The Picts are one of the most remarkable civilizations to ever grace the planet. We still have very little understanding of their society, basically, because they were not Christian till very late (the last converted people in the British Isles) and did not keep written documents. So we still do not know what they called themselves, the term Picts comes from the word pictus, which means painted in Latin. So, they caught the tail end of the Romans in Britain and lasted through the dark ages and into the early medieval period. The great Scottish craft of invention and pragmatism must have come from the Picts because the Picts invented some interesting things like the triangular harp, pike (long spear used against cavalry) and early forms of the crossbow. They were also animist up until very late and quite artistic, painting themselves and their standing stones (this is possibly why the Romans called them Picts). They were also known to be epic seafarers like the Vikings and the Gaels who they were surrounded by.
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