Sources
As the first half of the period is largely prehistoric, archaeology plays an important part in studies. There are no significant contemporary internal sources for the Picts, although evidence has been gleaned from king lists and annals preserved in Wales and Ireland and from sources written down much later, which may draw on oral traditions or earlier sources. From the 7th century there is documentary evidence from Latin sources including the lives of Saints and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Archaeological sources include settlements, art and surviving everyday objects. Other aids to understanding in this period include onomastics (the study of names) - divided into toponymy (place-names), showing the movement of languages, and the sequence in which different languages were spoken in an area, and anthroponymy (personal names), which can offer clues to relationships and origins.
Read more about this topic: Scotland In The Early Middle Ages
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“The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)