Angus is an administrative area of local government with Dundee as its principal town. However, as an administrative area, it goes back to the pre-history of Scotland . The roots of the name are derived from the personal name Oengus, who was reputedly the son of Fergus, an over-king of Pictland in the eighth century, before the area fell under the sway of the Dalriadic kings of Scots. Sometime around the ninth to the tenth century, the distinctive character of Pictland started to merge with other cultural forms derived from Dalriada and the Angle kingdom that lay to the south of the Forth . But, it is unlikely that the Pictish peoples of Angus were displaced or wiped out. Instead, it is generally accepted that the rise of the Scots and the development of the early Scottish nation followed a pattern of relatively peaceful incorporation of the separate peoples comprising the Angles (based around the Lothians), the Britons (based in Strathclyde) and the Picts (based in the north and easterly parts of Scotland ).