Why These Ancient Scottish Seafarers Didn’t Snack on Fish

To detail the Picts' diet, researchers studied 137 skeletons buried under Portmahomack's old Tarbat Parish Church. (Rudhach via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Picts were one of Scotland’s earliest—and most mysterious—civilizations. Known for rebuffing Rome’s advances, they vanished from the historical record toward the end of the first millennium A.D. Information on the coastal culture’s culinary preferences is scarce, but thanks to new research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, scholars now have a better understanding of these ancient people’s diets.

Forensic analysis of skeletons thought to belong to sixth-century Picts suggests their owners eschewed fish despite the community’s seafaring prowess and proximity to the ocean, reports Alison Campsie for the Scotsman.

To conduct the new assessment, archaeologists studied 137 skeletons excavated at the Tarbat Parish Church in Portmahomack. The remains span hundreds of years, including the Pictish period.

“The Picts are commonly associated with being war-like savages who fought off the Romans, but there was so much more to these people, and echoes of their civilization [are] etched in their artwork and sculpture,” says Shirley Curtis-Summers, a forensic archaeologist at the University of Bradford and lead author of the study, in a statement. “Sadly, there are almost no direct historical records on the Picts, so this skeletal collection is a real golden chalice.”

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