Novantae

[3] Modern archeological excavations at Rispain Camp, near Whithorn, suggest that a large fortified farmstead was occupied between 100 BC and 200 AD, indicating that the people living in the area at that time were engaged in agriculture.

Stone-walled huts appeared during the Roman era and the Novantae are thought to have had a centre of some kind at Clatteringshaws near Kirkcudbright, which started out as a palisaded enclosure before being expanded into a set of timber and then stone-faced ramparts.

[12] Ptolemy's placement of the Selgovae town of Trimontium was accepted to be somewhere along the southern coast of Scotland until William Roy (1726–1790) placed it far to the east at Eildon Hills, near Newstead.

While Roy's historical work is largely ignored due to his unknowing reliance on a fraudulent source, his maps and drawings are untainted, and continue to be held in the highest regard.

William Forbes Skene (Celtic Scotland, 1886) briefly relates their notice in Ptolemy, adding his conjectures as to the possible locations of towns, though not with any conviction.

[17][18][19][20] More recent histories largely treat the Novantae in passing, but sometimes weave them into a story that is not supported by either Ptolemy's map or archaeological evidence, though they are consistently placed in Galloway.

[21] Barry Cunliffe, an archaeologist, (Iron Age Communities in Britain, 1971) mentions the Novantae in passing, saying their homeland was Galloway, and with a map showing it, which he attributes to "various sources".

[22] David Mattingly (An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire, 2006) mentions them as a people of southwestern Scotland according to Ptolemy, with maps showing them as occupying ditto Galloway.

[23] Sheppard Frere (Britannia: A History of Roman Britain, 1987) mentions the Novantae several times in passing, associating them firmly with the Selgovae and sometimes with the Brigantes.

He says that their name means 'the Vigorous People', that they had kings and often acted in concert with the Selgovae and Brigantes, all of whom may have joined the Picts in raids on Roman Britain.