Carvetii

Carvetii
Approximate location of the Carvetii
Geography
Capital	Clifton Dykes or Carlisle (Luguvalium)
Location	Cumbria North Lancashire
Rulers	Venutius?

The Carvetii were an Iron Age people and were subsequently identified as a civitas (canton) of Roman Britain living in what is now Cumbria, in North-West England.

Historical speculation has the Carvetii occupying the Solway Plain, the area immediately north of Hadrian's Wall, the Eden Valley, and possibly the Lune Valley.

The Setantii may have occupied North Lancashire and south Cumbria.

The Carvetii are not mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography, nor in any other classical text, and are known only from three Roman (third and fourth century A.D.) inscriptions, one of which is now lost. One was in Old Penrith, (the Voreda Roman fort) north of the present Penrith, on a tombstone. The others were on two milestones: one at Frenchfield (north of Brocavum), and the other at Langwathby in Cumbria, both also near Penrith. Higham and Jones, in 1985, suggested that the combination of the first two inscriptions mentioned above "allows us to infer the existence of the 'civitas Carvetiorum', or canton of the Carvetii, and the existence of its own council or governing body."

The capital of the Carvetii is presumed to have been Luguvalium (Carlisle), the only walled town known in the region. Higham and Jones suggest, given the location of the inscriptions, and given that the best land in the area was nearby, and also given the existence of a large (7 acres, 3 ha.) enclosed settlement site a couple of miles south-east of Penrith in the Eden Valley, that Clifton Dykes was the "logical location for the 'caput Carvetiorum' " ('the centre of the Carvetii'). In other words, despite the later importance of Carlisle as the centre of activity once the Romans had invaded (and the likely place where tribal councils would take place), the Eden Valley "was the heartland of the area concerned." The Brougham area, with its seeming importance in the cult of Belatucadrus, its strategic position in the Eden Valley with its route to the east across Stainmore, its nearby history as a meeting place with three henges, as well as with "the presumed pre-Roman tribal capital at Clifton Dykes", may have been the settlement focus of the Carvetii, at least before the Roman military campaigns in the A.D. 70s. Indeed, this might account for the building of the Roman fort at Brocavum. Rivet and Smith suggest that the name 'Carvetii' may refer to the British word 'carvos', meaning 'deer' or 'stag', and that this could have associations with the horned god Belatucadrus mentioned above.