Mapping caution
Caution Any map of northern Iron Age tribes is approximate. Ptolemy's coordinates and tribal lists are indispensable, but Mann and Breeze warn that his north-British data may mix native places and Roman forts, and that some unallocated names may have been assigned to tribes incorrectly. [mann-breeze]
Documented Ptolemy remains the key source for several northern tribal names and places, but his map of Britain also contains geographic distortion. [ptolemy]
Tribal-name table
| Name | Use on this site | Evidence caution |
|---|---|---|
| Caledonii / Caledones | North-British people or confederation in Roman literary and geographic framing. | Do not treat every northern group as Caledonii without source support. |
| Taexali | North-eastern group in the Ptolemaic geography. | Ptolemy's placement is part of a distorted coordinate system. |
| Vacomagi | Northern group in the Ptolemaic geography. | Locations and internal political structure are reconstructed, not self-described. |
| Venicones | Eastern or north-eastern group in the Ptolemaic geography. | Use cautiously with modern regional assignments. |
| Novantae, Selgovae, Damnonii, Votadini/Otalini | Southern and western adjacent groups relevant to the northern British context. | Not all should be collapsed into a single Pretani identity. |
Future map plan
The safest future map would use shaded approximate zones, not hard borders. It should label the map as a reconstruction from Ptolemy, Tacitus, Roman geography, archaeology, and modern scholarship.