence from written history does not mean that they mysteriously vanished or were conquered by the Scots and annihilated. It simply means no more was written about them as they merged with the Southern Scots culture, who already had a written history by that time, and the two histories became one from then on. According to the Collins Encyclopedia of Scotland, the Picks did not arrive, in a sense that they had always been there, for they were the descendants of the first people to inhabit what eventually became Scotland. Known as Picti by the Romans, meaning painted ones in Latin, these northern tribes constituted the largest kingdom in dark age Scotland. They repelled the conquest of both Romans and Angles, creating a true north-south divide in the British Isles, only to disappear from history by the end of the first millennium, swallowed whole by the history of another group, the Gauls. Together they created the kingdom of Alba. This investigating the ancient battles may have just unearthed one of the largest ancient graveyards from these painted ones, according to the Romans. A cemetery from the time of the Pictish civilization in Scotland has been discovered and is dating to 1400 years old. The site of the Black Isles in the Highlands contains the burial mounds near Muir or Ord. They had also found features on the site that could date much further back in the prehistoric period. Pterodil, through time, a project of the north of Scotland Archaeological Society is excavating the site. The project has previously found a harpoon or spear along with axes made by hunter-gatherers in the Highlands 6000 years ago. The tools made from red deer antlers were uncovered at a methylithic site and the harpoon may have been used in hunts of seals and wild fowl on the mudflats of what is today the Bule Firth, according to a report by the BBC. Stephen Birch, the cemetery site director, said the latest excavation came hot on the heels of the discovery of a previously unrecorded Pictish stone about six miles away in Ding Wong. It is a very important site with a number of square and round boroughs as well as larger enclosures. We intend to evaluate the preservation and phasing of these features, obtaining radio carbon dates from charcoal and bone samples to tell the story of site over time. The Pict's history is completely lost to us guys, we rely on other accounts from the invading armies that they successfully defended Scotland from. The Romans in particular are responsible for keeping the memory of these people alive inadvertently nonetheless. Vital clues exist as this had led to the discovery of physical people who are thought to be the lost civilization. What do you guys think about this anyway? Comments below and as always, thank you for watching.