Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[Alanus]

Thanks, Aotb

Your're right. We have gone off-topic-- AGAIN!
Cagwinn is correct: the Britons and Alans didn't have "close" languages (other than both being IE). However, they still remained closer, in many cultural aspects, than to the Romans, Saxons, etc-- queens, women-warriors, water deity worship, early mobility, aka horses, spoked wheels, chariots, but especially the deer thing in relation to the afterlife. [and how inextricably odd that all these cultural features point to an EASTERN European or Eurasian origin.]

(Interesting but off-topic: the deer is also heavily depicted in post-Buddhain northern India, and it has been suggested that the Buddha, who was called Sakamuni, "sage of the Sakas," may have come from a Saka steppe tribe. Not my suggestion, but curious. hock: )

I'll not argue about Celtic origins beyond this: pre-BC Celtic word scabbards with dragons/ lyre birds show up in Hungary and the Lower Danube; one of the oldest proto-Celtic religious cult items (a bronze cauldron-wagon with spoked wheels) is dated to 800 BC and comes from Rumania; I personally examined early pre-BC Celtic fibulae and helmets at the Archaeological Museum of Odessa, Ukraine... where the assist. curator informed me they were "found locally." Also a pre-BC Celtic population in the Crimea; and the iron-age fort at Bishpukin (error spell), Poland, certainly has Celtic overtones. The river Ljubljanica has revealed hundreds of Celtic water-votive items. Plus the Boi, a extremely old Celtic tribe, originated near the western Czek border. Eastern Europe? Western Europe? The Rumanian find is the oldest.

Interesting about the Pictish/Northern Briton's inscription. Neighboring cultures DID affect one another, which has been my premise all along. How Romanized were the southern Britons? Judging from the upper classes, rather so. Roman names. A lot of Briton-owned villas, especially in the West Country and the area between Caerwent and Llanwit Major.