Part I — The Primeval or Stone Period — The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland by Daniel Wilson

Part I The Primeval or Stone Period

“Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris,
Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter,
Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus, atque ita porro
Pugnabant armis, quæ post fabricaverat usus;
Donec verba, quibus voces sensusque notarent,
Nominaque invenere.”

Horace, Sat. I. 3.

Chapter I — The Primeval Transition

The closing epoch of geology, which embraces the diluvial formations, is that in which archæology has its beginning. In a zoological point of view, it includes man and the existing races of animals, as well as the extinct races which appear to have been contemporaneous with indigenous species. Archæology also lays claim to the still more recent alluvium, with all its included relics pertaining to the historic period. Within the legitimate scope of this department of investigation are comprehended the entire evidence of changes on the geographical features of the country, on its coasts and harbours, its estuaries, rivers, and plains: all properly coming within the limits of Archæology, though too extensive to be embraced in the present review of its elements. This much, however, we learn from an examination of the detritus and its included fossils, that at the period immediately preceding the occupation of the British Islands by their first colonists the country must have been almost entirely covered with forests, and overrun by numerous races of animals long since extinct. Much has been done in recent years to complete the history of British fossil mammalia; and though less attention has been paid to the question in which we are here most deeply interested, as to what portion of them are to be considered as having been contemporaneous with man, yet on this also some interesting light has been thrown. The most extensive discoveries of mammalian remains and recent shells generally occur along the valleys by which the present drainage of the country takes place, and hence we infer that little change has taken place in its physical conformation since their deposition. These, however, include the mammoth, elephant, rhinoceros, cave tiger, with other extinct species, and are referrible to the earlier portion of an epoch, with the close of which we have alone to deal. They belong to that period in which our planet was passing through its very latest stage of preparation prior to its occupation by man; a period on which the geologist, who deals with phenomena of the most gigantic character, and with epochs of vast duration, is apt to dwell with diminished interest, but which excites in the thoughtful mind a keener sympathy than all that preceded it. The general geographical disposition of the globe was then nearly as it still remains. Our own island was, during a great portion of it, insulated, as it is now. Yet it is of this familiar locality that the palæontologist remarks:—“In this island, anterior to the deposition of the drift, there was associated with the great extinct tiger, bear, and hyæna of the caves, in the destructive task of controlling the numbers of the richly developed order of the herbivorous mammalia, a feline animal, (the Machairodus Latidens,) as large as the tiger, and, to judge by its instruments of destruction, of greater ferocity.”20 It was within the epoch to which these strange mammals belong, and while some of them, and many other contemporaneous forms of being, still animated the scene, that man was introduced upon this stage of existence, and received dominion over every living thing.

It has been supposed by more than one intelligent naturalist, that the gigantic fossil elk (Megaceros Hibernicus) co-existed with the human race. Dr. Hart has produced what he conceived to be conclusive evidence on this subject, derived from the appearance of a rib, pierced with an oval opening near its lower edge, “with the margin depressed on the outer and raised on the inner surface, round which there is an irregular effusion of callus; in fact, such an effect as would be produced by the head of an arrow remaining in a wound after the shaft was broken off.” This conclusion Professor Owen has disputed, apparently on satisfactory grounds.21 By a similar line of argument, however, to which he has yielded his assent,22 it has been shewn that the north of Europe was occupied by the human race at a time when the Bos primigenius, the Bison priscus, and the Ursus spelæus, existed.23 Of the Ursus spelæus, or great cave bear, a skeleton is preserved in the museum of Lund, found in a peat-bog in Scania, under a gravel or stone deposit, and alongside of primitive implements of the chase. Though no such direct evidence has yet been observed here, similar conclusions have been arrived at. Mr. Owen, after referring the period of existence of the great cave bear to earlier geological epochs, adds, as the conclusion from present evidence, “that the genus surviving, or under a new specific form reappearing, after the epoch of the deposition and dispersion of those enormous, unstratified, superficial accumulations of marine and fresh-water shingle and gravel, called drift and diluvium, has been continued during the formation of vast fens and turbaries upon the present surface of the island, and until the multiplication and advancement of the human race introduced a new cause of extermination, under the powerful influence of which the Bear was finally swept away from the indigenous fauna of Great Britain.”24 To these native mammals may be added the horse, the roebuck, the red deer, the wild boar, the brown bear, the wolf, and the beaver, all of which have undoubtedly existed as wild animals in this country, and been gradually domesticated or extirpated by man.25

The most interesting of all the species for our present inquiry are those adapted for domestication, among which the Bovidæ occupy a prominent place. Of these, the great fossil ox (Bos primigenius) is very frequently found in Scotland. Dr. Fleming describes a skull of one in his possession measuring 27½ inches in length,26 and a still larger one from Roxburghshire, now in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum, measures 28 inches in length. No evidence leads us to conclude that any attempt was made by the native Britons to domesticate either of the two kinds of gigantic oxen, the bison or great urus, which the Romans discovered on first penetrating into the north of Europe. But besides these there was also a smaller primitive wild species, the Bos Longifrons, of the domestication of which in Britain we have abundant proof, at least at the period of the Roman invasion. Soon after this it appears to have become extinct, so that we are rather led to assume that it may have been the domesticated ox of the native population prior to the intrusion of the Romans. Mr. Woods refers to the discovery of the skull and horns of the great urus in a tumulus on the Wiltshire Downs, along with bones of deer and boars, and fragments of native pottery, in proof of the existence in this country originally of a “very large race of taurine oxen, although most probably entirely destroyed by the aboriginal inhabitants before the invasion of Britain by Cæsar.” Professor Owen has discussed the probable influence of Roman occupation on the wild herds and the breeds of domesticated oxen, with much sagacity, though somewhat too much influenced by the views so generally entertained of the barbarian state of the native Britons prior to the intrusion of Roman colonists.27 Scarcely less interesting is the evidence which British fossil mammalia furnish of the existence of the horse among the native wild animals of the country, since we find proof, both in the early tumuli and the subterranean dwellings, not only of its domestication, but also of its being used for food.

This very slight glance at the most prominent indications of the primeval state of the country, will suffice to convey some idea of the circumstances under which the aboriginal colonists entered on the possession of the British Isles. Other portions of the same line of argument, derived from the fossil mammalia, and the circumstances under which they are discovered, will come under review in the course of our inquiries. The fossil Cetacea, especially, furnish most interesting and conclusive evidence of the very remote period at which the presence of a human population is discoverable in Scotland, while the beaver, (Castor Europæus,) which is frequently found in a fossil state, is also proved to have existed as a living species, both in Scotland and Wales, down to the twelfth century, and is even referred to so late as the fifteenth century. To the abundance of wild animals which continued to occupy the moors and forests of Scotland, long after the primitive states of society had entirely passed away, we shall also have occasion hereafter to refer. The same causes which exterminated the huge urus, the cave bear, and others of the largest and most intractable of the wild denizens of the British forests, ultimately led to the extinction of the greater number of those which either supplied objects of the chase, or were inimical to the social progress of man. Thus we observe, in the economy of nature, that one species after another disappears, to make way for newer occupants, until at length the last of those huge preadamite races of being give place, before the gradual advancement of man to assume possession of terrestrial dominion. Yet on this point also those questions in historic chronology, which tend to determine more precisely the lapse of centuries intervening between the Adamic creation and the earliest era of authentic history, exercise an important influence. Geology leaves no room for questioning the fact, that man did not enter upon this earth after some tremendous cosmical revolution, which made way for an entirely new race of beings, but that he was introduced as the lord of an inheritance already in possession of many inferior orders of creation. Contemporary with the most remarkable cave fossils are found the remains of many historic, or still existing species, and the precise line has yet to be drawn which shall determine how many of these were extinct, at the period when the Creator, at length satisfied with his inferior works, said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The remains, both of the large cave hyæna, (Hyæna spelæa,) and of the great cave tiger, (Felis spelæa,) occur not only in ossiferous caverns, but have also been found in superficial unstratified deposits. Considerable portions of the skeleton of the latter were discovered in 1829, along with remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, ox, stag, and horse, in a marl-pit near North Cliff, Yorkshire. Under precisely similar geological circumstances the Bos primigenius has very frequently been brought to light in Scotland. It is of this animal that Sir R. I. Murchison remarks, in a letter to Professor Owen, descriptive of an example already referred to, found in a bog in Scania: “This urus is most remarkable in exhibiting a wound of the apophysis of the second dorsal vertebra, apparently inflicted by a javelin of one of the aborigines, the hole left by which was exactly fitted by Nillson with one of the ancient stone javelins.... This instrument fractured the bone, and penetrated to the apophysis of the third dorsal vertebra, which is also injured. The fractured portions are so well cemented, that Nillson thinks the animal probably lived two or three years after. The wound must have been inflicted over the horns, and the javelin must have been hurled with prodigious force.” Of the existence, therefore, of the Bos primigenius within the historic epoch, we can entertain no doubt, and it is accordingly requisite to give full weight to the influence which its presence must have exercised on the general condition of our island. Professor Owen remarks, after showing the erroneous nature of the usually received opinion, that the lion, the tiger, and the jaguar, are peculiarly adapted to a tropical climate:—“A more influential, and, indeed, the chief cause or condition of the prevalence of the larger feline animals, in any given locality, is the abundance of the vegetable feeding animals in a state of nature, with the accompanying thickets or deserts unfrequented by man. The Indian tiger follows the herds of antelope and deer, in the lofty Himalayan chain, to the verge of perpetual snow. The same species also passes that great mountain barrier, and extends its ravages with the leopard, the panther, and the cheetah, into Bocharia, to the Altaic chain, and into Siberia, as far as the fiftieth degree of latitude; preying principally, according to Pallas, on the wild horses and asses.”28 No change, therefore, of climate, nor any remarkable geological revolution is needful to account for the disappearance of the huge British carnivora, the remains of which abound in the ossiferous caves. They pertain to the closing transition-period of the preadamite earth, and, as in other transition-periods which we shall have to consider, some traces of them survived among the inheritors of the new era. It is therefore a legitimate source of interest to the archæologist, to observe the mingling of extinct and familiar species among the fossil mammals found in the superficial deposits, wherein so much of the evidence of his own science must be sought. It discovers to him the precise link by which his pursuits take hold of the great chain of truth, and in a new sense shews man, not as an isolated creation, but as the last and best of an order of animated beings, whose line sweeps back into the far removed shadow of an unmeasured past. “Phenomena like these,” says Professor Sedgwick, when referring to the discoveries at the North Cliff, Yorkshire, in 1829, “have a tenfold interest, binding the present order of things to that of older periods, in which the existing forms of animated nature seem one after another to disappear.”29

Thus much is apparent from the most superficial glance at the geological evidence of the primeval state of Britain within the historic era, that though corresponding in its great geographical outlines to its present condition, it differed, in nearly every other respect, as widely as it is possible for us to conceive of a country capable of human occupation. A continuous range of enormous forests covered nearly the whole face of the country. Vast herds of wild cattle, of gigantic proportions and fierce aspect, roamed through the chase, while its thickets and caves were occupied by carnivora, preying on the herbivorous animals, and little likely to hold in dread the armed savage who intruded on their lair. The whole of these have existed since the formation of the peat began, and therefore furnish some evidence of the very remote antiquity to which we must refer the origin of some of the wastes that supply, as will be seen in subsequent chapters, an important element in the elucidation of primitive chronology. Upon this singular arena Archæology informs us that the primeval Briton entered, unprovided with any of those appliances with which the arts of civilisation arm man against such obstacles. Intellectually, he appears to have been in nearly the lowest stage to which an intelligent being can sink; morally, he was the slave of a superstition, the grovelling character of which will be traced in reviewing his sepulchral rites; physically, he differed little in stature from the modern inheritors of the same soil, but his cerebral development was poor, his head small in proportion to his body, his hands, and probably his feet, also small; while the weapons with which he provided himself for the chase, and the few implements that ministered to his limited necessities, indicate only the crude development of that inventive ingenuity which first distinguishes the reason of man from the instincts of the brutes. The evidence from which such conclusions are deduced, forms the subject of the following chapters.

Chapter II — Aboriginal Traces

Though we are assured, and cannot doubt, that man was created an intelligent being, capable of enjoying the high faculties with which he alone of all the denizens of earth was endowed, we have no reason to assume that he had any conception of the practical arts by which we are enabled to satisfy wants of which he was equally unconscious. We know on the same authority that there existed a period in the history of our race, ere Zillah, the wife of Lamech, had borne to him Tubal-cain, “the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron,” when men tilled the ground, pursued the chase, made garments of its spoils, and constructed tents to dwell in, without any knowledge of the working in metals, on which the simplest of all our known arts depend. Through such a stage of primitive arts most, perhaps all, nations have passed. We detect evidences of it among the Egyptians, old as the date of their civilisation appears, in the stone knives of the embalmers, still frequently found in the catacombs. By such only could the incision be made in the side of the dead, through which to extract the intestines; and when they had been cleansed and replaced, the eye of Osiris, the judge of the dead, was placed as a mysterious seal over the sacred incision. The feeling in which such a custom originated, arising from the veneration which appears to be universally attached to whatever is ancient, is easily understood. While the knife of bronze or iron was freely employed for all ordinary purposes, the primitive stone implement was retained unchanged for the sacred incision in the dead. So also, probably from a like idea directly borrowed from the Egyptians, the stone or flint knife appears to have been used by the early Hebrews in circumcision. Zipporah, Moses’ wife, took a sharp stone, or stone knife, and cut off the foreskin of her son. The like was done when Joshua renewed the same rite at Gilgal in the east border of Jericho; while a still more remarkable community of feeling with the veneration of the ancient Egyptians for the otherwise obsolete implement of stone, is discernible in its retention by the priests of Montezuma as the instrument of human sacrifice.

The substitution of flint, stone, horn, and wood, in the absence of metal weapons and implements, must be abundantly familiar to all, in the customs of society when met with in a rude and primitive condition. The Fins and Esquimaux, the African bushmen, and the natives of such of the Polynesian Islands as are rarely visited by Europeans, still construct knives and arrow-heads of flint or fish-bone, and supply themselves with wooden clubs and stone adzes and hammers, with little consciousness of imperfection or deficiency in such appliances. Examples of such a state of arts and human skill might be multiplied from the most dissimilar sources. It seems, as has been already remarked, to be a stage through which all nations have passed, not without each developing a sufficient individuality to render their arts well worthy of investigation by their descendants. To this primitive era of history we refer under the name of The Stone Period.

In this state were the Scottish, and indeed the whole British aborigines, at an era much more remote than chronologists have been willing to assign for the occupation of the island by a human population, and for a period the duration of which we are also able in some degree to test.

There is one certain point in this inquiry into primitive arts which the British antiquary possesses over all others, and from whence he can start without fear of error, though I am not aware that its importance in this view has heretofore been noted. From our insular position it is unquestionable that the first colonist of the British Isles must have been able to construct some kind of boat, and have possessed sufficient knowledge of navigation to steer his course through the open sea. Contrasting the aboriginal arts to which we have referred with the appliances of later navigators, it seems only reasonable to conclude that the bark of the primeval Columbus, who led the way from the continent of Europe to the untrodden wilds of Britain, differed no less from the caravel of the bold Genoese, than that did from the British ship that now follows in its course. Can we recover the history of such primitive caravel? It seems not improbable that we may. Time has dealt kindly with the frail fleets of the aboriginal Britons, and kept in store some curious records of them, not doubting but these would at length be inquired for.

It is by no means to be presumed as certain that the early navigators chose the Straits of Dover as the readiest passage to the new world they were to people. Both Welsh and Danish traditions point to a migration from Jutland. Whencesoever the first emigrants came, Providence alone could pilot their frail barks. Successive migrations, the chances of shipwreck, or the like independent causes, may have landed the fathers of the British race on widely different parts of our island coast. It is a well established fact, that at later periods many distinct and rival centres of population were thus established throughout the British Isle.

Lochar Moss, a well-known tract in Dumfriesshire, occupies an area of fully twelve miles in length, by between two and three miles in breadth, extending to the Solway Frith. Its history is summed up in an old popular rhyme, still repeated in the surrounding districts:—

“First a wood, and next a sea,
Now a moss, and ever will be!”

Lying as it does on the southern outskirts of the Scottish kingdom, the track of many successive generations has lain along its margin or across its treacherous surface, beneath which their records have been from time to time engulfed, to be restored in after ages to the light of day. To these we shall have occasion again to refer; but among them our chief attention is meanwhile attracted by its ancient canoes, repeatedly found along with huge trunks of trees, hazel-nuts, acorns, and other traces of the forest, and also, according to the old statist of Torthorwald parish, “anchors, cables, and oars,” the no less obvious heirlooms of the sea. During the last century the peats cut from this moss formed almost the sole supply of fuel to the inhabitants of Dumfries and its neighbourhood, nor have they yet ceased to avail themselves of its ready stores.

In 1782 Pennant examined one of these rude barks formed from the trunk of an oak, which he thus describes: “Near a place called Kilblain, I met with one of the ancient canoes of the primeval inhabitants of the country, when it was probably in the same state of nature as Virginia when first discovered by Captain Philip Amidas. The length of this little vessel was eight feet eight inches, of the cavity six feet seven inches, the breadth two feet, depth eleven inches, and at one end were the remains of three pegs for the paddle. The hollow was made with fire in the very manner that the Indians of America formed their canoes. Another was found in 1736, with its paddle, in the same morass. The last was seven feet long, and dilated to a considerable breadth at one end, so that in early ages necessity dictated the same inventions to the most remote regions.”30 In 1791 the minister of the parish describes another found by a farmer while digging for peats, at a depth of between four and five feet from the surface, and four miles from the highest reach of the tide, resting apparently on the alluvial soil which is there found beneath the moss. Near to the same spot a vessel of mixed metal, and apparently of great antiquity, was recovered, and numerous relics of various kinds, including what are described as anchors, oars, and other naval implements, have been found even at a distance of twelve miles from the present flood-mark—attesting at once the former populousness of the district, and the very remote period to which these evidences of its occupation belong.31 At a depth of seven or eight feet in the Moss of Barnkirk, in the immediate neighbourhood of Newton-Stewart, Wigtonshire, another canoe of the same character as those already described, was dug up in 1814, and has been preserved, owing to its being converted by the farmer into the lintel of one of his cart-sheds. Mr. Joseph Train mentions having seen “a ball of fat or bannock of tallow, weighing twenty-seven pounds,”32 found in the moss immediately above the canoe; and which no doubt was a mass of adipocere, indicating the spot where some large animal had perished in the moss: possibly sinking along with the rude British vessel that lay below. On the draining of Carlinwark Loch, Kirkcudbright, in 1765, a stone dam, an ancient causeway constructed on piles of oak, the vestiges of an iron forge, and other remarkable evidences of human industry and skill, were brought to light, including various canoes, described, like those of Lochar Moss and others found in Merton Mere, as apparently hollowed by fire.33

The Loch of Doon in Ayrshire, has at different periods furnished similar relics of ancient naval art. The fall of its waters in 1832, owing to an unusually protracted drought, permitted the recovery of two of these in a perfect state, one of them measuring about twenty-three feet in length, formed of a single oak tree, with the insertion of an upright plank into a broad groove for the stern. Numerous other relics of canoes were found to be imbedded in the same place; and the head of an ancient battle axe, a rude oak club, with other remains, gave further clue to the character of their builders.34

Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire, has furnished similar canoes, accompanied by other relics of various eras—a brass ladle or patera, with an elegant handle terminating with a ram’s head, probably Roman; and a very fine brass cannon, marked J. R. S. (5?) an antiquity of comparatively modern date.35

Five fathoms deep in the Carse of Falkirk, a complete boat was discovered, not far from the town, and therefore remote from any navigable water.36 Sir John Clerk, well known as an enthusiastic Scottish antiquary of last century, describes with great minuteness another vessel found in the same locality, more remarkable from its size and construction than any of those yet described, and which he pronounces, from the series of superincumbent strata, to have been an antediluvian boat! In the month of May 1726 a sudden rise of the river Carron undermined a portion of its banks, and exposed to view the side of this ancient boat lying imbedded in the alluvial soil, at a depth of fifteen feet from the surface, and covered by successive strata of clay, shells, moss, sand, and gravel. The proprietor immediately ordered it to be dug out. It proved to be a canoe of primitive form, but of larger dimensions than any other discovered to the north of the Tweed. It measured thirty-six feet long by four feet in extreme breadth, and is described in a contemporary newspaper as finely polished and perfectly smooth both inside and outside, formed from a single oak tree, with the usual pointed stem and square stern.37 Mingling with such indisputable traces of human art, are deposited the memorials of many successive changes. Among older relics of the same Carse, in the Edinburgh Museum, are the remains of a fossil elephant found in excavating the Union Canal in 1821, at a depth of some twenty feet in the alluvial soil, with the ivory in such perfect preservation that it was purchased and cut up by a turner, and only rescued in fragments from his lathe.38

But at higher levels in the valley of the Forth, and further from the sea, still more remarkable evidences of the primitive occupants of the country have been found. The ingenious operations by which the Blair Drummond moss has been converted into fertile fields have rendered it famous in the annals of modern engineering and agriculture. In the Carse lands, of which it forms a part, there was discovered in the year 1819, at a distance of a mile from the river, and in an alluvial soil, covered with a thin moss, the surface of which stood some twenty-five feet above the full tide of the Forth, the skeleton of a whale, with a perforated lance or harpoon of deer’s horn beside it. A few years later another whale was found, and in 1824 a third was disclosed on the Blair Drummond estate seven miles further inland, and overlaid with a thick bed of moss. Beside it also lay the rude harpoon of the hardy Caledonian whaler; in this instance retaining, owing to the preservative nature of the moss, some remains of the wooden handle by which the pointed lance of deer’s horn was wielded.39 This primitive relic is now deposited, along with the fossil remains of the whale, whose death-wound it may have given, in the Natural History Museum of the Edinburgh University. Professor Owen remarks, in referring to this class of fossils,—“Although these depositories belong to very recent periods in geology, the situations of the cetaceous fossils generally indicate a gain of dry land from the sea. Thus the skeleton of a balænoptera, seventy-two feet in length, found imbedded in clay on the banks of the Forth, was more than twenty feet above the reach of the highest tide. Several bones of a whale discovered at Dunmore rock, Stirlingshire, in brick-earth, were nearly forty feet above the present level of the sea.... I might add other instances of the discovery of cetaceous remains in positions to which, in the present condition of the dry land of England, the sea cannot reach; yet the soil in which these remains are imbedded is alluvial or amongst the most recent formation. In most cases the situation indicates the former existence there of an estuary that has been filled up by deposits of the present sea, or the bottom of which has been upheaved.”40 Other relics besides those of the whale and the implement of its hardy assailant, were recovered in the course of removing the Blair Drummond moss. In the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, a rude querne or hand-mill for pounding grain is preserved, fashioned from the section of an oak tree, which was found in 1831, at a depth of nearly five feet, in this moss. A wooden wheel of ingenious construction is also in the collection, which was dug up at more than double the depth of the querne, in the same locality, accompanied with several well-formed arrow-heads of flint. It measured when complete about two feet in diameter; but it is greatly decayed, having shrunk and cracked since its removal from the moss.41

Other relics, though belonging apparently to a later period, may be noticed along with these. In the progress of improvements on the Kincardine moss, the remains of a singular roadway were discovered, after the peat moss had been removed to a depth of eight feet. Seventy yards of the ancient viaduct were exposed to view, formed of trees about twelve inches in diameter, having other trees of half this thickness crossing them, and brushwood covering the whole. This road crossed the moss of Kincardine northward, from a narrow part of the Forth, towards a well-known line of Roman road which has been traced from a ford on the river Teith to Camelon, on the Antonine wall. This singular structure, though so unlike anything usually found on the line of the legionary iters, has been assigned, with great probability, to Roman workmanship, as it appears to be designed to keep up a communication with the well-known station at Ardoch. But if so, we have here evidence of the fact that in the second century of our era the Kincardine moss was an unstable and boggy waste, which the Roman engineer could only pass by abandoning his favourite and durable causeway, for such a road as modern ingenuity has revived in the backwood swamps of America.

Such are some of the ancient chronicles of Scotland garnered for us in the eastern valley of the Forth. The banks of the Clyde have been scarcely less liberal in their disclosures. In 1780, the first recorded discovery of one of the primitive canoes of the Clyde was made by workmen engaged in digging the foundation of Old St. Enoch’s Church. It was found at a depth of twenty-five feet from the surface, and within it there lay a no less interesting and eloquent memorial of the simple arts of the remote era when the navies of the Clyde were hewn out of the oaks of the Caledonian forests. This is a beautifully-finished stone celt, represented in the woodcut—doubtless one of the simple implements of its owner, if not, indeed, one of the tools with which such vessels were fashioned into shape; though it is undoubtedly more adapted for war than for any peaceful art. It measures 5½ inches in length, by 3⅗ inches in greatest breadth; and is apparently formed of dark greenstone. It is now in the possession of Charles Wilsone Brown, Esq., of Wemyss, Renfrewshire, having descended to him from a maternal relative who chanced to be passing at the time of the discovery, and secured the curious relic.42 The excavations of the following year brought a second canoe to light, at a higher level, and still further removed from the modern river’s bed. Close to the site of Glasgow’s ancient City Cross, and immediately adjoining what was once the Tolbooth of the burgh—more memorable from the fancied associations with which genius has endowed it, than for the stern realities of human misery which were its true attributes—there stands a quaint, but not inelegant building, adorned with an arcade curiously decorated with grim or grotesque masks on the keystone of each arch. It was erected on the site of older and less substantial tenements, in the year 1781; and in digging for a foundation for it, in a stratum of laminated clay that lies beneath a thick bed of sand, another primitive British canoe was discovered, hollowed as usual out of a single trunk of oak.43 Another is noted to have been found about 1824, in Stockwell, near Jackson Street, while cutting the common sewer; and a fourth, at a much higher level, on the slope of Drygate Street, immediately behind the prison.44 In 1825 a fifth canoe was discovered, scarcely an hundred yards from the site of the former at the City Cross, when digging the sewer of London Street—a new thoroughfare opened up by the demolition of ancient buildings long fallen to decay. This boat, which measured about eighteen feet in length, exhibited unusual evidences of labour and ingenuity. It was built of several pieces of oak, though without ribs. It lay, moreover, in a singular position, nearly vertical, and with its prow uppermost, as if it had foundered in a storm.

To these older instances recent and large additions have been made. The earlier discoveries seem to point to a period when the whole lower level on the north side of the river, where the chief trade and manufactures of Scotland are now transacted, was submerged beneath the sea. What follows affords similar evidence in relation to the southern bank of the Clyde. Extensive operations have been carrying on there for some years for the purpose of enlarging the harbour of Glasgow, and providing a range of quays on the grounds of Springfield, corresponding to those on the older Broomielaw. There, at a depth of seventeen feet below the surface, and about 130 feet from the river’s original brink, the workmen uncovered an ancient canoe, hewn out of the trunk of an oak, with pointed stem, and the upright groove remaining which had formerly held in its place the straight stern. The discovery was made in the autumn of 1847; and the citizens of Glasgow having for the most part a reasonable conviction that boats lose their value in proportion to their age, the venerable relic lay for some months unheeded, until at length the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland made application for it to the Trustees of the River Clyde, and the rude precursor of the fleets that now crowd that noble river is safely deposited in their museum. Meanwhile the excavators proceeded with their labours, and in the following year another, and then a third canoe of primitive form, were disclosed on the southern bank of the Clyde. One of these, which has been since removed to the Hunterian Museum, measures 19⅓ feet long, by 3½ feet wide at the stern, 2 feet 9½ inches wide midway, and 30 inches deep. The prow is rather neatly formed with a small cut-water, near to which is an oblong hole, apparently for running a rope through to anchor or secure the vessel. There had been an outrigger, which was described by the workmen as adhering to it when first discovered, and the holes remain for receiving the pins by which it was fastened. About the centre are small rests inside the gunwale for the ends of a cross seat, and others for a broader seat are at the stern, both being projections formed by leaving the wood when the trunk was originally hollowed out into a boat. In this example the stern remains nearly in a perfect state. It consists of a board inserted in vertical grooves cut in each side, and received into a horizontal groove across, beyond which the bottom and sides project about eight inches. The other of these two canoes was chiefly remarkable for a circular hole in the bottom, stopped by a plug imbedded in very tenacious clay, evidently designed to admit of water shipped being run off when it was on shore. But the most curious, and indeed puzzling fact in regard to it, is that this plug is not of oak but of cork—a discovery suggestive of inquiries not easily answered satisfactorily.45

In the month of September 1849 a fourth canoe was found at Springfield, at a depth of about 20 feet from the surface, and in the same bed of finely laminated clay as those already described. This, too, is hollowed out of the single trunk of an oak, only thirteen feet in length, but on either side of it lay two additional planks of curious construction, each of them pierced with an elongated hole, which appeared to have been made with some sharp tool. They indicate some ingenious contrivance of the ancient seaman, not improbably designed for use when the bold navigator ventured with his tiny barque into the open sea, to be applied somewhat in the way a Dutch lugger fends off the dashing waves from her lee. This boat differs from those previously discovered, in having a rounded bow both fore and aft. In some respects it might seem to be the most ancient of the whole, and could hardly accommodate more than one man. Its workmanship is extremely rude, and it bears obvious marks of having been hollowed by fire. Yet the wooden appendages found alongside of it suffice to prove that its maker was not unprovided with some efficient tools. Thus, within a comparatively brief period, nine ancient canoes have been found within this limited area, affording singular evidence that in the earliest ages in which the presence of a human population is discoverable, we also find abundant proofs of the art of navigation, where now space fails to accommodate the merchant fleets of the Clyde. To these notices may be added the discovery of the remains of an ancient boat of more artificial construction, which was dug up, about the year 1830, at Castlemilk, Lanarkshire. It measured ten feet long, by two broad, and was built of oak, secured by large wooden pins.46

Nearly at the same time as the latest disclosures in the valley of the Clyde, workmen cutting a drain on the farm of Kinaven, Aberdeenshire, discovered another ancient boat of the same form as most of those previously described, and measuring eleven feet long, by nearly four broad. It is hewn out of the solid oak, with pointed stem, and at the stern a projection formed in the piece, and pierced with an eye, as if to attach a mooring cable. Like the Glasgow canoes, it is rudely finished, and exhibits the rough marks of the instrument with which it was reduced to shape. It lay imbedded in the moss, at a depth of five feet, at the head of a small ravine; and near it were found the stumps and roots of several large oaks. The nearest stream, the Ythan, is several miles off, and the sea is distant many more. A few years previous to this discovery, a similar canoe, of still smaller dimensions, was dug up in the moss of Drumduan, in the same county. It is described as quite entire, and neatly formed out of a single block of oak; but being left exposed, it was broken by the rude handling of some idle herd-boys.47

Such are a few examples of the aboriginal fleets of ancient Caledonia, found at different dates, and in various localities, yet agreeing wonderfully in every essential element of comparison. With them might also be noted the frequent discovery in bogs, or in alluvial strata, of trees felled by artificial means, and accompanied with relics of the most primitive arts. In 1830, for example, workmen engaged in constructing a sewer in Church Street, Inverness, found at a depth of fourteen feet below the surface, in a stratum of stiff blue clay, numerous large trunks of fossil oak; and along with these several deer’s horns, one of which, bearing unmistakable marks of artificial cutting, is now deposited in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.48 Here surely is common ground for the antiquary and the geologist. The rude harpoon left beside the bones of the stranded whale, far up in the alluvial valley of the Forth: the oaken querne, the wheel and the arrow-heads: the boats beneath the City Cross of Glasgow, the centre of a busy population for the last thousand years: the primitive ship, as we may almost term the huge canoe on the banks of the Carron: and the tiny craft just found near the waters of the Ythan—all speak, in no doubtful language, of the presence of a human population, at a period when the geographical features of the country, and the relative levels of land and sea, must have differed very remarkably from what we know of them at the earliest ascertained epoch of definite history. They point to a time within the historic era, when the ocean tides ebbed and flowed over the carse of Stirling, at a depth sufficient to admit of the gambols of the whale, where now a child might ford the brawling stream; and when the broad estuary of the Clyde flung its waves to the shore, not far from the high ground where the first cathedral of St. Mungo was founded, A.D. 560. These evidences of population, prior to the latest geological changes which have affected the surface of the country, are indeed all found on old historic ground, according to the reckonings of written chronicles. The first of them, in the south country, have been met with in localities where the traces of Roman invasion in the second century remain uneffaced. The carse of Falkirk is still indented with the vallum of the Antonine wall. Its modern church preserves the old tablet, which assigned to the ancient structure on its site a date coeval with the founding of Scottish monarchy under Malcolm Canmore; and the broad level ground, which has disclosed evidence of such remarkable changes, alike in natural features and in national arts and manners, was the battle-field of Wallace in the thirteenth century, as of Prince Charles Edward and the Highland clansmen in the eighteenth century. Trivet thus refers to the carse of Falkirk, in describing the invasion of Edward I., thereby affording curious evidence of its state at the former period,—“Causantibus majoribus loca palustria, propter brumalem intemperiem, immeabilia esse;” on which Lord Hailes remarks—“The meaning seems to be, that the English could not arrive at Stirling without passing through some of the carse grounds, and that they were impracticable for cavalry at that season of the year.”49 Nor are the historic associations of the broad carse which the Forth has intertwined with its silver links a whit behind those of the vale of Carron. There, in all probability, Agricola marshalled the Roman legions for his sixth campaign, and watched the mustering of the army of Galgacus on the heights beyond. The ever memorable field of Bannockburn adds a sacred interest to the same soil. There, too, are the scenes of James III.’s mysterious death on the field of Stirling, and of successive operations of Montrose, Cromwell, Mar, and Prince Charles. But the oldest of these events, long regarded as the beginnings of history, are modern occurrences, when placed alongside of such as we now refer to. Guiding his team across the “bloody field,” as the scene of English slaughter is still termed, the ploughman turns up the craw-foot, the small Scottish horse-shoe, and the like tokens of the memorable day when Edward’s chivalry was foiled by the Scottish host. Penetrating some few feet lower with his spade, he finds the evidences of former changes in the level of land and sea, but with them stumbles also on the relics of coeval population. Lower down he will reach the stratified rocks, including the carboniferous formation, stored no less abundantly with relics of former life and change, but no longer within the historic period, or pertaining to the legitimate investigations of archæological science, unless in so far as they confirm its previous inductions, and prove the slow but well defined progress of the more recent geological changes on the earth’s surface. Such reflections are not suggested for the first time in our own day, nor will a shallow part satisfy those who have gone thus far. “Nature hath furnished one part of the earth, and man another. The treasures of time lie high, in urns, coins, and monuments, scarce below the roots of some vegetables. Time hath endless rarities, and shows of all varieties, which reveals old things in heaven, makes new discoveries in earth, and even earth itself a discovery. That great antiquity, America, lay buried for thousands of years, and a large part of the earth is still in the urn unto us.”50

Some of these historic phenomena which are indicated above required only time to produce them. The beds of sand and loam at Springfield, in which the ancient fleets of the Clyde have lain entombed for ages, are such as the slow depositions of winter floods will for the most part account for, if the chronologist can only spare for them the requisite centuries. Others seem to point to geological changes within the historic era, of a more remarkable and extensive character. These it is not our province to explain. Whether the geologist find it most consistent with the established laws of his science to assume the standing of the whole ocean at higher levels within so recent a period, or adopt the more probable theory of local upheaval and denudation to account for these phenomena, this at least must be conceded, that the lapse of many ages is required for the changes which they indicate, and we can hardly err in inferring that civilisation had advanced but a little way on the plain of Nimroud, or the banks of the Nile, when the tiny fleets of the Clyde were navigating its estuary, and the hardy fishermen were following the whale in the winding creeks of the Forth.

Chapter III — Sepulchral Memorials

The raising of sepulchral mounds of earth or stone to mark the last resting-place of the loved or honoured dead may be traced in all countries to the remotest periods. Their origin is to be sought for in the little heap of earth displaced by interment, which still to thousands suffices as the most touching memorial of the dead. In a rude and primitive age, when the tomb of the great warrior or patriarchal chief was to be indicated by some more remarkable token, the increase of the little earth-mound, by the united labours of the community, into the form of a gigantic barrow, would naturally suggest itself as the readiest and fittest mark of distinction. In its later circular forms we see the rude type of the great Pyramids of Egypt, no less than of the lesser British moat-hills and other native-earth-works, until at length, when the aspiring builders were rearing the gigantic monoliths of Avebury, they constructed, amid the tumuli of the neighbouring downs, the earth-pyramid of Silbury Hill, measuring 170 feet in perpendicular height, and covering an area of five acres and thirty-four perches of land.

Priority has been given to the primitive relics of naval skill, which the later alluvial strata of Scotland supply, for reasons sufficiently obvious, and pertaining exclusively to the antiquities of our insular home. But for the surest traces of primitive arts and a defined progress in civilisation, the archæologist will generally turn with greater propriety to the grave-mounds of the ancient race whose history he seeks to recover; for, however true be “the words of the preacher,” in the sense in which he uttered them, there is both device, and knowledge, and instruction in the grave, for those who seek there the records of the dead. This fact is in itself an eloquent one in the evidence it furnishes, that in that dim and long forgotten past, of which we are seeking to recover the records, man was still the same, “of like passions with ourselves,” vehement in his anger, and no less passionate in unavailing sorrow.

No people, however rude or debased be their state, have yet been met with so degraded to the level of the brutes as to entertain no notion of a Supreme Being, or no anticipation of a future state. Some more or less defined idea of a retributive future is found in the wildest savage creed, developing itself in accordance with the rude virtues to which the barbarian aspires. While the luxurious Asiatic dreams of the sensual joys of his Mohammedan elysium, the Red Indian warrior looks forward to the range of ampler hunting-grounds, and the enjoyment of unfailing victory on the war-path. All, however, anticipate a corporeal participation in tangible joys, and, to the simpler mind of the untutored savage, affection dictates the provision of means to supply the first requisites of this new state of being. Hence the bow and spear, the sword, shield, and other implements of war and the chase, laid beside the rude cinerary urn, or deposited in the cist with the buried chief. Refinement, which added to the wants and acquirements of the warrior, in like manner furnished new means for affection to lavish on the loved or honoured dead. Personal ornaments were added to the indispensable weapons, that the hero might not only stand at no disadvantage amid the novel scenes into which he had passed, but that he might also assume the insignia of rank and distinction which were his right. The feelings prompting to such tributes of affectionate sorrow are innate and indestructible. They manifest themselves under varied forms in every state of social being, and may be readily traced amid the struggle for decorous and costly sepulchral honours, no less universal now than in the long forgotten era of the tumulus and cinerary urn.

From the contents of the tumuli we are able partially to apply to them a relative system of chronology, the accuracy of which appears to be satisfactorily borne out. No archæologist has yet done for any district of Scotland what the intelligent research of Sir Richard Colt Hoare effected for Wiltshire. No other single district, indeed, offers the same tempting field for the study, and few archæologists possess his ample means for carrying out such investigations. He has adopted a subdivision, which distinguishes fourteen different kinds of barrows, classified according to their shape, and furnishes a systematic nomenclature, which is of general avail. Observations since carried out over a more extensive field enable us in some degree to modify this system, and reduce the number of true barrows, while even of these some are probably only the result of accident, or of the caprice of individual taste. The following are the best defined among the varieties noted by Sir R. C. Hoare:—1. The long barrow, resembling a gigantic grave; 2. The bowl barrow, from its similarity to an inverted bowl; 3. The bell barrow; 4. The twin barrow, consisting of two adjacent tumuli, one of them generally larger than the other, and both inclosed in one fosse or vallum; 5. The Druid barrow, generally a broad and low tumulus, surrounded by a vallum. The last name was given on insufficient evidence by Dr. Stukely, Sir R. C. Hoare’s predecessor in investigating the antiquities of Wiltshire. The latter has subdivided the class into three varieties, and there seems some reason to think that such indicate the place of interment of females; but more extensive observation is required to establish so interesting an inference. The remaining distinctions appear to be either accidental, or referring to earth-works, certainly not sepulchral. Among this last are the “pond barrows,” hereafter referred to as the remains of primitive dwellings, and the conical mounds or moat-hills, of which Silbury Hill is probably the largest in the world, designed as the lofty tribunal where the arch-priest or chief administered, and frequently executed, the rude common law of the northern races. The laborious excavations carried out under the direction of the Archæological Institute during the Salisbury Congress in 1849, have at least put an end to any ideas of Silbury Hill being a sepulchral mound.

Much similarity is naturally to be expected between the primitive antiquities of England and Scotland, where the imaginary border land that so long formed the marches between rival nations presents no real barrier calculated to interpose an impediment to the free interchange of knowledge or arts. Nevertheless there are many of those distinctive peculiarities observable in Scotland which are well calculated to encourage further investigation, though, for the purposes of a just and logical distinction, the Scottish archæologist ought to include the ancient kingdom of Northumbria within the region of his researches, and draw his comparisons between the antiquities found to the north and the south of the great wall of Severus.

The barrows of Scotland, in so far as they have yet been carefully observed, may be described as consisting of the Long Barrow; the Bowl Barrow; the Bell Barrow; the Conoid Barrow; the Crowned Barrow—such as that of Stoneranda in Birsa—with one or more standing stones set upon it; the Inclosed Barrow, a circular tumulus of the usual proportions, and most frequently also conoid in form, but environed by an earthen vallum; and the Encircled Barrow, generally of large proportions, and surrounded by a circle of standing stones. The two latter are of frequent occurrence in Scotland. The evidence of their contents indicates that they belong to a comparatively late era, and their correspondence to some of the most common sepulchral memorials of Norway and Sweden suggests the probability of a Scandinavian origin. The twin barrow, with its enclosing vallum, as described by Sir R. C. Hoare, and still to be seen in Wiltshire, does not, I think, occur in Scotland. But it is not uncommon to find a large and smaller tumulus placed near together, and these pairs occur so frequently, especially in Orkney, that I incline to apply to them meanwhile the term of twin barrows, believing them to have more than an accidental relation to each other. This is a point, however, which can only be satisfactorily settled by the most careful examination of their contents. In the parish of Holm in Orkney, there is a cluster of eight tumuli of different sizes, all inclosed within one earthen vallum. Another group consists of one large and three smaller tumuli, surrounded by a double ditch, with the remains of a third on one side; and occasionally clusters of tumuli, though without any inclosing work, suggest the probability of their vicinity being the result of design. Another arrangement is also deserving of note, where a group of eight or nine of these earth-mounds occur forming a continuous chain, in a nearly straight line, and separated from one another by regular intervening spaces. Whatever appears to indicate design in these primitive structures is worthy of study. Wherever we can trace the motives of their constructors, we recover some clue to the character and history of the race.

The remarkable cluster of monolithic groups and earth-works at Stennis in Orkney, includes a variety of sepulchral mounds, probably belonging to very different periods. Scattered around the great circle, or Ring of Broidgar, as it is commonly called, there are many tumuli differing considerably in size and form, but all known to the peasants under the general title of the Knowes of Broidgar. The dimensions of some of the largest of these were taken, during the recent Admiralty Survey, by Lieutenant F. W. L. Thomas, R.N., the intelligent officer in command, to whom I am indebted for the use of valuable notes of observations on the antiquities of Orkney:—

“The most remarkable tumulus, which is of elliptical shape, stands at the shore of the north or fresh-water loch. It measures one hundred and twelve feet long by sixty-six feet broad. The level ridge on the top measures twenty-two feet in length, and its height is nearly the same. It has been greatly destroyed by excavators at some former period. Near to it is a small standing stone. No other tumulus of this shape exists in Orkney. A large conoid tumulus, fifty feet in radius and twenty-eight feet in height, stands to the westward of the great circle, also pillaged at some former time; and in the same neighbourhood are ten smaller tumuli of various dimensions. Five of these are of equal size: radius six feet, height three feet, and only from two to three feet apart; four of them in a line.”

Besides these, there stands, at a short distance to the northward of the elliptical tumulus, and near the shore, another large earth-work of peculiar form, which can hardly be more definitely described than by comparing it to a colossal plum-cake. It rises perpendicularly five feet, and is nearly flat on the top, assuming the form of a greatly depressed cone, the apex of which is nine feet high. The radius of the whole measures thirty-one feet. This mound, however, is most probably not sepulchral, but rather the platform on which a building of wood had been reared, though its present symmetrical form may render this doubtful. The Ring of Bookan, in the same neighbourhood, appears to be a similar platform, but it is inclosed with an earthen vallum, and exhibits abundant traces of ruined works on its irregular area. Various other, though less regular mounds, of this character, occur in Orkney. The burgh of Culswick is represented as having stood on such a platform, the shape of which nearly corresponded with that of Stennis when drawn in 1774, but the materials of this venerable ruin have since furnished a quarry for the neighbouring cottars.51 It is exceedingly doubtful if the larger tumuli in the neighbourhood of the great circle of Stennis would now repay the labour of exploring them. They exhibit, as has been observed, abundant traces of former investigation; and there is good reason to believe that most, if not all of them, have already been spoiled of their historic contents.

Wallace remarks, in his Description of Orkney:—“In one of these hillocks, near the circle of high stones at the north end of the Bridge of Stennis, there were found nine fibulæ of silver, of the shape of a horse-shoe, but round.”52 Unfortunately the dimensions of these silver relics are not given; but from the engraving of one of them, it seems more likely that they consisted chiefly of gorgets, though, in all probability, including a variety of objects of great interest. But the view of the great circle of Stennis, which accompanies that of the fibula found in its neighbourhood, is sufficient to satisfy the most credulous how little faith can be put in the engravings.

The most numerous and remarkable of all the Scottish sepulchral mounds, both for number and size, are the stone tumuli or CAIRNS, many of which are works of great labour and considerable skill. These singular monumental pyramids are by no means to be accounted for from any local peculiarities furnishing a ready supply of loose stones. They abound in almost every district of the country, and are frequently of much larger dimensions than the earthen tumuli, though the nature of their materials has led to the destruction of many of them in the progress of inclosing lands for agricultural purposes. We learn from the Book of Joshua of the practice of raising heaps of stone over the dead as a mark of indignity or abhorrence. The contents of the Scottish sepulchral cairns, however, prove for them an altogether different origin, as will appear when we come to review them in detail. They are generally designed on a larger scale than the earthen tumuli, and must have ranked at a remote period among the most distinguished honours awarded to the illustrious dead.

Another remarkable, though much rarer sepulchral monument, is the Cromlech, or “Druidical altar,” as it was long erroneously termed, until archæologists, abandoning theory for observation, discovered that these huge monolithic structures invariably marked the sites of ancient sepulture. Similar primitive colossal structures are found, not only throughout the whole British Isles, but in many parts of the continent of Europe, and are occasionally discovered, like the slighter cist, entombed beneath the earth-pyramid or tumulus, affording thereby singular evidence of the unostentatious liberality with which the honours of the dead were rendered in the olden time to which they belong.

The Wiltshire of Scotland, in so far as the mere number of sepulchral mounds, along with monolithic groups and other aboriginal structures, can constitute this distinction, is the mainland of Orkney, with one or two of the neighbouring isles. Few of their contents, however, have proved of the same valuable character as those which have been discovered not only in Aberdeenshire, Fifeshire, and some of the southern Lowland counties, but also in the Western Isles. We are therefore led to infer that the population of Orkney has been little more distinguished for wealth, or great advancement in the arts, during its earlier history than in more recent times. Abundant evidence, however, testifies to the occupation of these islands by a human population at a very remote era, and no Scottish locality ever furnished a greater variety of interesting relics of the primeval period. In the single parish of Sandwick, near Stromness, upwards of an hundred tumuli of different sizes have been observed, many of which have been recently opened, and their contents described. In the parish of Orphir, in like manner, considerable research has been made into the character and contents of these ancient memorials; while throughout nearly the whole of the neighbouring islands, the mosses and moors which have escaped the obliterating inroads of the ploughshare, are covered with similar monumental heaps.

It is not to be doubted that such relics of ancient population were once no less common throughout the whole mainland of Scotland, and especially in the fertile districts of the low country, where the earliest traces of a numerous population may reasonably be sought for. A sufficient number still remain in Fife and the Lothians, as well as in the southern counties, to afford means of comparison with other localities; while numerous discoveries of cists, urns, and ancient implements, leave no room to doubt that the same race once occupied the whole island, and practised similar arts and rites in the long cultivated districts of the low country, as in the remotest of the northern or western isles.

It is not improbable that extended observation may justify a more minute classification of the primitive sepulchral monuments of Scotland than has been attempted above, and may establish a relative chronological arrangement of them on a satisfactory basis. With our present imperfect knowledge, any theoretic system would only embarrass future inquiry. But meanwhile it may assist in forming a basis for further operations, to note the following attempts at systematic arrangement from such data as are available.

1. The Scottish long barrow, which is generally somewhat depressed in the centre, and more elevated towards one end than the other, may be assumed with little hesitation as one of the earliest forms of sepulchral earth-works. It is now comparatively rare. As the work of a thinly scattered population, it is probable that examples of it were never very numerous, and of these we may perhaps assume that the greater number have been gradually obliterated by structures of more recent date. So far as I am aware, no metallic implements have ever been found in the Scottish long barrow. Examples of pottery are also of very rare occurrence, and it is doubtful if any of these have furnished instances of the presence of the cinerary urn and its imperfectly burned contents in the primeval sepulchres. It is rather indeed from the absence of traces of art or ingenuity that we may most satisfactorily assign to this class of mounds the priority in point of antiquity. The form of the long barrow seems in itself to suggest the probability of an earlier origin than the circular tumulus, since it is only an enlargement of the ordinary grave-mound which naturally results from the displacement of the little space of earth occupied by the body, and in this respect strikingly corresponds with the most primitive ideas of a distinctive sepulchral memorial—a larger mound to mark that of the chief or priest, from the encircling heaps of common graves. In a long barrow opened in the neighbourhood of Port Seaton, East-Lothian, in 1833, a skeleton was found laid at full length within a rude cist. It indicated the remains of a man nearly seven feet high, but the bones crumbled to dust soon after their exposure to the air.53 One of the largest Scottish earth-works of this primitive form is that already referred to, situated on the margin of the loch of Stennis, in the vicinity of the celebrated Orcadian Stonehenge. It is the only long barrow on the mainland of Orkney, but its form and proportions differ considerably from those commonly met with. It seems probable that this belongs to a late era, and owes its origin to the same Norwegian source as the neighbouring conoid earth pyramids that tower above the bowl barrows of the aboriginal Orcadians.

At a very early date, undoubtedly within the primitive era to which we give the name of the Stone Period, but apparently only towards its close, the practice of cremation was introduced. This, however, is one of the many points that must be left for final determination when a greater number of accurate and trustworthy observations have been accumulated. Meanwhile it may be assumed as unquestionable, that simple inhumation is the most ancient of all modes of disposing of the dead, and we possess abundant evidence of its use in this country, apparently by the earliest colonists of whom any definite traces now exist. We are not without proof that there was a long transition-period after the remarkable change consequent on the acquisition of metals, before the stone implements and arts were completely superseded by those of bronze; and it is to this era we shall most probably have to assign the first practice of cremation. Both the introduction of the metallurgic arts and the change of sepulchral rites may indeed be equally supposed to mark the influence, if not the advent, of a new race. In nearly every state of society the burial of the dead is associated with the most sacred tenets of religion, and its wonted rites are among the very last to be affected by change. It accords therefore with all analogy that the source of so remarkable a change should come from without, and accompany other equally important social revolutions. It will be seen in a succeeding chapter, that some of the very rudest and apparently most primitive of cinerary urns yet found in Scotland have been associated with undoubted proofs of their connexion with the bronze period. But it has not hitherto been the prevailing fault of British antiquaries to assign too remote an era to the introduction of the funeral pile. It has rather been one of the endless blunders springing from the too exclusively classical nature of modern education, to assume for it a Roman origin, and to accept the urn as an evidence of Roman influence and example, even where it was owned to be the product of native art. If, however, we make sufficient allowance for the poetical preference of the funeral fire and the inurned ashes, rather than the simple and more common rite, and so decline to receive some of the allusions of Virgil and Ovid as historic evidence of the ancient usage of the former by the Romans, we shall find good reason for inferring that the funeral pile should rank among the later introductions of Roman luxury, derived in all probability from the Greeks, by whom it was used at a very early period. The oldest accounts indeed which we possess of the sepulchral honours of the funeral pile, the urn, and the monumental tumulus, are the descriptions of the funeral rites of Patroclus and Hector in the Iliad. The whole circumstances are characterized by much simple grace and beauty:—the burning of the body during the night, the libations of wine with which the embers were quenched at the dawn, the inurning of the ashes of the deceased, and the methodic construction of the pyramid of earth which covered the sacred deposit, and preserved the memory of the honoured dead.54 The testimony of Pliny, on the contrary, is most distinct as to the introduction of a similar practice among the Romans at a comparatively late period.55

Independent of the consideration of Roman usage, it is unquestionable that the funeral pile must have been in use in the British Isles for many generations before the era of the Roman Invasion, if not indeed before that of Rome’s mythic founder. But the evidence of the Scottish tumuli, while it proves the ancient practice of cremation, shows also the contemporaneous custom of inhumation; nor is it possible, so far as I can see, to determine from the amount of evidence yet obtained, that one of these was esteemed more honourable than the other.56 It is not, indeed, uncommon for the larger tumuli to contain a single cist, with the inhumed remains untouched by fire, and around it, at irregular intervals, several cinerary urns, sometimes varying in size and style, but all containing the half-burned bones and ashes of the dead. The inference which such an arrangement suggests would seem to point to inhumation as the more honourable rite; but even where either inhumation or cremation has been the sole mode of disposing of the bodies, we still detect obvious marks of distinction, and of superior honours conferred on one or more of the occupants of the tumulus. In one of the largest of a numerous group of tumuli near Stromness, in Orkney, which was opened by the Rev. Charles Clouster, minister of Sandwick, in 1835, evidences of six separate interments were found, all so disposed on the original soil, and in contact with each other, as scarcely to admit of doubt that the whole had taken place prior to the formation of the earthen mound beneath which they lay. Two large and carefully constructed cists occupied the centre, and contained burnt bones, but without urns; while around these were four other cists, extremely rude, and greatly inferior both in construction and dimensions. In such we probably should recognise the family cemetery,—the two larger and more important cists containing, it may be, the chief and his wife, and the surrounding ones their children, or favourite dependents, or perhaps their slaves.

One of the most interesting examples which have been accurately observed of simple interment accompanied with urns and relics entirely belonging to the primitive period, was discovered on the opening of a small tumulus in the parish of Cruden, Aberdeenshire. Within it was found a cist containing two skeletons nearly entire. One of these was that of an adult, while the other appeared to have been a youth of twelve or thirteen years of age, in addition to which there were also portions of the skeleton of a dog. Beside them stood two rude clay urns, slightly ornamented with encircling lines, but containing no incinerated remains; and within the cist were found seven flint arrow-heads, two flint knives, and a polished stone, similar to one now in the Scottish Museum, which is described in a succeeding chapter. It is slightly convex on one side, and concave on the other, with small holes drilled at the four corners, by which it would seem to have been attached, most probably, to the dress, as an article of personal adornment. These curious relics are now in the collection of Adam Arbuthnot, Esq., of Peterhead.

Cæsar relates of the Gauls that they burned their honoured dead, consuming along with them not only the things they most esteemed when alive, but also their dogs and horses, and their favourite servants and retainers.57 Without any reference to this remarkable passage, it is scarcely possible to overlook the evidence which suggests the idea of some such Suttee system having prevailed among the aboriginal Britons, when observing the opening of a large tumulus, as it discloses its group of cists or urns, or of both combined. It seems hardly reconcilable with the general customs or ideas of a primitive community, to suppose that the earthen pyramid was systematically husbanded by its ancient builders like a modern family vault, or disturbed anew for repeated interments, unless by those who had lost all remembrance of its original object. Towards the close of the Pagan era, and in that transition-period which extends in Scotland from the fifth to about the ninth century, during which the rites of the new faith were still blended with older Pagan customs, it was no doubt different, and regular cemeterial tumuli are found, which must have accumulated during a considerable period. These, however, differ essentially from the earlier tumuli; and if we are to suppose the whole group of urns or cists in the latter to have been deposited at once, it is difficult to conceive of any other mode of accounting for this than the one already suggested, which is so congenial to the ideas of barbarian rank, and of earthly distinctions perpetuated beyond the grave. Instances do indeed occur both of cists and urns found in large tumuli near the surface, and so far apart from the main sepulchral deposit as to induce the belief that they may have been inserted at a subsequent period; while the large chambered tumuli and cairns must be supposed to have been the burial-places of a tribe or sept. It must not be overlooked that the tumuli are not, in general, to be regarded as common graves, but as special monumental structures reserved alone for the illustrious dead; among whom, no doubt, were reckoned those who fell in battle, and over whom we may therefore conceive the surviving victors to have erected those gigantic cairns which are occasionally found to cover a multitude of the dead. But some of the Scottish cairns which have been found only to inclose a solitary cist, must have occupied the labour of months, and required the united exertions of a numerous corps of workmen, to gather the materials, and pile them up into such durable and imposing monuments.

The remembrance of how greatly the dead of a few generations outnumber the living, would alone suffice to show that the tumuli could not be common sepulchral mounds. Such a custom universally adopted for a few generations in a populous district, would surpass the effects of deluges and earthquakes, in the changes wrought by it on the natural surface of the ground. The laws of Solon interdicted the raising of tumuli on account of the extent of land they occupied; and the Romans enacted the same prohibitory restrictions prior to the time of Cicero. We are familiar with the common modes of British sepulture, contemporaneous with the monumental tumulus; both the cist and the urn being very frequently found without any artificial increase of the superincumbent soil to mark the spot where they are deposited. Their inhumation beneath the soil, as well as the frequent occurrence of numbers together, point them out as the common and undistinguished graves of the builders of the tumuli. Where the tumulus was to be superimposed no such interment took place. The cist was constructed on the natural surface of the soil, and over this, earth brought from a distance—or occasionally cut away from the surface immediately surrounding the chosen site, so as thereby to add to its height—was heaped up and moulded into the accustomed form. In its progress the accompanying urns were disposed, frequently with little attention to regularity, in the inclosed area; nor is it uncommon to find along with these the bones of domestic animals. In the later tumuli are occasionally found the bronze bridle-bit and other horse furniture, and sometimes teeth and bones, and even the entire skeleton of the horse. The skeleton of the dog is still more frequently met with: and it is to be regretted that in Scotland the fact has hitherto been recorded without any minute observations being attempted on the skeleton, from which to ascertain its species, and perhaps thereby trace the older birthland of its master.58 The Rev. Alexander Low, in a communication laid before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1815, refers to the entire skeleton of a horse discovered interred between two cists, where a large cairn had been demolished in the parish of Cairnie, Aberdeenshire. Other examples will come under our notice, all indicating the prevalence of the custom above referred to, so consonant with barbarian ideas of rank, and with the rude conceptions of a future state which still linger in parts of the Asiatic continent, where the philologist has traced the evidences of a common origin with the wandering tribes that found their way across the continent of Europe and peopled the British Isles. This, however, in passing: the reader will find no difficulty in separating fact from fancy when judging for himself.

The Long Barrow has been stated to belong apparently to the rude primeval period; but the number of examples which have been carefully examined are still too few to admit of very positive conclusions being assumed. A remarkable group of Scottish long barrows occurs in the immediate neighbourhood of the Pass of Keltnie, Perthshire. One of them was opened in 1837, and found to contain unburnt bones, along with which were discovered several rude horn lance-heads and pieces of bone artificially cut. The state of preservation in which these were, when compared with the rapid decay of the human remains almost immediately on their exposure to the air, opens up an interesting inquiry in relation to these primitive sepulchral deposits. The very different conditions in which the contiguous bones are found seem at first sight incompatible with the idea of their having been deposited along with the original occupants of the barrow. But the fragile texture of the human skeleton, when compared with that of the lower animals, is well known. Professor Goodsir informs me that his investigations have led him to the direct conclusion that the bones of the lower animals decay much less rapidly than those of man. The state of the skeletons of dogs and horses found in the tumuli confirms this conclusion, which is probably sufficiently accounted for by the greater delicacy of structure characterizing the human osteology. But independently of this, bone implements finished and deposited in a cist or tumulus in a perfect state, would be much less directly exposed to the influences affecting the skeleton amid the decomposition of the vascular tissues. It may be noted along with these observations on early tumuli, that a large conical cairn in the vicinity of the long barrows of Keltnie was demolished in 1836. It contained eleven cists, several of which inclosed cinerary urns, but no metallic relics were found in them.

The change to the circular tumulus is not accompanied with any indications of alteration in the arts of its constructors. Stone weapons and implements are of frequent occurrence in the latter, and particularly in the bowl barrow, though no distinctive evidence has yet been noted in relation to the most common forms of tumuli, sufficiently marked to be resolved into any general rule, save the very natural and obvious one, that the larger ones appear from their contents to be the more important. It is manifest, however, that some art was always exercised in giving to the tumulus an artificial form. Neither the bowl nor the bell shape is that which earth naturally assumes when thrown up into a heap. The form is therefore a matter worthy of further observation, and may yet prove a legitimate basis of stricter classification in reference to the era or race, than that now attempted. The bell-shaped tumuli are not very common in Scotland, but where they do occur they are generally of the larger class, though not always distinguished by any marked peculiarity in their contents. Such was found to be the case on opening the Black Knowe, which appears from a drawing of it to be a bell-shaped tumulus, and is one of the most remarkable for size in the parish of Rendale, Orkney. It was explored in February 1849 by Mr. George Petrie, a zealous Orkney antiquary, in company with Lieutenant Thomas, R.N., while engaged in the Admiralty Survey. I am informed, however, by the latter, that its shape was by no means uniform, and viewed from some points it differed little from the common bowl barrow, of which it is computed that above two thousand are still to be found scattered over the Orkney Islands alone. In the centre and on a level with the natural surface of the soil, there was found a small chamber or cist of undressed stones, measuring eighteen by twelve inches, and containing only an extremely rude cinerary urn, filled with bones and ashes mixed with clay.

Both the Enclosed and the Encircled Barrows are frequently of large dimensions, and indicate by their contents that they belong to the later era, when the metallurgic arts had been introduced. In various instances the contents of the enclosed barrow, or tumulus surrounded with an earthen vallum, clearly prove it to belong to the Roman era. In one, for example, in the neighbourhood of Rutherglen, Lanarkshire, which measured 260 feet in circumference, a gallery or long chamber was discovered, constructed of unhewn stones, and containing, among other relics, two brass vessels, which from the description appear to have been Roman patellæ. On the handle of each of them was engraved the name Congallus or Convallus. With these were deposited various native relics, including a perforated stone and three large glass beads, such as are frequently found in earlier British tumuli.59 Examples, however, are not wanting of the enclosed barrow with contents belonging to an earlier period. One of such formed the largest of a group which occupied the summit of one of the Cathkin hills in the parish of Kilbride. It measured eighteen feet in height, and one hundred and twenty feet in diameter, and bore the name of Queen Mary’s Law, from a popular tradition that the hapless Mary watched from its summit the ebbing tide of her fortunes on the fatal field of Langside. This interesting memorial, thus associated with two widely severed periods of Scottish history, afforded building materials to the district for many years, until in 1792 some workmen while employed in removing stones from it, exposed to view a vault or chamber situated towards the west side of the mound, and containing twenty-five rude cinerary urns. They were placed, as is most usual in the earlier sepulchres, with their mouths downward, and underneath each urn lay a piece of white quartz. Exactly in the centre of the cairn a rude cist was discovered measuring nearly four feet square, and among a quantity of human bones which surrounded it were two rude fibulæ of mixed metal, and an armilla or ring of cannel coal. Another fibula and an equally rude metal comb were found in one of the urns.60

The Crowned and the Encircled Barrows closely resemble a class of monuments which abound in Sweden and Denmark, while they are of rare occurrence in England. In the “Samlingar för Nordens Fornälskare,”61 a variety of examples of both have been engraved; some of which have a second circle of stones placed about half-way up the mound, and a large standing stone on the summit. Such correspondence, however, is not necessarily a proof of Scandinavian origin, nor do they occur most frequently in districts of Scotland where the long residence or frequent incursions of the Norwegians would lead us to expect Scandinavian remains. In a large encircled barrow called Huly Hill, opened in 1830, at Old Liston, a few miles to the west of Edinburgh, a bronze spear-head was found along with a heap of animal charcoal and small fragments of bones, but neither cist nor urn. A solitary standing stone, measuring about nine and a half feet in height, occupies a neighbouring field, a little to the east of it. Another barrow which stood near the Abbey of Newbattle, East-Lothian, was of a conical form, measuring thirty feet in height, and ninety feet in circumference at the base. It formed a prominent and beautiful object in that noble demesne, surrounded at its base with a circle of standing stones, and crowned on the summit with a large fir-tree. On its removal to make way for some additions to the Abbey, it was found to contain a cist nearly seven feet long, enclosing a human skeleton. A remarkable skull preserved in the Edinburgh Phrenological Museum, and described as found in a stone coffin in a tumulus opened at Newbattle in 1782, appears to belong to this memorial mound.

One other remarkable form of barrow occasionally, though very rarely, found in Scotland, in all probability owes its origin to the Vikings who invaded and colonized our coasts at the close of the Pagan period. This consists of an oblong mound of larger size than the primitive long barrow, and terminating in a point at both ends. Some examples are also inclosed with stones, having one of considerable size at each end; and from their rarity and their remarkable resemblance to the Skibssœtninger, or ship barrow of Sweden, there can be little hesitation in assigning to them a Scandinavian origin. One of these encircled ship barrows was only demolished a few years since, on the farm of Graitney Mains, Dumfriesshire, but no record of its contents has been preserved. A much more celebrated one, and, according to venerable traditions, of undoubted native origin, is the Mound of St. Columba, at Port a Churaich, or the Bay of the Boat, which is believed to mark the spot where the Saint first landed on Iona. It measures about fifty feet in length, and is supposed to be a model of St. Columba’s currach, or boat made of wicker and hides, built by him in commemoration of his landing on the sacred isle. An upright stone formerly stood at each end, and near to it is a smaller mound, representing, as is said, the little boat towed astern. In all probability an investigation of the contents of this traditional memorial would prove its sepulchral character, as has been found to be the case in other Scottish ship barrows.62 These singular tumuli are described by Chalmers as “oblong ridges, like the hulk of a ship, with its bottom upwards.” But it appears from the investigations of northern antiquaries, that this sepulchral monument was not only the mimic representation of the Vikings’ ship, but that the contents of the Scandinavian Skibssœtninger seem to confirm the assertion of their sagas, that these warriors of the deep were sometimes literally burnt in their ships, and the form of the favourite scene of their triumphs renewed in the earth-work that covered their ashes.63

To this class probably belongs a very large earth-work, styled the Hill of Rattray, Perthshire, and perhaps also another of still larger dimensions, called Terrnavie, in the parish of Dunning, in the same county. It is a mound of earth, resembling a ship with the keel uppermost, and occupying several acres of ground. The name appears to be a corruption of terræ navis, or earth-ship, given to it on account of its form. Superstition has conferred a sacredness on it, by the association of legends evidently of primitive character. It is told that a profane hind, having proceeded to cut turfs on the side of the Terrnavie, was suddenly appalled by the vision of an old man, who appeared in the opening he had made, and after demanding, with an angry countenance and voice, why he was tirring (unroofing) his house over his head, as suddenly vanished.64 Remains of ancient armour were dug up a few years ago, on the farm of Rossie, a little to the east of Terrnavie; of these “two helmets, a small hatchet of yellow metal, and a finger ring, are preserved in Duncruib House.”65

The barrow was not, in all probability, entirely superseded until some time after the introduction of Christianity into Scotland. Several examples seem to indicate that the Anglo-Saxons were wont to convert an accumulating barrow into the general place of sepulture of a locality, interring the body apparently in its ordinary robes, but without any cist. Such appears to have been the tumular cemetery at Lamel Hill, near York, of which a minute account is given by Dr. Thurnam, in the Archæological Journal; and such also was a large sepulchral mound, levelled near the beach at North Berwick, East-Lothian, in 1847, in preparing a site for new gas-works. The latter was in the immediate vicinity of what appears to have been used as a general burial ground probably till a late medieval era, but its contents were clearly referrible to the Anglo-Saxon period; while in the same neighbourhood many cists and other relics of still older races have been found. This last adaptation of the primitive memorial mound as the cemetery of a whole race, ere it was abandoned along with the creed to which it had been allied, is thus beautifully referred to in the description by Dorban, an ancient Irish poet, of the Relec na Riogh, the place of interment of the kings of the Scotic race, of which the last Pagan monarch was killed in the year 406.

“Fifty mounds, I certify,
Are at Oenach na Cruachna,
There are under each mound of them
Fifty fine warlike men.
Every hill which is at Oenach
Has under it heroes and queens,
And poets and distributers,
And fair fierce women.

“The host of Connaught that was energetic,
A truly warlike host,
Beautiful the valiant tribe,
Buried in Cathair Cruachna.
There is not at this place
A hill at Oenach na Cruachna,
Which is not the grave of a king or royal prince,
Or of a woman or warlike poet.”66

The Cruachna, or Cruithne, are the older Pictish or Celtic race particularly referred to hereafter. They are numbered among the Pagans in the same poetic description of the great regal cemetery of Ireland,—

“The three cemeteries of idolaters are
The cemetery of Tailten, the select;
The cemetery of the ever-fair Cruachan,
And the cemetery of Brugh.”

Of all the more remarkable Scottish sepulchral memorials, the Cairn is most frequently found, scattered through many districts, and corresponding in form to nearly every class of the earthen tumuli. So common, indeed, are cairns in many parts of the country, that they give names to the farms on which they stand, the prefix or termination, cairn, being of very frequent occurrence in such designations of property, particularly in Aberdeenshire. The cairn appears to have been completely incorporated with the ideas of the people, from the remotest period of the rude stone implements, to the close of Pagan customs and sepulchral rites, and is justly described as a Celtic monument. Its name, kærn, is a primitive term, literally signifying heaps of stones.67 Dr. Jamieson traces it back to the Hebrew kern, a horn, also applied to a hill. In the agreement between Jacob and Laban, we see an example of the standing stone and cairn, the “pillar and heap,” employed as the memorials of a covenant by the Hebrew patriarch. In the sepulture of Achan and of Absalom we have examples of the cairn as a mark of obloquy and contempt; but no traces of such associations are discoverable in Scotland, unless in very recent times. Occasionally we meet with examples of the pillar and heap united in a memorial cairn, as in one of large dimensions, situated at the junction of two roads, near the village of Fowlis, Perthshire, which is surmounted by a large standing stone, corresponding to the barrows, for which the distinctive appellation of crowned tumuli is suggested. The estimation of the cairn as an honourable memorial of the dead, is proved not only by the valuable contents, more frequently discovered in cairns than in any other Scottish sepulchral mounds, but also by the associations which popular tradition has preserved. A proverbial expression, still in use among the Scottish Highlanders, is Curri mi clach er do cuirn, I will add a stone to your cairn: i.e., I will honour your memory when you are gone. The conical cairn must have been in use in Scotland during a longer period than any other sepulchral memorial. It undoubtedly belongs to the Stone Period, during which it was frequently constructed of proportions no less gigantic than in later eras, and much greater than any contemporary earthen tumulus. But it appears to have been the favourite and most distinguished sepulchral memorial of the aboriginal races, throughout the whole three periods into which archæologists divide the long era prior to the revolutions effected by Roman civilisation and the introduction of Christianity. Cairns are either still found, or are known to have existed, in nearly every parish of Scotland. Many of these have been works of great labour, being regularly built of stones of considerable size, and approaching more to the character of a constructive pyramid, than of a mere stone tumulus or heap. Their form is most frequently conical, but several varieties occur, including occasionally, though rarely, the primitive shape of the long barrow. Ure describes two of this form, which were situated in the parish of Baldernoch, Stirlingshire, near a large cromlech, which still exists, styled, The auld wives’ lift. The largest of these cairns measured sixty yards in length, and only ten yards in breadth. On its demolition it was found to cover a sepulchral chamber of about four feet in breadth, constructed of rows of broad stones set on edge, covered with large flat stones, and containing numerous human remains. In the other long cairn, which was opened in 1792, a similar chamber enclosed both urns and human bones. Various other cairns still remain unopened in the same district; and many of equal magnitude are to be met with in different parts of the country. The well-known antiquary, Mr. Joseph Train, furnishes an interesting account of several remarkable cairns in the parish of Minniegaff, Kirkcudbrightshire. One of these, called Drumlawhinnie, on the moor of Barcly, measures 891 feet in circumference. Another of equal dimensions, called the Boss Cairns, on the moor of Dranandow, which has been partially demolished to construct the neighbouring field inclosures, contains a sepulchral inclosure, similar to the cruciform chambers found in several of the most celebrated gigantic Irish cairns. It measures internally eighty feet in length, from the corresponding limbs of the cross each way, while it is only four feet wide and about three feet high. The stones in the middle of the cairn are very large, and are laid in regular courses, from the bottom to a considerable height, and become gradually smaller as they recede from the centre. The chamber of the Grey Cairn, on the neighbouring Drum of Knockman, closely resembles this in form and dimensions, and various others occur in the district. In one of them, called the White Cairn—which furnished a safe concealment to the Laird of Glencaird and his two sons, when pursued by Claverhouse for harbouring some of the persecuted Covenanters—some of the stones used in constructing the internal chamber are upwards of a ton weight each.68 Pennant has preserved a variety of interesting details of the contents of cairns opened towards the close of last century. In one described by him on the hill of Down, near Banff, a chamber was found containing a large ornamented Celtic urn, with three smaller plain ones disposed around it. The whole were filled with ashes and burnt bones, in addition to which were flint arrow-heads, and two bone implements. Thirteen of the arrow-heads, and one of the implements, were found in the large central urn.69 In two cairns in the parish of Tynron, Dumfriesshire, more recently opened, there were found cists, each of which contained fragments of bone, and a stone hammer.70 Similar relics have been found in the cairns of Wigtonshire, where these sepulchral monuments are so numerous, that forty-nine have been counted in the small valley of Barnair. There is, indeed, no lack of abundant testimony to prove the erection of some of the largest Scottish cairns during the Stone Period. Others of later eras are equally common.

Sir John Clerk of Pennycuick communicated to Roger Gale, Esq., in 1726, a very interesting account of five cairns, opened and examined by himself or his friends, in different parts of Scotland. One at Bruntone, in the parish of Pennycuick, Mid-Lothian, contained only two cists, each about two feet in length, but without urns or relics. Another in Ayrshire contained human bones, apparently of a number of men, which had been partially subjected to fire, and beside them lay a flint adze, or axe-head. The contents of the third, which was also in the west of Scotland, are thus described:—“Some urns, placed on the top and about the sides of it, as well as some principal urns at the bottom, over which it had been raised. Large bones of horses and oxen, confusedly scattered among the stones and rubbish. The head of a spear, half melted by fire, and several other brass instruments, which had likewise suffered in the fire, and could not be well known.”71 The others, which were situated, one at Pennycuick, Mid-Lothian, and the other in Galloway, appear to have been native cairns, contemporary with the Roman invasion,—thus furnishing a series of examples of the Scottish cairn pertaining to each of the Pagan eras of our national history.

In the year 1828 a remarkable cairn was opened on Airswood Moss, Dumfriesshire, by a party of labourers, when seeking for stones with which to build a “march dyke,” or boundary wall. The cairn consisted, as usual, of a heap of loose stones, surrounded by a ring of larger stones, closely set together. These formed a regular circle, measuring fifty-four feet in diameter. Its form, however, was singular. For about fourteen feet from the inner side of the encircling stones it rose gradually, but above this the angle of elevation abruptly changed, and the centre was formed into a steep cone. Directly underneath this a cist was found, lying north and south, composed of six large unhewn stones, and measuring in the interior four feet two inches in greatest length, with a depth of two feet. It contained only human bones, indicating a person of large stature, laid with the head towards the north. The further demolition of the cairn disclosed a curious example of regular internal construction on a systematic plan. From the four corners of the central cist there extended, in the form of a saltire, or St. Andrew’s cross, rows of stones overlapping each other like the slating of a house. At the extremity of one of these, distant about fourteen feet from the central cist, another was found of corresponding structure and dimensions, but laid at right angles to the radiating row of stones. Another is said to have been found at the extremity of one of the opposite limbs of the cross; and it seems most probable that the whole four were originally conjoined to corresponding cists, but a considerable portion of one side of the cairn had been removed before attention was directed to the subject. Between the limbs of the cross a quantity of bones, in a fragmentary state, were strewn about.72 Such a disposition of a group of cists, under a large cairn, though rare, is not without a parallel, and may perhaps be found characteristic of a class. The Rev. Harry Robertson of Kiltearn describes one in that parish, about thirty paces in diameter, which contained a central cist three and a half feet long, and at the circumference on the east, south, and west sides, three others of similar dimensions. As the cairn was in this case also imperfect, and partly demolished, it is not improbable that a fourth, on the north side, may have been previously destroyed.73 Here, as in the tumuli with cinerary urns surrounding the central cist, the group of urns in the cairn on the hill of Down, and in numerous other instances, we find a singular arrangement, apparently designed as subservient to the honours lavished on some distinguished chief.

One of the most remarkable groups of cairns in Scotland associated with other primitive monuments, occurs on a small plain washed by the River Nairn, about a mile to the east of the field of Culloden. The whole plain, for upwards of a mile in extent, is covered over with large cairns, encircled by standing stones surrounding them at uniform intervals. Numerous circular groups or “Druidical Temples” occur in the same neighbourhood, with single monoliths and detached circles of small stones, scarcely visible amid the thick covering of grass and heath, but indicating, in all probability, the sites of ancient dwellings of the cairn-builders. An interesting natural chronometer is of frequent occurrence in connexion with these rude memorials of primitive habits, furnishing unmistakable evidence of the remoteness of the era to which they belong, and supplying data which may hereafter prove to be reducible to definite computation. The accumulation, not only of alluvium, but of peat-moss over the structures of early art, has already been referred to in describing the ancient boats, harpoons, &c., discovered in various localities. It will repeatedly recur in the course of our inquiry in relation to various classes of memorials of the past. The traveller, in passing from Bunaw Ferry, on Loch Etive, to Beregonium, Argyleshire, passes over an extensive moor, known by the name of the “Black Moss.” On this, or rather rising up through it, are several large cairns, with here and there the remains of others which have been demolished for the purpose of inclosing fields or building cottages. In various parts considerable portions of the moss have been cleared away, exposing, at a depth of from eight to ten feet, the original soil upon which these sepulchral mounds have been reared, and bringing to light other interesting memorials of their builders, hereafter referred to. With such evidence of the slow growth of centuries obliterating the traces of primitive occupation, and effecting such changes on the natural features of the country, it is no vague conjecture which refers to an early era the period when this wild and barren moor was the scene of life and intelligence, and, it may be, of many useful arts. Along with these may be mentioned another group of cairns, including one of unusually large dimensions, not inclosed by the gathered moss of ages, but surrounded by the encroaching tide, on the north shore of the Frith of Beauly, Ross-shire, affording no less striking, though diverse evidence of the remote era to which they belong. In one of these sepulchral urns have been found, leaving no room to doubt of their monumental character. The largest stands about 400 yards within flood-mark; and an ingenious writer in the Philosophical Transactions arrives at the conclusion that an area of fully ten miles square, now flooded by the advancing tide, has once been the site of the dwellings of the ancient cairn-builders. Thus is it, while Time is sweeping away the hoar relics of the past, the traces of his footprints enable us occasionally to return upon his track, and learn how great is the interval that separates our present from the era of their birth-time.

Ure, in his History of Rutherglen and Kilbride, furnishes interesting notices of various large cairns demolished during last century, some of which have already been referred to. One of these, which long served as a quarry for an extensive district of the latter parish, was termed Knocklegoil Cairn,—Knoc-kill-goill, the hill of the cell, or grave, of the strangers. Some thousands of cart-loads of stones were taken from it, in the course of which various cinerary urns were removed or destroyed.

Another, called Herlaw, (the memorial mound,) was of still larger dimensions. “Some thousand cart-loads of stones have, at different times, been taken from it; and some thousands yet remain. Many urns with fragments of human bones were found in one corner of it. It is still about twelve feet in height, and covers a base of seventy feet in diameter; but this must have been far short of its dimensions when entire.”74 The name of this gigantic cairn is still attached to the farm of Harelaw, on which it stood, but the last remains of the pile were removed about the year 1808, and a small group of trees now occupies its site. Such details might be multiplied to almost any amount, but one other remarkable cairn may be noted:—“On the hill above the moor of Ardoch,” says Gordon, “are two great heaps of stones, the one called Cairnwochel, the other Cairnlee. The former of these is the greatest curiosity of the kind that I ever met with; the quantity of great rough stones, lying above one another, almost surpasses belief, which made me have the curiosity to measure it; and I found the whole heap to be about 182 feet in length, thirty in sloping height, and forty-five in breadth at the bottom.”75 Since these measurements were made the cairn has been opened, and within it was found a cist, containing, according to the account of the parish minister, the skeleton of a man seven feet long.76

As we are reasonably led to conclude that the tumuli and cairns were mostly constructed at one time, as monuments, and not gradually completed as they were filled on the death of successive members of a family or tribe, the large chambered cairns must be considered as a separate class from those first described. It is possible that they may have been designed as the catacombs of a whole tribe; though it is difficult to reconcile such an idea with the improvident habits of a rude people, and with the monumental character usually traceable in these structures. We should rather, perhaps, look upon the chambered cairn as the memorial of the victors on some bloody battle-field. On this supposition the Knoc-kill-goill, or hill of the strangers’ graves, would indicate the scene where triumphant invaders had paid the last honours to their dead ere they bore off with them the spoils of victory. Such suppositions, however, are altogether apart from the facts with which we have chiefly to deal. The cromlech, which is now almost universally recognised as a sepulchral monument,77 formed by far the most laborious and costly memorial which the veneration or gratitude of primitive ages dedicated to the honour of their illustrious dead. It consists of three or four large unhewn columns, supporting a huge table or block of stone, and forming together a rectangular chamber, which is frequently further inclosed by smaller stones built into the intervening spaces. Within this area there is generally found the skeleton, disposed in a contracted position, and accompanied with urns and relics of an early period. As the sepulchral tumulus is justly regarded as only a gigantic grave-mound, so the origin of the cromlech may be traced to the desire of providing a cist for the last resting-place of the chief or warrior, equally distinguished from that which sufficed for common dust—

“A little urn—a little dust inside,
Which once outbalanced the large earth, albeit,
To-day a four-years’ child might carry it!”78

This class of sepulchral monuments is rare in Scotland when compared with other monolithic structures that abound in almost every district of the country. Some few interesting examples, however, are still found perfect, while partial traces of a greater number remain to show that the cromlech was familiar to the builders of the Scottish monolithic era. One of the most celebrated Scottish cromlechs is a group styled, The Auld Wives’ Lift, near Craigmadden Castle, Stirlingshire. It is remarkable as an example of a trilith, or complete cromlech, consisting only of three stones. Two of nearly equal length support the huge capstone, a block of basalt measuring fully eighteen feet in length, by eleven in breadth, and seven in depth. A narrow triangular space remains open between the three stones, and through this every stranger is required to pass on first visiting the spot, if, according to the rustic creed, he would escape the calamity of dying childless. It is not unworthy of being noted, that though the site of this singular cromlech is at no great elevation, a spectator standing on it can see across the island from sea to sea; and may almost at the same moment observe the smoke from a steamer entering the Frith of Clyde, and from another below Grangemouth, in the Forth.

From the traces of ruined cromlechs which are still visible in various parts of the country, some of them appear to have been encircled, like a class of barrows described above, with a ring of standing stones; and it is exceedingly probable that many of the smaller groups throughout the country, designated temples, or Druidical circles, belong to the class of sepulchral memorials. Such is the case with a monolithic group in the parish of Sandwick, Orkney, and it is still more noticeable in the ring of Stennis, where the cromlech lies overthrown beside the gigantic ruins of the circle which once inclosed it. Various other cromlechs still remain in Orkney. One called the Stones of Vea, situated on the moor about half a mile south of the manse of Sandwick, though overthrown, is otherwise uninjured. The capstone measures five feet ten inches, by four feet nine inches, and still rests against two of its supporters. A group, which stands on the brow of Vestrafiold, appears to have included two if not three cromlechs. There is another remarkable assemblage, in a similarly ruined state, near Lamlash Bay, in the island of Arran; and a single cromlech stood—if it does not still stand—in the centre of a stone circle in the same island.79 A fine one also remains, in perfect preservation, on the southern declivity of the hill of Sidla, Forfarshire; another good example has been preserved on the farm of Ardnadam, in the parish of Dunoon, Argyleshire; and others, more or less complete, are to be seen at Achnacreebeg, Ardchattan, and in various districts of the West Highlands, as well as in other parts of Scotland. Some at least of these gigantic structures were buried under a tumular mound, precisely in the same manner as the smaller cists. In 1825 a cromlech was discovered on the removal of a tumulus of unusual size, situated near the west coast of the peninsula of Cantyre. It contained only the greatly decayed remains of a human skeleton, but in the superincumbent soil were found many bones, and the teeth of the horse and cow, also in a state of decay. The capstone of this cromlech measured five by four feet, and its four supporters were each about three feet high.80 A somewhat larger cromlech was disclosed, under nearly similar circumstances, in the year 1838, on the levelling of a large mound or tumulus, in the Phœnix Park, Dublin.

The whole of these examples are constructed of rough and entirely unhewn blocks. The annexed figure represents a partially ruined cromlech, at Bonnington Mains, near Ratho, Mid-Lothian, which is interesting from some traces which it retains of artificial tooling. Along the centre of the large capstone a series of shallow perforations have been made at nearly regular intervals, and possibly indicate a design of splitting it in two. Such is the idea formed by Mr. F. C. Lukis in a somewhat parallel case, though any indication of artificial formation in such primitive structures is of the very rarest occurrence. Mr. Lukis remarks in a communication to the Archæological Association:—“I send a sketch of the cromlech on L’Ancresse Common, Guernsey, on which we have discovered a string of indentations, probably made with a view to trim the side prop to the required size of the capstone. These are the first appearances of art in any of the primeval monuments, and nowhere have we found anything of the kind excepting on a menhir in the parish of the Forest.... The use of these indents we can only guess at; but as they follow the fracture of the stone, (granite,) the early method of breaking stones would be explained.”81 The Bonnington Mains Cromlech is of large size. The capstone, which now rests on only two of its supporters, measures 11½ feet in length, and 10½ feet in greatest breadth. It bears the name of The Witch’s Stone,82 in accordance with the rustic legend which ascribes its origin to an emissary of the famed old Scottish wizard, Michael Scot. The term cromlech is probably derived from cromadh (Gaelic) or cromen (Welsh), signifying a roof or vault, and clach or lech, a stone. But the compound word is of ancient use in Scotland. An extensive district in the neighbourhood of Dunblane, Perthshire, which still bears the name of the Cromlix, is remarkable for various large transported blocks scattered over its surface. One of these, which has been supposed to have formed the capstone of a large cromlech, measures 15½ by 10 feet; but it is very doubtful if it owes either its form or position to human hands. According to the proposed derivation the name may be rendered the suspended stone; and its application to a district covered with transported rocks from the neighbouring Ochils, of a date long prior to the historic era, is in no way inconsistent with its more usual application to the primitive monolithic structures. We have no satisfactory evidence that these are Celtic monuments. The tendency of our present researches leads to the conclusion that they are not, but that they are the work of an elder race, of whose language we have little reason to believe any relic has survived to our day. On this supposition the old name of Cromlech is of recent origin compared with the structures to which it is applied; and of this its derivation affords the strongest confirmation. It is just such a term as strangers would adopt, being simply descriptive of the actual appearance of the monument, but conveying no idea of its true character as a sepulchral memorial.

Such are the monumental structures belonging to the primitive periods; but examples of the cist and cinerary urn, deposited without any superincumbent mound, are of extremely frequent occurrence. They are most commonly grouped in considerable numbers, indicating the ordinary rites of sepulture contemporary with the monumental tumulus or cairn. In the first of these, as in cists found underneath ancient cairns and tumuli, the body appears to have been generally interred in a contracted posture, with the knees drawn up to the breast; and some examples would even seem to indicate that the limb bones were broken when the body could not otherwise be disposed within the straitened dimensions which custom prescribed for the primitive tomb. The custom may be traced to the idea prevalent long after the Christian era, that it was unworthy of a warrior to die in his bed. The rude Briton was accordingly interred seated, and with his weapons of stone or bronze at his side, ready to spring up when the sound of the war-cry should summon him to renew the strife. It seems probable that some few cists of full proportions belong to a period prior to this custom, but it undoubtedly prevailed for ages, and probably did not disappear till after the introduction of Christianity. The short stone cist has been discovered of late years in the immediate vicinity of some of the most ancient Christian churches in the Orkneys, while examples of a full-sized cist, with the inclosed skeleton extended at length, are met with under circumstances, and with accompanying relics, which leave no doubt that they belong to both of the primitive periods. One singular variation from the custom of burial in the sitting posture has been noted, in which the body has been interred with the knees bent, but laid on the right side. It must, however, be at all times extremely difficult to ascertain the exact position in which the body has been originally laid, from the little crumbling heap of decayed bones lying in the contracted cist; and there is no failing to which antiquarian observers seem at present more liable than that of seeing too much. An intelligent correspondent writes from Orkney,—

“Graves are frequently found in which the skeletons lie in various positions; in some cases as if the bodies had been huddled into the grave without any care; in others the knees are considerably bent, and the skeletons lie on the right side. Several such examples have been discovered in Sandwick; and in a grave which I recently opened in Westray, the skeleton was found on its right side in a similar posture. I examined it carefully, and it conveyed the impression to my mind that the individual had been slain in battle, and the body had been laid in the grave in the posture it was found on the field of conflict. A similar posture has been observed in skeletons found in different islands. The rude figure of a Calvary cross carved on the stone which formed a side of one of the graves in Sanday, seems to indicate that they were made subsequent to the introduction of Christianity, in the same way that a mallet-head of gneiss, beautifully polished, found at the right hand of a skeleton buried in a sitting posture in a grave in Sandwick, denoted a date prior to that era.”83 It is possible that the body laid on its right side with contracted limbs, may be found to indicate the transition-period prior to its interment at full length. The latter mode of burial appears, in England at least, to have been restored in Anglo-Saxon times, and before the introduction of Christianity.

A very general impression prevails that the primitive cists are invariably found lying north and south. But this is a hasty conclusion, which has been the more readily adopted from the distinction it seems to furnish in contrast to the medieval custom of laying the head towards the west, that the Christian might look to the point from whence he expected his Saviour at his second coming. Abundant evidence exists to disprove the universal use of any particular direction in laying the cists or interring the dead in the primitive period. A few examples will suffice to show this. In 1824 a number of cists were discovered in making a new approach to Blair Drummond House, near the river Teith, Stirlingshire. They were of the usual character, varying in size, but none of them large enough to hold a full-grown body laid at length. Some contained urns of various dimensions, with burnt bones and ashes, while in others the bones had no appearance of having been exposed to fire. The urns were extremely rude and simple in form, and no metallic relics were discovered among them. Here, therefore, we have a primitive place of sepulture, in a locality already noted for some remarkable evidences of very remote population. But the cists lay irregularly in various directions, giving no indication of any chosen mode or prevailing custom.84 In 1814 several cists were discovered in the parish of Borthwick, Mid-Lothian, of the ordinary character and proportions, and in some cases containing urns, one of which is now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Others have since been discovered in the same neighbourhood at various times, but like those on the banks of the Teith, “they were placed without any regard to order.”85 In constructing the new road to Leith, leading from the centre of Bellevue Crescent, Edinburgh, in 1823, several stone cists were found, of the usual circumscribed dimensions and rude construction of the primitive period, but being disposed nearly due east and west, were assumed without further evidence to be “of course since the introduction of Christianity.”86 Another similar relic of the aboriginal occupants of the site of the modern Scottish capital was found in 1822, in digging the foundation of a house on the west side of the Royal Circus. In this case the cist lay north and south, but the head was laid at the south end. The whole skeleton, with the exception of a few of the teeth, crumbled to dust on being touched.87 In a cist discovered in 1790, under a large cairn in the parish of Kilbride, the skeleton lay with its head to the east. Such was its great age, that it also speedily crumbled to dust.88 Within the district of Argyleshire, now occupied by the villages of Dunoon and Kilmun, many primitive cists have been exposed, rudely constructed of unhewn slabs of the native schistose slate, and some of them containing lance and arrow-heads of flint, and other equally characteristic relics, but the irregularity of their disposition proved that convenience alone dictated the direction in which the bodies were laid. Other examples of irregular though methodic arrangement of the cists found in cairns have already been noted, and it would be easy to multiply similar instances. One more will suffice. In the neighbourhood of the parish church of Cairnie, Aberdeenshire, various cists have been exhumed of late years, lying in different and apparently quite irregular directions. One found in 1836, by a farm-servant while digging for sand, lay at a depth of about 2½ feet below the surface. Its interior dimensions were four feet by three feet, and it contained a human skeleton with the head laid towards the east end. At the right side was a rude hand-made urn 5¾ inches in height, which is now preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries.

It is obvious, from these examples, that the mere direction in which the body is laid is not in itself conclusive proof either of Pagan or Christian sepulture. But there does also occur a numerous class of instances, which seem to indicate that at some early period importance was attached to the direction in which the body was laid, and then the cist was placed north and south, or rather north-east and south-west, with the head towards the north, and designed, it may be, to look towards the meridian sun. So many instances of this are familiar to archæologists, that it seems hardly necessary to produce examples: but two of a peculiar character may be deserving of special notice. In March 1826, a farmer on the estate of Wormeston, near Fifeness, in levelling a piece of ground, discovered, at a depth of ten feet from the surface, thirty cists, disposed in two regular rows, at equal distances apart, and with the heads towards the north-east. Their arrangement was peculiar, and obviously the result of some special design. A line drawn along their ends was nearly due east and west, and from this they declined obliquely, in the direction of north-east and south-west. The whole lay parallel, and equidistant from each other, and in the centre of each of the intervening spaces an oblong stone was placed so as to abut against the sides of the adjacent cists.89 Another group, disposed nearly similarly to this, was brought to light on the levelling of a long barrow of unusually large dimensions, in the parish of Strathblane, Dumbartonshire. Urns were found within the cists full of earth and burnt bones; and alongside of each was a column of about three feet in height, selected from basaltic rocks in the neighbourhood, many of which assume the form of regular quadrangular crystals. The position of the bodies appears to have been north and south, as the barrow, which measured sixty yards in length, lay east and west.90

The discovery of any important deviation from the customary rites of sepulture has already been referred to as probable evidence of some unwonted change in the social condition of a people; marking, it may be, the introduction of a new element into the national creed, or the violent intrusion of some foreign race of conquerors, displacing older customs by the law of the sword. In the introduction of the funeral pile and the cinerary urn, we have one important evidence of the adoption of novel rites. In the systematic disposition of the body in a fixed direction, it is probable that we may trace another and still earlier change. Both practices are deserving of more careful investigation than they have yet received, in the relation they bear to the progressive advances of the primitive races of Scotland. Without the opportunity of comparing more extensive and trustworthy observations than we yet possess, it would be premature to insist upon the inferences suggested by them. But it accords with many other indications that we should find less method or design in the rude sepulchres of the earliest aborigines, than of those who had long located themselves in the glades of the old Caledonian forests, and abandoned nomadic habits for the cares and duties of a pastoral life. The establishment of such a distinction would furnish a valuable chronological guide to the archæologist in the arrangement of his materials for primitive history; meanwhile, it is only suggested for further observation. The early Christian adapted the position of his grave to the aspirations of his faith; and a similar practice among older races, in all probability, bore a kindred relation to some lesson of their Pagan creed, the nature of which is not yet perhaps utterly beyond recall. The question of divers races is, at least, one of comparatively easy solution. On this the investigations of the practical ethnologist may throw much light, by establishing proofs of distinct craniological characteristics pertaining to the remains interred north and south, from those belonging, as I conceive, to a still earlier period,—before the rude Caledonian had learned to attach a meaning to the direction in which he was laid to rest in the arms of death, or to dispose himself for his long sleep with thoughts which anticipated a future resurrection.

Chapter IV — Dwellings

Before proceeding to examine in detail the varied contents of the Scottish tumuli, it may be well to glance at the evidence we possess of the nature of the habitations reared and occupied by the constructors of such enduring memorials of their dead as have been described in the preceding chapter. Scattered over the uncultivated downs both of England and Scotland, there still remain numerous relics of the dwellings of our barbarian ancestry, which have escaped the wasting tooth of centuries, or the more destructive inroads of modern cultivation. Sir Richard Colt Hoare remarks, in his “Ancient Wiltshire,”—“We have undoubted proofs from history, and from existing remains, that the earlier habitations were pits, or slight excavations in the ground, covered and protected from the inclemency of the weather by boughs of trees and sods of turf.” Of these primitive pit-dwellings numerous traces are discernible on Leuchar Moss, in the parish of Skene, and in other localities of Aberdeenshire; on the banks of Loch Fine, Argyleshire; in the counties of Inverness and Caithness; and in various other districts of Scotland still uninvaded by the plough. They are almost invariably found in groups, affording evidence of the gregarious and social habits of man in the simplest state of society. The rudest of them consist simply of shallow excavations in the soil, of a circular or oblong form, and rarely exceeding seven or eight feet in diameter. Considerable numbers of these may be observed in several districts both of Aberdeenshire and Inverness-shire, each surrounded with a raised rim of earth, in which a slight break generally indicates the door, and not improbably also the window and chimney of the aboriginal dwelling. To this class belong the “pond barrow,” already referred to as erroneously ranked among sepulchral constructions. Within a few miles of Aberdeen are still visible what seem to be the remains of a large group, or township, of such rude relics of domestic architecture. These, Professor Stuart suggests, may mark the site of the capital of the Taixali, when the Roman legions passed the river Dee in the second century.91 They consist of some hundreds of circular walls scattered over more than a mile in extent, of two or three feet high, and from twelve to twenty feet in diameter. Their varying sizes may be presumed to indicate the gradations of rank which, we know, were established among the northern Britons, who were undoubtedly, at the period of the Roman invasion, a race far in advance of the first constructors of the rude pit-dwelling or “pond barrow” previously referred to. Nothing, however, has yet been discovered on this site to indicate any traces of Roman influence. On digging within the area of the pit-dwellings, a mass of charred wood or ashes, mingled with fragments of decayed bones and vegetable matter, are generally found; and their site is frequently discernible on the brown heath, or the grey slope of the hill-side, from the richer growth and brighter green of the grass, within the circle sacred of old to the hospitable rites of our barbarian ancestry, and where the accumulated refuse of their culinary operations have thus sufficed to enrich the soil.

The first indication of a slight advancement in the constructive skill of the primitive architect is discernible in the strengthening of his domestic inclosure with stone. This is not infrequently accompanied with small circular or oblong field inclosures, as if indicating the dawn of civilisation, manifested in the protection of personal property, and the rudiments of a pastoral life, in the folding of sheep and cattle. Still greater social progress would seem to be indicated in those examples, also occasionally to be met with in various districts, where a commanding site appears to have been chosen for the location; and traces still remain of an earthen rampart inclosing the whole, as on the Kaimes Hill, in the parish of Ratho, Mid-Lothian. Such, perhaps, may be the remains of a British camp, or of a temporary retreat in time of war.

With this class also may be grouped the “Picts’ kilns,” on which Chalmers, Train, Sir Walter Scott, and other antiquaries, have expended much conjecture and useless learning. These are of frequent occurrence in Wigton and Kircudbright shires, as well as in parts of the neighbouring counties. They consist of elliptical or pear-shaped inclosures, measuring generally about sixteen feet in length and seven or eight feet in breadth. Externally the walls appear to be of earth, sometimes standing nearly three feet high. On removing the surface they are found to be constructed internally of small stones, frequently bearing marks of fire. They are popularly believed to be ancient breweries reared by the Picts for the manufacture of a mysterious beverage called heather ale. Sir Walter Scott suggests, with not much greater probability, that they are primitive lime kilns. They are said by Mr. Train to be invariably constructed on the south side of a hill, close to the margin of a brook, and with the door or narrow passage facing the stream. Future excavations on their sites may perhaps furnish more conclusive evidence of their original purpose.

Greater art is apparent in the relics of another class of ancient Scottish dwellings occasionally met with in different parts of the country. In the Black Moss, already referred to, on the banks of Etive, Argyleshire, at various points where some advance has been made in recovering the waste for agricultural purposes, the progress of cultivation has uncovered rough oval pavings of stone, bearing marks of fire, and frequently covered with charred ashes. These are generally found to measure about six feet in greatest diameter, and are sometimes surrounded with the remains of pointed hazel stakes or posts, the relics, doubtless, of the upright beams with which the walls of the ancient fabric was framed. Julius Cæsar describes the dwellings of the Britons as similar to those of the Gauls;92 and these we learn, from the accounts both of Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, were constructed of wood, of a circular form, and with lofty tapering roofs of straw. Such apparently were the structures, the remains of which are now brought to light within the limits of the Dalriadic possessions. These ancient Caledonian hearths, now quenched for so many centuries, are discovered beneath an accumulation of from eight to ten feet of moss, under which lies a stratum of vegetable mould about a foot deep, resting upon an alluvial bed of gravel and sand; the original soil upon which the large sepulchral cairns of the same district have been reared.

A discovery made at Dalgenross, near Comrie, in 1823, though described in a communication to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland as an ancient tomb, manifestly furnishes another example of the same class of primitive dwellings. At Comrie, as in twenty other equally probable localities, antiquaries of the district have pronounced some imperfect and half-obliterated earth-works to be the remains of a Roman camp, and the scene of Agricola’s famous victory of Mons Grampius! The writer, learning that workmen were trenching this interesting spot, remarks,—“I hastened to where the men were at work, and found that they had come upon a circle of flat stones set on edge, and at the bottom a paving of large flag-stones. The cavity was filled with a kind of black earth, pieces of charred wood, and also some fragments of iron, but so completely defaced with rust that it is impossible to say to what purpose they have been applied.” On pursuing the investigation further, pieces of charcoal and burned wood were found, along with charred wheat, which might possibly suggest its having been a granary; but its general characteristics much more nearly assimilate it to a native dwelling, to which, it may be, the torch of the Roman legionary applied the brand that reduced it to a blackened ruin.

Among the relics of primitive domestic architecture brought to light in later times, no class is more remarkable than the weems, or subterranean dwellings which have been discovered in different parts of Scotland. Of this class are two structures discovered under ground in the parish of Tealing, Forfarshire. One of them consisted of several apartments formed with large flat stones without any cement; and in it were found wood-ashes, several fragments of large earthen vessels, and an ancient stone hand-mill, or querne. The other was a single vault constructed in the same manner, measuring internally about four feet both in height and width, and in which were found a broad earthen vessel, and a stone celt or hatchet.93 In another opened in the parish of Monzie, Perthshire, a stone celt and bronze sword were found, both of which are preserved at Monzie House. Chalmers supplies a curious list of similar subterranean dwellings discovered at various times in Forfar, Perth, Aberdeen, Ross, Sutherland, and Inverness shires, and in the Orkney Islands.94 The like structures are noted by Martin, among the antiquities of the islands of Walay, Erisca, and Skye;95 and by Pennant also in the latter island. They are described by Martin as “little stone-houses, built under ground, called earth houses, which served to hide a few people and their goods in time of war.”

The general name applied in Scotland to these subterranean habitations is Weems, from the Gaelic word uamha, a cave; and as this name is in use in the low countries, where nearly all traces of the Celtic dialect have been lost as a living language, probably since the era of the “Saxon Conquest,” it may be accepted as no insignificant evidence of their Celtic origin or use. In Aberdeenshire, where they have been found in greater number than in any other single district, they are more generally known, as in the Hebrides, by the name of eirde (i.e., earth) houses.

An interesting account of a large group of weems discovered in Aberdeenshire, is given by Professor Stuart in the Archæologia Scotica,96 and since then many more have been brought to light in the same district. Several of these opened of late years in Strathdon are described with great minuteness in the Statistical Account of that parish.97 On a bleak moor in the adjoining parish, not far from the old castle of Kildrummie—which, from many large fossil trees dug up in it, appears to have once been an extensive forest—the largest assemblage of these singular habitations occurs which has yet been discovered in Scotland. Others have been found about six miles further up the country, at Glenkindrie, at Buchan, and near the source of the Don, one of the wildest districts of the Highlands. They are indeed scarcely less common than the sepulchral cairn. My object, however, is not so much to accumulate numerous examples, as to select a few characteristic types of each class of Scottish antiquities; though these weems appear to possess peculiar claims to minute description, from their very frequent occurrence. In general, no external indication affords the slightest clue to their discovery. To the common observer, the dry level heath or moor under which they lie presents no appearance of having ever been disturbed by the hand of man; and he may traverse the waste until every natural feature has become familiar to his eye, without suspecting that underneath his very feet lie the dwellings and domestic utensils of remote antiquity.

The Aberdeenshire weems are constructed of huge masses of granite, frequently above six feet in length, and though by no means uniform either in internal shape or dimensions, a general style of construction prevails throughout the whole. Some of them have been found upwards of thirty feet long, and from eight to nine feet wide. The walls are made to converge towards the top, and the whole is roofed in by means of the primitive substitute for the arch which characterizes the cyclopean structures of infant Greece, and the vast temples and palaces of Mexico and Yucatan. The huge stones overlap each other in succession, until the intervening space is sufficiently reduced to admit of the vault being completed by a single block extending from side to side. They have not infrequently smaller chambers attached to them, generally approached by passages not above three feet in height; and it affords a curious evidence of the want of efficient tools in the builders of these subterranean structures, that where these side apartments are only separated from the main chamber by the thickness of the wall, the stones, though placed flush with the walls of the latter, project irregularly into the small cells, giving them a singularly unshapely and ragged appearance. Similar structures, but of smaller dimensions, have been discovered in Lanarkshire, at Cartland Craigs, in the neighbourhood of Stonebyres, and at a place called Cairney Castle. In these last were found quernes, deers’ horns, and bones. In one uncovered in the parish of Auchterhouse, Forfarshire, a brass ring was discovered; and both there, and in another in the same parish, were ashes, bones, and quernes.98 The Rev. Thomas Constable furnishes a very interesting description of one near Lundie House, in the latter county, which was minutely surveyed by the eminent antiquary, Lord Hailes. Its contents were of the usual description, including several quernes about fourteen inches in diameter.99 So also, in a minute account of similar structures in Caithness and Sutherland, furnished to Pennant by the parish minister of Reay, the writer remarks:—“We found in them nothing but hand-mills, or what the Highlanders call quernes, which were only eighteen inches in diameter, and great heaps of deers’ bones and horns, as they (the Picts) lived much more by hunting than any other means.”100 The discovery, indeed, of the primitive hand-mill in these ancient dwellings is so frequent as to be worthy of special notice, and might seem to indicate that their original destination had been for store-houses or granaries, did not the constant occurrence of the bones of domestic animals, or of those most prized in the chase, and frequently in considerable quantities, leave no room for doubt that they must have been occupied as places of habitation. They agree very nearly with the description furnished by Tacitus of the winter dwellings of the Germans, whom he represents as digging caves in the earth, in which they lay up their grain, and whither they retire in the winter, or on the advance of an enemy to plunder the open country.101 The entrance to such of these subterranean dwellings as have been found sufficiently perfect to afford indications of their original character, appears to have generally been by a slanting doorway between two long, upright stones, through which the occupant must have slid into his dark abode. Occasionally a small aperture has been found at the further end, apparently to give vent to the fire, the charcoal ashes of which lie extinguished on the long-deserted floor. In some a passage of considerable length has formed the vestibule; but so far as now appears, a solitary aperture served most frequently alike for doorway, chimney, ventilator, and even window, in so far as any gleam of daylight could penetrate into the darkened vault. One is forcibly reminded, while groping in these aboriginal retreats, of Elia’s realisations of the strange social state to which they pertain, in his quaint rhapsody on Candle-light, “our peculiar and household planet! Wanting it, what savage unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and unilluminated fastnesses! They must have lain about and grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed, when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbour’s cheek to be sure that he understood it! This accounts for the seriousness of the elder poetry. It has a sombre cast, derived from the tradition of these un-lanterned nights!” The grave humorist goes on to picture a supper scene in these unlighted halls, rich with truthful imaginings, mingled with his curious but thoughtful jests:—

“Things that were born, when none but the still night,
And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes.”

In truth, these dwellings, constructed with such laborious ingenuity in every district of Scotland, seem to throw a strange light upon that dim and remote era to which they belong, giving us some insight into the domestic habits and social comforts of a period heretofore dark as their own unillumined vaults.

Adjoining many of the weems small earthen inclosures are discernible; some of which are square, measuring about fifteen paces each way, with the area somewhat below the surrounding soil, and have probably been constructed for folding sheep or cattle. Others are circular, and so small as to leave little doubt that there must have stood the slight huts, constructed of turf and branches of trees, in which the architect of the cyclopean structure dwelt during the brief warmth of summer, while he sought refuge from the frosts and snows of our northern winter in the neighbouring subterranean retreat. The number of weems frequently found together appears altogether inconsistent with the idea of their construction as mere places of concealment. They are manifestly the congregated dwellings of a social community, though strangely differing from any that have dwelt in the land within the era of authentic history. When we compare these dwellings with the clay huts still common in many a Highland district, or with such humble Lowland biggings as those which have won a new sacredness as the birthplaces of Hogg or Burns, it is impossible to overlook the remarkable differences presented by the two states of society, separated not more widely by time than by variance of habits and ideas. How striking is the contrast between the artlessness of the Ayrshire cottage, that sufficed, with its straw roof, to satisfy the wants of one among the great master-spirits of all times, and the labour and ingenuity expended in producing these retreats of the Scottish aborigines. In rudeness of result perhaps both are on a par. The ingenious and methodic skill, however, entirely belongs to the old builders. Their mode of constructing with huge unhewn stones, frequently brought from a considerable distance, seems to point them out as the architects of that same remote era in which the rude monumental standing stones and circular groups of monoliths were reared, which still abound in so many districts of the Scottish mainland and surrounding isles.

Similar subterranean structures have been discovered at different times in Orkney, some of them of considerable extent, and including various recesses and chambers branching off from the chief central apartment. An unusually minute and interesting account of one in the parish of Shapinshay is given in the Old Statistical Accounts,102 by the Rev. Dr. George Barry, the historian of Orkney, in which was found a beautiful torquated ring, evidently of primitive workmanship.

Structures of the same character, on the mainland of Orkney, were explored by Lieutenant F. W. L. Thomas, R.N., while engaged in the Admiralty Survey in 1848. In the course of his investigation of one of these at Savrock, about a mile to the westward of Kirkwall, and close to the sea-shore, some curious evidence was disclosed, showing the primitive arts of its builders, and their inability to overcome an obstacle requiring unusual skill or effective tools. In excavating the site for this subterranean dwelling they appear to have cleared away the soil till they reached the natural rock, which forms the floor of the vault. Pillars constructed at irregular intervals admit of the whole being covered by immense slabs resting on them, where the width is too great to be overarched at so slight an elevation by converging walls. A long passage leads from this chamber, floored, like it, with the natural rock. In one place, however, an irregular elevation of the strata occurs. Such an obstacle was either beyond the skill of the laborious architects, or at least demanded more exertion than they cared to expend on its removal; and the roof has accordingly been elevated so as to admit of free passage by ascending and descending over the superimposed rock. The passages, as in nearly all the structures of this class which have been carefully explored, are extremely straitened. Unfortunately this primitive dwelling supplied materials for building a neighbouring farm-house and offices before Lieutenant Thomas had an opportunity of exploring it; so that what remained was in a very imperfect and dilapidated state. Portions of the roof still entire, constructed of huge masses of unhewn stone—one of them measuring about five feet long—afforded abundant evidence that no amount of mere physical labour was grudged in the completion of the edifice, and seem to justify the probable assignment of it to a period prior to the introduction of metallic tools. In another of these subterranean buildings, however, situated on the Holm of Papey, Lieutenant Thomas observed some doubtful indications of the use of tools. “On the side wall, near the entrance,” he remarks, “and about six feet from the floor, there is a neatly engraved circle, about four inches in diameter; there is also another stone, with the appearance of two small circles touching each other, cut upon it; but it is so common to find geometrical figures upon the Orkney flags, arising from a semi-crystallization of the pyrites which they contain, that I am unable to decide whether these are natural or not.” The height of the passage where it remains perfect is only two feet seven inches; but nearly one-half of it is unroofed, and heaps of large stones lying scattered about afford evidence of the great extent of the building when complete. Within and around the area of this ancient structure abundant indications were discovered of its having been used as a dwelling-place. A large accumulation of wood or peat-ashes shewed that it must have been occupied for a lengthened period; and this was further proved by the great quantity of the bones of domestic animals scattered about the place. Those of sheep, apparently of the small northern breed still found in Orkney, were the most numerous; but besides these, there were skulls and bones of horses and oxen, the skull and portions of the horns of a deer, and a large bone of a whale. A thick layer of the shells of the periwinkle, L. Littoralis, covered the building and the adjacent ground, mixed sparingly with the oyster, the escallop, the common whelk, and other edible mollusca, which had evidently been consumed in great quantities on the spot. Along with these were also found a few extremely rude implements, the relics of the primitive arts of the builders, besides an antler of a deer artificially severed from the complete tyne. These objects were roughly fashioned from the thigh-bone of an ox, and designed apparently as handles for some weapon or cutting implement, most probably of shell or flint. Other Orkney relics of the same interesting class, but exhibiting more completeness of design, and accompanied with attempts at ornament, are described and figured in a subsequent chapter.

This large, though very imperfect example of the dwellings of primitive communities of the ancient population of the Orkneys, may be properly classed with the weems of the Scottish mainland, though it is not entirely subterranean. The floor is nine feet below the natural surface of the ground; and from the mode by which the whole appears to have been in-roofed with immense overlapping stones, it must have projected somewhat above the surface, and was probably covered over with a raised mound of earth. In this respect it approaches, in some degree, to another class of buildings, which appear to be peculiar to Orkney and the neighbouring districts of Caithness and Sutherland, though it is possible enough that they may have been at one time no less common on the whole Scottish mainland. These structures, for which it may be convenient to retain the popular name of Picts’ houses, are not strictly speaking, subterranean, but erected generally on the level ground, or, at furthest, excavated in part out of the side of a hill, so as to admit of a level entrance. Externally they are scarcely distinguishable from the larger tumuli, but on digging into the green mound it is found to cover a series of large chambers, built generally with stones of considerable size, and converging towards the centre, where an opening appears to have been left for light and ventilation. These differ very little from many of the subterranean weems, excepting that they are erected on the natural surface of the soil, and have been buried by means of an artificial mound heaped over them. Barry has minutely described one, which he calls an “ancient Pick house,” opened at Quanterness, near Kirkwall.103 Another relic of the same class was explored during the past year by Mr. George Petrie of Kirkwall, to whose valuable communications on kindred subjects I have already had occasion to refer. Through his kindness I have been favoured with a minute account of the result of his labours, as well as with the plans engraved, drawn from careful measurements taken at the time.

In the month of October 1849, Mr. Petrie’s attention was directed to a large tumulus or green knoll, which stands about half-way up the western declivity of Wideford-hill, overlooking the beautiful bay of Frith on the mainland of Orkney, and within a short distance of the Pict’s house of Quanterness, described in Barry’s History of Orkney. Being on a steep and unfrequented part of the hill, it appears to have almost entirely escaped observation. An opening, however, had been attempted at some former period, but abandoned after an excavation of about a couple of feet in depth had been effected. Mr. Petrie employed men to make a section into the mound, and himself superintended and assisted in the operation, which proved one of considerable time and labour, from the large stones and the quantity of clay used in completing the external mound, as well as in the masonry of the structure found underneath. The building appears to have been constructed in the following manner:—A place for the site having been scooped out of the side of the hill, the cells or apartments were built of large unhewn stones, the walls being made gradually to converge as they rose in height, until they approached to within a foot at top. Externally the work was bounded by a wall of about two feet high. The entire structure was then brought to a conical shape with stones and clay; the stones being disposed with considerable regularity, and over all a thick layer of turf or peat had been laid. The mound which encloses the whole is about one hundred and forty feet in greatest circumference, and forty-five feet in diameter. The work of exploration was commenced by making a cut, six feet in breadth, upon the north side, and clearing away the stones and clay in the direction of the highest part of the mound. On penetrating towards the centre, at about six feet from the top, a stone was exposed placed on edge, about eighteen inches long and nine inches thick, underneath which lay another, which was found to cover a hole of about a foot square, at the top of the chamber marked D in the plan. (Plate I.) On obtaining entrance to this chamber or cell, it proved, like those subsequently opened, to be constructed with walls gradually converging on all sides towards the top, and to measure five feet nine inches in length from north to south, four feet eight inches in breadth, and five feet six inches in height. On the west side of the chamber, the small passage, marked h, was observed appearing to communicate with another apartment, but it was so blocked up with stones and rubbish, that excavation had to be resumed from the exterior. After working for upwards of an hour, the large stone, marked m, was reached, and on removing it an entrance was effected into the central chamber A. This was about three-fourths filled with stones and rubbish, heaped up under the opening marked i, on digging into which bones and teeth of the horse, cow, sheep, boar, &c., were discovered mixed with the rubbish, and also some which were supposed to be those of deer, but not a vestige of human bones.

The general plan will convey the best idea of the form and arrangement of the chambers. The central apartment, A, is an irregular oblong vault, ten feet long, five feet in greatest width, and 7½ feet in height from the bottom to the lower edge of the stones marked o o. Above this extends the opening i, which had no other covering than the outer layer of turf. Mr. Petrie came to the conclusion, after a thorough examination of the whole, that the rubbish found in this large chamber was the debris of some later building erected above the mound, the materials of which must have been precipitated through the narrow opening, as no part of the subterranean structure was found imperfect with the exception of the passage g. From the floor of the chamber to the extreme height of the mound is twelve feet. At the north end of the central chamber the passage e leads to the cell C, measuring five feet seven inches long, four feet wide, and six feet high. From the east side of this a passage extends a considerable way, until it is abruptly terminated by the native rock. The chamber D, which was first entered, communicates with the central apartment by a short passage h, directly opposite to which is the long gallery b, which formed the entrance to the building from the western side of the mound. A third passage, a, proceeds in an oblique direction from the central chamber to a cell B, the proportions of which are six feet in length, three feet seven inches in width, and 6½ feet in height. Nothing found in this or any of the previously explored “Picts’ houses” gives the slightest countenance to the idea that they were designed as places of sepulture. The most remarkable feature about them, however, and the one least compatible with their use as continuous dwelling-places, is the extremely circumscribed dimensions of the passages. The whole of them measure about fifteen inches in height by twenty-two inches in breadth, so that entrance could only be obtained by crawling on the ground. The arrangement affords a very striking confirmation of the barbarous state of the people, who were yet capable of displaying so much skill and ingenuity in the erection of these cyclopean structures. It is curious indeed that as civilisation progressed, primitive architecture became not only simpler but meaner, the ingenious builder learning to supply his wants by easier methods; while also the gregarious social ties which such laborious and extensive structures indicate were exchanged for the more refined separation into families, with, as we may assume, the gradual development of those virtues and affections which flourish only around the domestic hearth.

The first step in the descending scale indicative of the abandonment of the cyclopean architecture for simpler and less durable modes of construction, appears in a class of dwellings of similar character to the “Picts’ houses,” but inferior in their masonry, and generally smaller in size and less complete in design. Examples of this class have also been found in various parts of Scotland. They are generally more entirely subterranean than the “Picts’ houses,” partaking in this respect more of the character of the weems. They occupy, however, an intermediate position, being excavated for the most part in the side of a hill, so as to admit of an entrance level with the ground. They are also found more frequently in groups, and have probably been each the dwelling-place of a single family.

In these, oaken rafters appear to have supplied the place of the more ancient cyclopean arch, and the walls are generally built of smaller stones. Weems of this more fragile character have been discovered at Prieston, near Glammis, in Forfarshire; at Alyth and Bendochy, Perthshire; and at Pennycuick, Mid-Lothian, as well as in other districts. One in particular, found at Alvie, Inverness-shire, measured sixty feet in length. These may be regarded as works of a later age than the more massive and enduring structures previously described, when the domestic habits of the old builders had survived their laborious arts and monolithic taste. One of the most singular groups of this latter class is a series of contiguous excavations, on the ridge of a hill immediately to the north of Inchtuthill, Inverness-shire, known in the district by the name of “the steed’s stalls.” Seven circular chambers are cut in the side of a steep bank, separated by partitions of about twelve feet thick. The floors are sunk about twenty feet, and each chamber measures fifteen feet in diameter. A long passage of about four feet wide has formed the original way of ingress, but the rafters, which most probably formed the roof, have long since disappeared, and only a very partial estimate can now be formed of the appearance presented by these singular chambers when complete.

With the same class also may be reckoned certain structures described by Pennant as the repositories of the ashes of sacrifices. One of these, within a few miles of Edinburgh, in the neighbourhood of Borthwick Castle, was brought to light by the plough coming in contact with its rough masonry, at a depth of only a foot below the surface. It may be described as pear-shaped, and with a passage continuing from the narrow end, measuring fifteen feet in length by two and a half in breadth. The masonry was of the rudest description, and nearly the whole space between the walls was filled with a rich black mould, irregularly interspersed with charcoal, fragments of bone, and the teeth of sheep and oxen.104 A similar building was discovered about the same time in the east of Fife, and one closely corresponding to it has recently been disclosed by railway operations at Newstead, in the neighbourhood of Melrose. In this, as in the example above referred to, the narrow passage pointed nearly north-west; and its masonry was equally rude; but among its contents were various carved stones, apparently corresponding with Roman remains frequently found in that neighbourhood, and one in particular with the cable-pattern, or woollen fillet, so commonly employed by the Anglo-Roman sculptors.

Akin to such subterranean dwellings are the natural and artificial caves which, in Scotland, as in most other countries, have supplied hiding-places, retreats for anchorites, and even permanent native dwellings, and may be described along with this class, though belonging to many different periods. Such caves abound in Scotland, and especially along the coast, but in general their interest arises rather from the associations of popular traditions, than from any intrinsic peculiarity of character pertaining to them. Few such retreats are more remarkable, either for constructive art, or historic associations, than the well-known caves beneath the old tower of Hawthornden, near Edinburgh. They have been hewn, with great labour and ingenuity, in the rocky cliff which overhangs the river Esk. No tradition preserves the history or date of their execution, but concealment was evidently the chief design of the excavators. The original entrance is most ingeniously made in the shaft of a very deep draw-well, sunk in the court-yard of the castle, and from its manifest utility as the ordinary and indispensable appendage of the fortress, it most effectually conceals its adaptation as a means of ingress and communication with the rock chambers beneath. These are of various forms and sizes, and one in particular is pierced with a series of square recesses, somewhat resembling the columbaria of a Roman tomb, but assigned by popular tradition as the library of its later owner, Drummond the Scottish poet. Whatever was the purpose for which these were thus laboriously cut, the example is not singular. A large cave in Roxburghshire, hewn out in the lofty cliff which overhangs the Teviot, has in its sides similar recesses, and from their supposed resemblance to the interior of a pigeon-house, the cavern has received the name of the Doo-cave. Authentic notices of the Hawthornden caves occur so early as the reign of David II., when a daring band of Scottish adventurers made good their head-quarters there, while Edward held the newly fortified castle of Edinburgh, and the whole surrounding district. In the glen of the little river Ale, which falls into the Teviot at Ancrum, extensive groups of caves occur, all indicating, more or less, artificial adaptation, as human dwellings; and in many other districts similar evidences may be seen of temporary or permanent habitation, at some remote period, in these rude recesses. Along the coast of Arran there are several caves of various dimensions, one of which, at Drumandruin, or Drumidoon, is noted in the older traditions of the island as the lodging of Fin M’Coul, the Fingal of Ossian, during his residence in Arran. Though low in the roof, it is sufficiently capacious for a hundred men to sit or lie in it. In this, as in the previous example, we find evidences of artificial operations, proving its connexion with races long posterior to those with whose works we have chiefly to do in this section of archæological inquiry. In the further end a large detached column of rock has a two-handed sword engraved on it, surmounted by a deer, and on the southern side of the cave a lunar figure is cut, similar in character to those frequently found on the sculptured pillars and crosses which abound in Scotland. It is now more frequently styled the king’s cave, and described as the retreat of Robert the Bruce, while he lurked as a fugitive in the Western Isles; but like many other traditions of the Bruce this seems to be of very recent origin. Other caves in the same island are also of large dimensions, and variously associated with popular traditions, as, indeed, is generally the case wherever subterranean retreats of any considerable extent occur. Some are the supposed dwellings of old mythic chiefs, whose names still live in the traditional songs of the Gael. Others are the retreats which the primitive confessors of Scotland excavated or enlarged for their oratories or cells. Of the latter class are the caves of St. Molio, on the little island of Lamlash, or the Holy Isle, on the east coast of Arran; of St. Columba and St. Cormac, on the Argyleshire coast; of St. Ninian, in Wigtonshire; of St. Serf, at Dysart, on the Fifeshire coast; and the celebrated “ocean cave” of St. Rule, in St. Andrew’s Bay. This last oratory consists of two chambers hewn out of the sandstone cliffs of that exposed coast. The inner apartment is a plain cell, entered from the supposed oratory of the Greek saint. The latter is nearly circular, measuring about ten feet in diameter, and has a stone altar left hewn in the solid rock on its eastern side. Possibly the singular dwarfie stone of Hoy, in Orkney, owes its origin to a similar source. A huge mass of square sandstone rock, which appears to have tumbled from a neighbouring cliff, has been hollowed out into three apartments, with a fire-place, vent, stone-bed, pillow, &c. The traditions of the island preserve strange tales of a giant and his wife who dwelt in this abode, and the “Descriptio Insularum Orchadium,” written by Jo. Ben., (John the Benedictine,) in 1592, adds to the account of its internal accommodation the following somewhat whimsical provision for the comfort of the latter,—“Tempore camerationis fœmina gravida fuit, ut lectus testatur; nam ea pars lecti in qua uxor cubuit effigiem habet ventri gravidi.” Others of the Scottish caves and oratories are less artificial in their character. They are especially abundant in the Western Isles, and on the neighbouring coast, where the waves of the Atlantic have wrought out caverns far surpassing in extent and magnificence the largest in the interior of the country. Few of these, however, possess such marked features as to distinguish them from similar relics pertaining to no definite period, which are to be met with on every rocky coast exposed to the rude buffets of the ocean waves. One exception, indeed, may well claim to be singled out as unmatched by any other work of nature or art, though belonging to an older system than the primeval period of the archæologist. Amid scenery unsurpassed in the interest of its historic associations, or its venerable relics of medieval skill, stands the wondrous natural cave which popular tradition has associated with the favourite name of Fingal.

“Nor doth its entrance front in vain
To old Iona’s holy fane,
That nature’s voice might seem to say—
Well hast thou done, frail child of clay!
Thy humble powers that stately shrine
Tasked high and hard—but witness mine!”105

To those who are curious in investigating such ancient relics, Chalmers furnishes a very ample list of “Natural Caves in every part of North Britain, which have been improved into hiding-places by artificial means.”106 The associations with many of these retreats are of the most varied and romantic character; and few districts of the country are without some wild or thrilling legend or historic tradition relating to such caverned shelters of the patriot, the recluse, or the persecuted devotee.

Chapter V — Temples and Memorial Stones

The ideal associations with the future and the past, which seem to find some outward manifestation even in the rudest state of society, spring from “that longing after immortality” which affords so strong an evidence of its truth. To this principle of the human mind is clearly traceable the origin of the commemorative erections which abound wherever man has fixed his resting-place. The most primitive of these ancient memorials are the rude unhewn columns or standing stones, as they are called, which abound in nearly every district of Scotland. Occasionally they are found in groups of two or three, and even in greater numbers, as the celebrated “standing stones of Lundin,” near the Bay of Largo, Fifeshire, the largest of which measures sixteen feet in height above ground. Three only now exist, singularly rude and irregular in form, but the stump of a fourth remained when the account of Largo parish was written in 1792.107 It has since been destroyed by treasure-seekers, tempted probably by the good fortune of others; for in the vicinity have been discovered, during the present century, some of the most interesting and valuable antiquities ever found in Scotland.

Of single memorial stones examples might be cited in nearly every Scottish parish; nor are they wanting even in the Lothians, and in the immediate vicinity of Edinburgh, where the presence of a busy population, and the unsparing operations of the agriculturist, have done so much to obliterate the traces of older generations. But nearly all are of the same character, differing in nothing but relative size, and the varying outlines of their unhewn masses. They have outlived the traditions of their rearers, and no inscription preserves to us the long-forgotten name. We are not left, however, to look upon them as altogether dumb and meaningless memorials. The history of a people contemporaneous, it may be, with their builders, reminds us how even the unsculptured obelisk may keep alive the records committed to its trust, and prove faithful to those for whom it was designed. “It came to pass,” says Joshua, “when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the Lord spake, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones, that when your children ask, in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? then ye shall answer them.” Some of these rude memorials still remaining in the districts immediately surrounding the Scottish capital, suffice to show the enduring tenacity of popular tradition. The Hare Stane on the Borough Moor of Edinburgh, celebrated in the lay of Marmion as the support of Scotland’s royal banner,

“The massive stone,
Which still in memory is shown,”

affords one example of this. Mr. William Hamper, an ingenious English antiquary, has elaborately elucidated the derivation of the name as applied in England, and the use of the HOAR STONES,108 the menhars, or bound stones, as stones of memorial, like “the stone of Bohan, the son of Reuben,” and other ancient landmarks of Bible story.109 Probably we shall justly esteem the “Hare Stane” as the memorial of the western boundary of the ancient chase, claimed from time immemorial by the neighbouring capital; but if so, its name has long survived all popular recollection of the meaning which it bore. The same term, hair stanes, is applied to a circular group of stones near Kirkdean, in the parish of Kirkurd, Peeblesshire. It would appear, however, to have been more frequently used in Scotland in the most sacred sense of a memorial, if we judge from the examples of its application as the designation of cairns, some of which, at least, and probably all, are sepulchral monuments. Among these are the Haer Cairns in the parish of Clunie; the Haer Cairns of Blairgowrie and Kinloch, Perthshire; the Hier Cairns of Monikie, Forfarshire; the Herlaw, a gigantic cairn in the parish of East Kilbride, Lanarkshire; the more celebrated Harlaw of Aberdeenshire; the Harelaw at Lochhore, Fifeshire, and another in the same county, near Burntisland, where were found underneath the cairn a cist containing a skeleton with a bronze spear-head lying beside it.

Not far from the Hare Stone on the Borough Moor of Edinburgh, formerly stood another monolith termed the Camus Stone, but which, though it gave name to a neighbouring estate, and formed the march stone of its eastern bounds, was barbarously destroyed within memory of the present generation, to furnish materials for repairing the road! This name, whatever be its true derivation, is attached to numerous Scottish localities. Both in the example here referred to, in the Camus Stone of Kintore, Aberdeenshire, and in that near the village of Camustown, Forfarshire, vague tradition associated the stones with the name of a supposed Danish chief; but this is more probably the invention of modern topographers, than a genuine heirloom of popular tradition. The name of Combust figures among the list of Pictish kings as a contemporary of Marcus Antoninus Philosophus,110 but the authority, though older, is not much more trustworthy; and we shall perhaps seek the meaning of the term more correctly in the correspondence of local peculiarities, as in Cambusbarron, Cambuslang, Cambusnethan, &c., where it is understood to indicate a promontory or bank inclosed by a crooked stream, from the Celtic, cam, crooked.111 These Cambus-stones have all probably served as landmarks, or hoar stones; though answering also, it may be presumed, at times, like Laban and Jacob’s Pillar, as the memorial of some high contract between friendly or rival chiefs.

Other stones, however, are associated with a variety of historical and legendary traditions, as the “Witch Stane” near Cairnbeddie, Perthshire, where, according to ancient local belief, Macbeth met by night with two celebrated witches to advise on the fate of his kingdom. It is fully as probable that this tradition may have existed in Shakspeare’s time, as that it is derived from the marvellous conception of his great tragedy. When Cairnbeddie Mound was opened partially, about thirty years since, a quantity of very small iron horse shoes, with fragments of swords, and other weapons of the same metal, were found; so that it, doubtless, forms the tumulus on the site of some old and hard-fought battle-field, in which, perchance, the great usurper may have played his part. Another stone in the neighbouring parish of Meigle, a huge mass of unhewn trap, bears the name of “Macbeth’s Stane,” and various local traditions with which his name is associated, add to the probability of some true foundation for popular belief.

Evidence of the use of such rude columns as landmarks is frequently found of a comparatively recent date. The mention of standing stones, or circles, is not uncommon in charters and other deeds relative to the holding of courts and the boundaries of lands. More than one curious example of this occurs in the Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis, as in the following, which also suffices to show the ancient application of the term standing stones:—“Thir are the boundis own my lord of Athollis syde, the stannande staine merkit like a horse-sho, and the dik passande fra the samme staine to the burg, and syne be zound the stripe beweste the smedy of Balmany.” The Saxum Falconis, or “Hawk Stane,” at St. Madoes, Perthshire, which stands on the marches of what is known to have been the ancient possessions of the Hays of Errol, and still bounds the parishes of St. Madoes and Inchture, is referred to by Boece as existing in his day, (1500,) and as having been set up immediately after the defeat of the Danes in the Battle of Luncarthy, fought circa A.D. 990. The victory is ascribed, according to a well-known tradition—still commemorated in the armorial bearings of the Hays—to the timely interference of a Scottish peasant and his two sons:—“Sone efter ane counsal was set at Scone, in the quhilk Hay and his sonnis war maid nobil, and dotad, for thair singular virtew provin in this feild, with sindry landis to sustene thair estait. It is said that he askit fra the King certane landis liand betwix Tay and Arole; and gat als mekil thairof as ane falcon flew of ane mannis hand, or scho lichtit. The falcon flew to ane toun four milis fra Dunde, called Rosse, and lichtit on ane stane, quhilk is yit callit The Falcon Stane; and sa he gat al the landis betwix Tay and Arole, six milis of lenth, and four of breid; quhilk landis ar yit inhabit be his posterite.”112

The sacredness which naturally attached to landmarks, in early times, and of which we have remarkable evidence in the Old Testament references to them, was doubtless no less strongly felt in relation to all stones of memorial, the enduring parchments of an unlettered age. They seem accordingly to have been sometimes regarded, like the medieval altar, as the inviolable witness of any agreement. The following curious evidence of this feeling occurs in a deed in the possession of W. H. Fotheringham, Esq., dated at Kirkwall in 1438:—“Till all and synd lele folk in Cryste, to quhais knawledge yir pnt. wris. sal cum, Henry Randall, lawman of Orknay, John Naraldson, balze off Kirkwaw, Jamis off Lask, Greeting in Gode... make kend that we the forsaide bystude saw and onherde, and for witnesse wes tane quhene y^t John off Erwyne and Will. Bernardson swor on the Hirdmane Stein before owre Lorde y^e Erle off Orknay and the gentiless off the cuntre, that thay bystude saw and onherde, and for witnesse wes tane quhene that Tho^s. Sincler, y^e son off quhiln Davy Syncler, callit in y^e vestre in Sant Mawing Kirk, John of Kirkness,” &c. In this comparatively recent transaction we have probably a very accurate illustration of the ceremonial which accompanied the erection of a hoare-stone, or stone of memorial, whether as a landmark or the evidence of some solemn treaty. The document from which it is extracted has a further interest in connexion with early Scottish history. Its date is thirty years prior to the marriage of James III. of Scotland with Margaret of Denmark, when Orkney was first annexed to the Scottish Crown; yet it is written throughout in the Scottish tongue.

Of an entirely opposite character are the Cat Stanes found in various parts of Scotland, apparently deriving their name from the British Cad or the Celtic Cath, signifying a battle, and therefore marking the scene of some ancient conflict. In the immediate neighbourhood of the Camus Stone near Edinburgh, formerly stood two very large conical cairns, styled the Cat-stanes, until demolished by the same irreverent utilitarians who had found covetable materials in the rude memorial stone. Underneath the cairns were cists containing human skeletons and various bronze and iron weapons. Two iron spear-heads found in them are now preserved in the neighbouring mansion of Mortonhall; and according to the description of other relics formerly possessed by a neighbouring farmer, they would appear to have also contained celts and other weapons of bronze. A few yards to the north-west of the site which these cairns occupied, there still stands the Kel or Caiy Stone, a mass of the red sandstone of the district, measuring above eleven feet in height. On digging in the neighbourhood of this primitive monument a quantity of human bones have been found, irregularly interred, without cists or urns, and not far from it are still visible the rude earth-works of a British camp. Much more extensive intrenchments of an oval form existed in the immediate neighbourhood, prior to the construction of the new road, and are described by General Roy in tracing one of the Roman iters.113 There is another standing-stone within the Mortonhall grounds, at about half a mile distant from the site of the Cat-stanes, and also two larger masses lying together, which are not improbably the remains of a ruined cromlech. Here, in all likelihood, has been the battle ground of ancient Scottish chiefs, contending, it may be, with some fierce invader. The locality is peculiarly suited for the purpose. It is within a few miles of the sea, and though inclosed in an amphitheatre of hills, it is the highest ground in the immediate neighbourhood, and the very spot on which a retreating host might be expected to make a stand ere they finally betook themselves to the neighbouring fastnesses of the Pentland Hills. A few miles to the westward of this is the oft-noted Catt Stane, in Kirkliston parish, on which the painful antiquary may yet decipher the imperfect and rudely lettered inscription—the work most probably of much younger hands than those that reared the mass of dark whinstone on which it is cut—IN [H]OC TVMVLO IACET VETTA.. VICTR.. About sixty yards to the west of the Cat-stone a large tumulus formerly stood, which was opened in 1824, and found to contain several complete skeletons, but nearly all traces of it have now disappeared.

The rearing of stones of memorial on the scenes of victory is a custom of many early nations, and one which has not even now entirely fallen into disuse. The Bauta-stein of Norway and Denmark corresponds in its signification with the Cat-stane of Scotland, nor are there wanting examples of Scottish monoliths surrounded like the Danish ones with a pile of small stones at their base. Such is the case with the Clach Stein at Bible in Lewis, and the remarkable Clach an Druidean, or Stone of the Druids, in the same island, which stands above sixteen feet high.

“The Gaelic people,” says Chalmers,114 “did sometimes erect memorial stones; which as they were always without inscription, might as well have not been set up.” But independently of the fact that these monuments of the remote past have long since accomplished the original purpose of their erection, it is obvious that some of them can still furnish an intelligible response to those who ask, “What mean these stones?” Many of them, however, it is true, have waxed dumb in the lapse of ages, and hold a more mysterious silence than that which surrounded the long-guarded secrets of Egypt’s memorial stones. Some of these are perhaps the last solitary column which marks the site where once the “Druid circle” and its mystic avenue covered the plain. Remote and widely severed stones may thus be parts of the same systematic design, as is rendered sufficiently probable when we remember that that of Avebury numbered even in the days of Stukeley six hundred and fifty stones, though then by no means perfect, and that that of Carnac in Brittany extends over an area of eight miles in length. So common are they still in Scotland that Chalmers dispenses with his usual laborious accumulation of references, and contents himself with this very comprehensive one: “See the Statistical Accounts everywhere!”

Other monoliths are probably the Tanist Stones,115 where the new chief or king was elected, and sworn to protect and lead his people. One at least, the most famous of Scottish Tanist Stones, still exists, and mingles with the gorgeous rites of coronation services in Westminster Abbey the primitive elements of our most ancient popular elective monarchy. The celebrated Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, is that which, according to Scottish chroniclers, Gathelus, the Spanish King, a contemporary of Romulus, sent with his son when he invaded Ireland; and on equally trustworthy authority it is affirmed to have been the veritable pillow of the patriarch Jacob, which he set up as a memorial stone, on the scene of his wondrous vision!

“A gret stane this Kyng than had,
That fore this Kyngis sete wes made,
And haldyne wes a gret Jowale
Wytht-in the Kynryk of Spayne hale.
This Kyng bad this Symon ta
That stane, and in-tyl Yrland ga,
And wyn that land and occupy,
And halde that stane perpetually.
Fergus Erc son fra hym syne
Down discendand ewyn be lyne
In to the fyve and fyfty gre,
As ewyne recknand men may se,
Broucht this Stane wytht-in Scotland,
Fyrst quhen he come and wane that land.
* * * * * * *
Now will I the werd rehers,
As I fynd of that Stane in wers;
Ni fallat fatum, Scoti, quocumque locatum
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.”116

The Lia Fail is believed to have served for many ages as the coronation throne of the monarchs of Ireland; and according to Irish bardic traditions, to have borne testimony to the divine right of sovereignty by roaring beneath the legitimate monarch when seated on it at his inauguration! It was removed to Scotland, and deposited at Icolmkil or Iona, for the coronation of Fergus Erc, or Mac Eark, a prince of the blood royal of Ireland;117 from which it was finally translated to the Abbey of Scone, when the Scottic kings had extended their sovereignty over the ancient kingdom of the Picts. In Scotland it bore the name of the “King’s Stone,” and was regarded as the national palladium, until Edward I. in 1296, ordered it to be conveyed to Westminster as an evidence of his absolute conquest of Scotland.118 But the evidence failed, and the older prophecy holds good that wherever that stone rests princes of Scottish blood shall rule the land, though the Lia Fail no longer gives audible testimony to the legitimate heir. It can hardly fail to impress the thoughtful mind, as a singular link between eras so widely severed, not by time only but by every social and political change, that the rude Tanist Stone belonging to a period dimly cognizable in the remotest past, still forms a part of the coronation chair of the British sovereign in Westminster Abbey. The use of the Tanist Stone is, like so many other primitive customs, of Eastern origin, and traceable to a very remote era. Thus when Abimelech was made king, it was by the pillar which was in Shechem;119 and when Jehoash was anointed king by Jehoiada, the king stood by a pillar, as the manner was.120 The standing stone appears indeed to have been the most sacred attestation of every solemn covenant between contracting parties, including that between the elected chief or king and his people; and hence the super-addition of those peculiar virtues supposed to attach to the ancient Scottic Lia Fail.

One other stone is deserving of some note, from the vague records which tradition has preserved of its connexion with the rites of a long extinct creed. Mr. Wakeman remarks, in his Archæologia Hibernica,121 “Perforated stones, very similar to the ordinary pillar stone, are found in many parts of Ireland, Scotland, and even, as appears from Mr. Wilford’s Asiatic Researches, in India. Abroad as well as at home their origin is shrouded in the deepest obscurity, nor is it likely that the subject can ever be elucidated.” They are by no means so common, however, as this would imply. At Applecross, in the west of Ross-shire, a perforated stone occupies the centre of a stone circle; and at Tormore, in the parish of Kilmorie, Buteshire, there is a celebrated monolithic circle, styled Siudhe choir Fhionn, or Fingal’s cauldron seat, one of the columns of which is perforated, and is commemorated in old Highland traditions as the stone to which the Celtic hero was wont to tie his dog Bran. Immediately adjoining the circle are three huge unhewn columns, about fifteen feet in height above the surface of the moor. Along with these examples may be noted a curious group in the parish of Maddern, Cornwall, consisting of three stones, the centre one of which is pierced with a large circular hole, through which, Borlase informs us,122 rheumatic patients were wont to crawl as a sovereign remedy for their disease. Perforated stones must once have been common in England, and probably in Scotland also, as the Anglo-Saxon laws repeatedly denounce similar superstitious practices; but they are now of the rarest occurrence. Tradition has preserved some curious associations with one of the most interesting Scottish examples, which may perhaps be thought to throw some doubtful light on the use to which such perforated pillars were devoted at a comparatively late period of our island history. The celebrated Stone of Odin, near the Loch of Stennis, in Orkney, which has had a new interest added to it by being interwoven with the romantic incidents of the “Pirate,” was one of the remarkable monolithic group called The Stones of Stennis. It formed no part, however, either of the Great Ring of Brogar, or of the neighbouring circle of Stennis, but stood apart, to the north-east of the latter group; though it can scarcely be doubted that it bore some important relation to these ancient and mysterious structures. The Stone of Odin is described as standing about eight feet high, and perforated with an oval hole large enough to admit a man’s head. A curious, though rudely executed bird’s-eye view of the Stones of Stennis is given in the Archæologia Scotica,123 from a drawing executed by the Rev. Dr. Henry, about the year 1780, and there a man and woman are seen interchanging vows, plighted by the promise of Odin, which Sir Walter Scott refers to as “the most sacred of northern rites yet practised among us.” The vow was sworn while the engaging parties joined hands through the perforation in the stone; and though it is difficult to decide how much of the tradition may be ascribable to modern embellishment and the adaptation of a genuine heirloom of primitive superstition to the preconceived theories of local antiquaries, there cannot be a doubt of the popular sacredness attached to this sacramental stone in former times. An illustration of the practice from which this originated is supposed to be traceable in an ancient Norse custom, described in the Eyrbiggia Saga, by which, when an oath was imposed, he by whom it was pledged passed his hand, while pronouncing it, through a massive silver ring sacred to this ceremony.124

The solemnity attached to a vow ratified by so awful a pledge as this appeal to the Father of the Slain, the severe and terrible Odin, continued to maintain its influence on the mind till a comparatively recent date. Dr. Henry, writing in 1784, refers to the custom as having fallen into disuse within twenty or thirty years of the time he wrote, and adds, “this ceremony was held so very sacred in those times, that the person who dared to break the engagement was counted infamous, and excluded all society.” Principal Gordon, of the Scots College, Paris, who visited Orkney in 1781, thus refers to a curious example, showing probably the latest traces of this venerable traditionary relic of Scandinavian superstition:125

“At some distance from the semicircle stands a stone by itself, eight feet high, three broad, nine inches thick, with a round hole on the side next the lake. The original design of this hole was unknown, till about twenty years ago it was discovered by the following circumstance: A young man had seduced a girl under promise of marriage, and she proving with child, was deserted by him. The young man was called before the Session; the elders were particularly severe. Being asked by the minister the cause of so much rigour, they answered, You do not know what a bad man this is; he has broke the promise of Odin. Being further asked what they meant by the promise of Odin, they put him in mind of the stone at Stenhouse, with the round hole in it, and added, that it was customary when promises were made, for the contracting parties to join hands through this hole; and promises so made were called the promises of Odin.”126

It is possible that the awe which the vow of Odin so recently inspired may have originated in the use of the stone for more dreadful purposes than the most solemn contract, sealed with imprecations derived from a barbarous Pagan creed; though little value can be attached to another tradition, described by Dr. Henry as still existing in his time,—that human victims destined for sacrifice were bound to the perforated column, preparatory to their slaughter as an acceptable offering to the terrible god. Another stone, on the north side of the island of Shapinshay, bears the name of the Black Stone of Odin; but no definite associations are now attached to it, and its sole value is as the march stone between the grounds of two conterminous heritors.127 A more trustworthy tradition ascribed peculiar virtues to the Stennis Stone, manifestly corresponding with those referred to by Borlase in connexion with one at Maddern, and denounced in ancient Anglo-Saxon laws. According to this a child passed through the hole would never shake with palsy in old age. The practice exhibits a sagacious anticipation of future ills, the hole being too small to admit of the remedy being made available when most required.

A view of this remarkable memorial of ancient manners and superstitious rites, is given in Lady Stafford’s “Views in Orkney, and on the North-eastern Coast of Scotland,” drawn in 1805, and has been copied as one of the illustrations for the Abbotsford edition of the Pirate. But the stone itself no longer exists. After having survived the waste of centuries, until it had nearly outlived the last traditionary remembrance of the strange rites with which it had once been associated, it was barbarously destroyed by a neighbouring farmer, in the year 1814, along with two stones of the adjacent semicircle. Had it not been for the interference of Mr. Malcolm Laing, the historian, the whole group of Stennis would have been broken down as building materials for the ignorant Goth’s cow-sheds. The act was the less culpable, perhaps, as the perpetrator was a stranger who had only recently taken up his abode in Orkney. It affords proof, however, that the native reverence for the venerable memorial had not entirely disappeared, that its unfortunate destroyer’s life was rendered miserable by the petty persecutions with which the natives sought to revenge the destruction of their sacramental stone. So far, indeed, was this manifestation of popular indignation carried, that various conspiracies are said to have been formed to injure him, and two different attempts were made to set fire to his dwelling and property;128 a sufficiently manifest token that the old spirit of veneration for the stone of Odin was not unknown to the modern Orcadian.

A still more remarkable class of monumental stones remain to be described, including the singular sculptured pillars, peculiar, it is believed, to Scotland. But we have already trespassed on the relics of later eras, and these necessarily belong to a period long posterior to that when the rude aboriginal Caledonian possessed no other tools than the stone hammer and the flint chisel or arrow-head, with which to grave the memorial of his fame and the annals of his race.

In the investigations of the archæologist, even though devoted, as this inquiry is, to the examination of ancient memorials within an extremely circumscribed area, he frequently finds that he is dealing with the evidences of certain phases of progressive civilisation in the history of the race, rather than with mere national peculiarities. The farther research is pursued this becomes the more apparent, and we learn, without much surprise, from the recent invaluable researches in the valley of the Mississippi,129 that the ancient tumuli of the American continent are found to contain, amid many relics peculiar to the new world, stone celts and hammers, flint and bone arrow and lance heads, and other primitive weapons and implements so precisely resembling those disinterred from the early British barrows, that the most experienced eye could hardly tell the one from the other. To conclude from this that we have found evidence of an affinity of race, or of mutual intercourse between the rude aborigines of Britain and America in that mysterious period of the long forgotten past, however plausible it might seem at first sight, would be to adopt a theory which the investigation of the arts of modern races, such as the natives of Polynesia, must at once dispel. The same correspondence of primitive weapons is found in the north of Europe, in the steppes of Asia, in the ancient tumuli near the Black Sea, and even mingling with the evidences of earliest civilisation on the banks of the Tigris and the Nile. We must look, therefore, for the means of accounting for such remarkable correspondence of primitive tools, to some cause operating naturally at a certain stage of development in the human mind. It is the first manifestation of man’s intelligent instincts as a tool-using animal, and furnishes a singular evidence of the instinctive faculties which belong to him as well as to the lower animals, though few and uncertain traces of these remain distinguishable where civilisation has fostered the nobler faculty of reason, and brought it into healthy and vigorous play.

It is not unworthy of note, in the exhibition of a more advanced stage of the same development of features pertaining to the human mind in its progressive civilisation, that there seems also to have been an epoch in the early history of man, when what may be styled the monolithic era of art has been developed under the utmost variety of circumstances. In Egypt it was carried out, with peculiar refinement, by a people whose knowledge of sculpture and the decorative arts proves that it had its origin in a far deeper source than the mere barbarous love of vast and imposing masses. In Assyria, India, Persia, and throughout the Asiatic continent, this monolithic taste appears to have manifested itself among many independent and widely severed races. In Mexico and the central portions of the American continent, a people parted apparently by impassable oceans from the old world, have left enduring evidences of this psychological phenomenon; and in the north of Europe, under circumstances no less widely different from all these nations, numerous monolithic columns and groups attest the same pervading idea. In our own island, more especially, where now we are content to build a monumental obelisk, just as we do a cotton-mill chimney, with successive tiers of stone, we possess some of the most remarkable remains of this peculiar class. The destructive encroachments of civilisation, and the ruthless assaults of the quarrier and the builder, have done much to obliterate these singularly interesting memorials of primitive antiquity. Already the vast temple of Avebury has all but disappeared, like an old ripple-mark of the tide of time. But there still remain, in the huge cromlechs, circles, and standing stones scattered throughout the land, abundant evidence of the influence of the same peculiar taste on the early races of the British Isles, originating, as I conceive, in an unconscious aim at the expression of abstract power.

The convenient terms of Druid altars and temples have long supplied a ready resource for the absence of all knowledge of their origin or use. The cromlech has at length been restored to its true character as a sepulchral monument by the very simple process of substituting investigation for theory. But after the devotion of many learned and ponderous volumes to the attempted elucidation of Druidism, the subject has lost little of its original obscurity; and we shall follow a safer, if it be a less definite guide, in tracing the peculiar character of the so-called Druidical monuments to feelings which appear to have exercised so general an influence on the human race. The idea of the origin of these monolithic structures from some common source seems to have suggested itself to many minds. Colonel Howard Vyse, when describing the great hypæthral court, surrounded with colossal figures, which stands before the rock temple of Gerf Hossein, the ancient Tutzis, remarks:—“The massive architraves placed upon the top of these figures reminded me, like those at Sabooa, of Stonehenge; and it is not improbable that, together with religious traditions, the art of building temples may have even reached that place from Egypt.”130

To speak, as some recent writers have done, as if the mechanical and engineering knowledge by which the Egyptians were able to quarry and erect their gigantic monoliths had become even a greater mystery to us than the hieroglyphic legends which they inscribed on them, is manifestly a hasty and altogether unfounded assumption. It is their taste, and not their skill, which is wanting. The modern eye is satisfied with the perfect proportions of the monumental column, without seeking the barbaric evidence of difficulties overcome implied in the lifting of it in one mass upon its pedestal. A few years since the workmen in Craigleith quarry, near Edinburgh, disengaged a mass of the fine sandstone of the district, capable of rivalling the colossal obelisks of Egypt; but the proprietor in vain advertised the feat, in the hope that some committee of taste would avail itself of the opportunity of once more erecting a British monolith of primitive mass; and he had at last to break it down into cubes adapted to the ordinary wants of the modern builder. When, however, such a feat has to be accomplished as the spanning of the Menai Straits with a railway viaduct, no lack of engineering skill is felt in coping with difficulties which may stand comparison with the most gigantic of the self-imposed feats of the old Egyptian builder.131 We may fairly presume, therefore, that we have left the monolithic era behind us, not by the oblivion of former knowledge, but by the progress of the human mind beyond that stage of development when it finds its highest gratification in such displays of rude magnificence and vast physical power.

The Stones of Stennis, already referred to as the Orcadian Stonehenge, are unquestionably the most remarkable monolithic group in Scotland, and, indeed, if we except the great temple of Salisbury Plain, in the British Isles. Without entering meanwhile into any investigation of the evidence which various writers have derived from northern mythology or popular traditions, with a view to throw some light on the probable date of their origin, or the character of their builders, it furnishes a rational basis for the classification of such ancient monuments among the remains of the Primeval Period, that they exhibit no indication of having been hewn or shapen with tools. Unless the perforation of the stone of Odin be an exception, the columns have been erected just as they were dislodged from the earth; and we have only to account for their separation from the parent strata and their erection on the site which they still occupy. In this respect they correspond with the more ancient English temple of Avebury rather than with that of Stonehenge, which belongs to an era when efficient metallic tools, whether of bronze or iron, must have supplied the means of hewing the gigantic columns into some degree of uniformity, and fitting the lintels to the upright columns by means of the mortice and tennon still discoverable amid the ruins of that wonderful monument of ancient skill. We are not altogether without some evidence to induce the belief that the early Caledonian did dislodge and cleave into amorphous columns the unquarried rocks with which his native soil abounded, when armed with no fitter tool than the stone wedge and hammer. The Rev. James Little, in furnishing Sir John Sinclair with an account of the antiquities of the parish of Southwick, in Kirkcudbright, mentions the discovery, on the estate of Southwick, “in the middle of a large granite stone, when blasted with gunpowder, in a socket exactly fitted to it, of a piece of the same kind of substance, smooth and polished, in form somewhat resembling a rude hatchet, about nine inches long. The virtuosi to whose inspection it was submitted did not hesitate immediately to pronounce it to be a hatchet which had been used by the Druids in performing sacrifices; which conjecture they imagined warranted by the vestiges of a Druidical temple very near where it was found.”132 The reverend Statist rather inclines to regard it as a lusus naturæ. A few years later another was found, under similar circumstances, in a cavity of an enormous mass of stone, on the farm of Mains, near Dumfries. It was also of polished granite; and from the outline of it in the Archæologia, no doubt can be entertained of its being a genuine stone wedge or celt.133 Still it is not meant to assume from this that all such monuments were erected prior to the introduction of metals, but only that they indicate an origin coeval with the state of civilisation in which the use of metallic implements was, at best, but imperfectly known, and when the massive size of these rude unhewn monoliths abundantly satisfied the human mind in its desire for a visible shrine adequate to the awful mysteries shadowed forth in the heathen mythology.

The site of the celebrated Orkney group is perhaps little less remarkable than the venerable monuments to which it owes its name. A long and narrow neck of land separates the Loch of Stennis, a salt-water lake into which the tide rises and falls, from the fresh waters of the Loch of Harray, save at the narrow strait of Brogar, where at times the tidal wave mingles with the tideless waters of Harray; and on this, the great circle or Ring of Brogar, as it is most commonly styled, is reared. Judging from the regularity with which such of the stones as still remain are disposed, the number of columns originally forming the circle appears to have been sixty, on the assumption that they were placed at nearly equal distances apart. Of these sixteen remained in situ in 1792, and eight lay prostrate near their original sites; but now only twenty-three stones remain, ten of which are prostrate, and the broken stumps of a few more serve to indicate the places they once occupied. The whole is inclosed by a deep trench, except at two opposite points, where a level break occurs, affording the means of entrance and exit. The diameter of the great circle, from the inner edge of the trench, measures 366 feet. From the eastern entrance it is possible that an avenue of stones may have once led to the Bridge of Brogar, as the stepping-stones are styled by which the shallow channel between the Lochs of Harray and Stennis is crossed. On the eastern side of the channel one column still remains, bearing the name of the Watch Stone; derived apparently from its position on the brink of the ford commanding the passage between the great circle and the opposite shore, but which may possibly be the only relic of the avenue once connecting the circles on each side of the loch. The smaller group is now frequently designated, from its crescent form, the temple of the moon, and the larger circle that of the sun; but there can be no doubt that these are quite modern and spurious designations. Stennis Circle, as the smaller group is properly termed, is situated on a nearly level piece of ground, and its semicircular outline is further indicated by an inclosing mound of earth, presenting its opening to the south; whereas the larger circle is environed only by a fosse. This group was composed, at no very remote period, of seven or eight stones, but no doubt can be entertained that the figure was originally a circle, inclosing with its vallum, a large cromlech, the ruins of which still remain within the area. It is described by Wallace in 1700 as “a round set about with high smooth stones or flags;”134 so that it would appear to have been complete at that comparatively recent period. It stood upon a raised circular platform, part of which still remains about three feet above the surrounding level. Beyond this is the embankment, forming a circle, the radius of which, measured from its outer edge, is 117 feet. The radius of the circle, on the circumference of which the stone columns were placed, is about fifty-two feet; and judging from the space between those still standing, twelve stones may be supposed to have completed the circle. But though so small a group when compared with the Ring of Brogar, its columns are fully double the average height of the great circle, and it must have presented, when perfect, a far more magnificent and imposing aspect. It is painful to think that within our own time these most interesting memorials of an era far beyond the date of written records have fallen a prey to ignorance, in that dangerous transition state when the trammels of superstition are broken through without being replaced by more elevated principles of veneration. An intelligent native of Orkney, who appears to have left his home about 1789, remarks in his MS. notes accompanying a valuable donation of books relating to the northern islands presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland:—“If Mr. Daniell’s sketch of the Stones of Stennis (taken in 1818) be at all accurate, many of them have disappeared, and others fallen to the ground, since I can remember.”135 It was in the immediate neighbourhood of the smaller circle of Stennis that the Stone of Odin stood, completing, along with the adjacent earth-works alluded to in a former chapter, a group of primitive monuments, which, though inferior in magnitude to the vast temples of Wiltshire, or of Carnac in Brittany, are scarcely surpassed in interest even by these remarkable monuments.

I am indebted to Lieutenant Thomas, R.N., to whose liberal communications of the result of his observations in Orkney I have already referred, for careful observations and measurements made by him on the Stones of Stennis, of which the following are the most important results:—

The Great Circle of Stennis, or Ring of Brogar, is a deeply entrenched circular space, containing almost two acres and a half of superficies, of which the diameter is 366 feet. Around the circumference of the area, but about thirteen feet within the trench, are the erect stones, standing at an average distance of eighteen feet apart. They are totally unhewn, and vary considerably in form and size. The highest stone was found to be 13.9 feet above the surface, and, judging from some others which have fallen, it is sunk about eighteen inches in the ground. The smallest stone is less than six feet, but the average height is from eight to ten. The breadth varies from 2.6 to 7.9 feet, but the average may be stated at about five feet, and the thickness about one foot—all of the old red sandstone formation.

The trench around the area is in good preservation. The edge of the bank is still sharply defined, as well as the two foot-banks, or entrances, which are placed exactly opposite to each other. They have no relation to the true or magnetic meridian, but are parallel to the general direction of the neck of land on which the circle is placed. The trench is twenty-nine feet in breadth, and about six in depth, and the entrances are formed by narrow earth-banks across the fosse.

The surface of the inclosed area has an average inclination to the eastward. It is highest on the north-west quarter; and the extreme difference of level is estimated to be from six to seven feet. The trench has the same inclination, and therefore could never be designed to hold water.

DIMENSIONS OF THE RING OF BROGAR.

Radius to outer edge of fosse,	212.2	feet.
Radius to inner edge of fosse,	183.2	″
Radius of circle on which the stones are placed,	170.0	″
Distance of pillars from edge of fosse,	13.2	″
Breadth of fosse,	29.0	″
Depth of fosse, average,	6.0	″
Distance of columns apart, average equal to breadth of causeways,	17.8	″
Highest column,	13.9	″
Lowest column,	5.9	″
Average height of columns,	9.0	″
Broadest column, stump only remaining,	7.3	″
Narrowest column,	1.6	″
Average breadth,	5.0	″
Average thickness,	1.0	″

The neighbourhood of Stennis seems to have been consecrated ground to the ancient Orcadians. Within no great distance there are two circles of standing stones, two others all the remaining stones of which are prostrate, and four single standing stones, besides about twenty tumuli of various forms and sizes.

It was long the fashion with antiquaries to receive as an established and altogether incontrovertible position the Druidical origin of all symmetrical groups of standing stones in the British Isles. The more careful researches of later writers into the early history of the Orkney and Shetland Isles, and of their intimate connexion with Scandinavia prior to the Christian era, have led to a revision of this opinion, and to an almost universal abandonment of a Druidical for a Scandinavian origin of the great Temple of Stennis, and the numerous other corresponding structures in the north of Scotland and the Western Isles. Barry, Hibbert, Scott, and Macculloch have each assailed the old Druidical fancies with considerable learning and ability. “Dr. Macculloch,” says Dr. Hibbert, “has wielded the hammer of Thor with very signal success in aid of the demolition of the Druidic theory.” But notwithstanding so powerful an array of authorities in support of this newer line of argument, I venture to think, that when the exclusive Scandinavian theory shall have been demolished with equally signal success, we shall be nearer the truth than has been yet attained. The common Gaelic phrase—Am bheil thu dol do’n chlachan,—Are you going to the stones? by which the Scottish Highlander still inquires at a neighbour if he is bound for church, seems in itself no doubtful tradition of ancient worship within the monolithic ring. Yet it has already been shewn that some of these were not temples but sepulchral monuments; nor is their uniformity sufficiently marked to prove a common origin for all. Sir Walter Scott remarks, in his Abstract of the Eyrbiggia Saga:136—“The Temple of Thor is described as a circular range of upright stones, within which one more eminent marked the Stone of Thor, where human victims were immolated to the Thunderer, by breaking or crushing the spine. And this description may confute those antiquaries who are disposed to refer such circles exclusively to the Celtic tribes, and their priests, the Druids.” Dr. Hibbert has quoted this paragraph as a refutation of those who would contend that the Temples of Orkney had been used by Celtic tribes, before they were occupied and dedicated anew by later Scandinavian worshippers. But it unfortunately happens in this, as in too many other instances, that the “Abstract” furnishes a very partial rendering of the original saga; where the Temple of Thor is described as a vast inclosed edifice, with chambers constructed of wood, and a chancel or sacrarium specially dedicated to the Deity, of which the stone circle formed only one of its complicated features.137 Doubtless in some at least of the monolithic groups still standing, we see but the skeleton of structures which have outlived many no less indispensable features of the original plan, formed of more perishable materials. Modern agricultural operations have occasionally brought to light very obvious evidences of this. An intelligent observer who resided on the spot, and closely watched the operations of the workmen employed in trenching and levelling the site of a “Druidical Circle” on Donside, in the parish of Tullynessle, Aberdeenshire, has furnished the following account of their disclosures:—“The upright stones were mostly gone; but it was evident that they had inclosed a circle of about fifty feet diameter. The ground on which the temple stood was sloping, and within the circle it had been levelled by removing the earth on the upper side, so as to present a bank, nearly perpendicular, of not less than five feet, gradually decreasing to the east or lower part, when it became level. The upright stones were on the top of the bank. From the circle, in a south-east direction, a paved road could be traced to the distance of at least six hundred yards through a bog, which at the farther end was about six yards wide, but nearly twenty yards wide when it approached within fifty yards of the circle, and here the paving was covered with ashes. The stones were not squared, but very neatly fitted into each other.”138 In the course of these operations two curious stone vessels were found, hereafter described, one of which is now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. But the differences are so striking among many of the Scottish monolithic groups, that we look in vain for evidences of uniformity of faith or object in their builders. Some are single circles, others several concentric circles. There are ovals, ellipses, and semicircles, and even cruciform groups, which a hasty generalizer might accept as an evidence of primitive Christian art. But one thing is common to the whole, and is found to characterize similar structures throughout Europe and Asia—and that is the huge unhewn monolithic columns, the evidence not of one creed, but of one remarkable phase of the human mind, the influence of which has long since disappeared. Diverse as were the Celtic and Scandinavian creeds, their temples were probably of similar character; and the rude Norsemen who possessed themselves of the Orkney Islands in the ninth century, found far less difficulty in adapting the Temple of Stennis to the shrine of Thor, than the Protestants of the sixteenth century had to contend with when they appropriated the old Cathedral of St. Magnus to the rites of Presbyterian worship. It is unquestionably opposed to all probability that the Great Circle of Stennis, with its grand but rude monoliths, was the work of the Norse rovers of the ninth century, seeing we have good reason to believe that the Christian missionaries of Iona, or the disciples of St. Servanus, had long before waged successful war with the Pagan creed of the native Orcadians. But the question of Scandinavian origin is fortunately put to rest, at least in the case of this the most remarkable of all the Scottish temple groups. Professor Munch of Christiania, who visited this country in 1849, with a view to investigate the traces of Norwegian intercourse with Scotland, was gratified by the discovery that the name of Havardsteigr, which was conferred on the scene of Earl Havard’s slaughter by his nephew, about the year 970, is still applied among the peasantry to the promontory of Stennis; the Stones of which we may well believe were grey with the moss of centuries ere the first Norwegian prow touched the shores of Pomona.139 No direct reference to Stennis occurs in the Orkneyinga Saga, but the remarkable passage referred to is to be found in that of Olaf Trygvesson, where it is said:—“Havard was then at Steinsnes, in Rossey. There was meeting and battle about Havard, and it was not long ere the Jarl fell. The place is now called Havardsteigr.” So was it called in the tenth century, and so, Mr. George Petrie writes me, it is still occasionally named by the peasantry at the present day.

A few examples of the most remarkable monolithic structures of the Scottish mainland may be noted here. Careful and minute accounts have already been furnished of those of Inverness-shire by Mr. George Anderson in the Archæologia Scotica;140 and of those of Aberdeenshire, Argyleshire, and various other Scottish districts, in a series of illustrated papers in the Archæologia.141 The varieties apparent in their grouping and structure are such as may well justify the conclusion that instead of being the temples of a common faith, they are more probably the ruins of a variety of edifices designed for diverse purposes, and it may be even for the rites of rival creeds. This at least is certain, that the latest if not the only unquestionable evidence of their use which we possess is not as religious temples but as courts of law and battle-rings, wherein the duel or judicial combat was fought, though this doubtless had its origin in the invariable union of the priestly and judicial offices in a primitive state of society. The several concentric circles so frequently characterizing them, add to the probability of their adaptation to the purpose of judicial or deliberative assemblies. Such is one of the most common marks of the Law Tings of Orkney and Shetland, and of the Isle of Man. “Not unfrequently the fences of a ting were concentric; the intent of which was to preserve among the different personages of the ting a proper distinction of rank. The central area was always occupied by the laugman, and ‘those who stood with him;’ and the outer spaces by the laugrettmen, out of whom the duradom was selected, the contending parties, and the compurgators.”142 Mr. George Petrie has called my attention to several evidences of this in relation to the Orkney circles, and no less remarkable proofs appear in various chartularies and other authentic records, showing at how early a period all ideas of association with the rites of Pagan superstition had been lost. Thus in the Aberdeen Chartulary a notice occurs of a court held “apud stantes lapides de Rane en le Garuiach,” on the 2d May 1349, when William de St. Michael was summoned to answer for his forcible retention of certain ecclesiastical property;143 and again in the Chartulary of Moray the Bishop of Moray is summoned, in the year 1380, to attend the court of Alexander, Lord of Regality of Badenoch, and son of Robert II., to be holden “apud le standand stanys de la Rathe de Kyngucy estir.” Part of the business of the court was to inquire into the titles by which the Bishop held certain of his lands, and as he is summoned as a vassal, and had to protest against the proceedings, he is described as standing “extra circum.”144

The temple group at Leuchar, in the parish of Skene, Aberdeenshire, consists of a circle measuring internally thirty-four feet in diameter, composed of eight large stones disposed at regular intervals. In the centre of this another circle is formed of smaller stones, measuring about thirteen feet in diameter, and around it six smaller stone circles are disposed, two of them touching one another, and the remainder separated by regular intervals. At a short distance from this group, nine other circles occur, similar to the smaller ones, and two large cairns occupy commanding sites in the neighbourhood. Other examples of combinations of circles somewhat resembling this have been noted; and many of the larger ones have a stone laid flat-ways in the circumference of the circle, which is usually designated the altar stone. Concentric circles are still more common. The great temple or Clachan of Inches, situated about two miles south of Inverness, is the largest and most entire in that part of the country. It consists of two circles, the inner one of which is composed of twenty-eight stones, and measures about forty feet in diameter. The outer circle is now only partially traceable. Fifteen stones remain, including one nine feet in height above ground, and the diameter measures above seventy feet. Another remarkable group occurs about half-a-mile eastward from a stone avenue near the farm of Milltown of Culloden, which may possibly have been once connected with it. Three concentric circles are nearly united to an adjoining one which incloses a group of five cairns, or what might be more accurately described as one gigantic cruciform cairn. The contents of this singular structure would probably amply repay the archæologist for the labour and cost of exploration. In 1824 Henry Jardine, Esq., King’s Remembrancer, exhibited at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, a sceptre or rod of office, dug up in the circle of Leys, Inverness-shire. It consisted of a rod of pure gold, bent at top like an Episcopal crozier or Roman lituus, which it is not unreasonable to imagine may have been borne by some ancient arch-priest or king in the great assemblies of his people. A golden funicular rod made of three pieces twisted together, and with a solid hook at each end, was dug up in County Antrim in 1808.145

Monolithic groups abound in many parts of the mainland as well as in the Western Isles, but nearly all characterized by some peculiarity. Some are inclosed by a trench, others by a fosse; and frequently the space between the great stones is filled up by an earthen wall. In several districts in the south of Scotland single and double ovals are found, and fragments of ancient groups, more or less imperfect, are common throughout the country. The woodcut represents an imposing monolithic group in the neighbourhood of Pitlochrie, Perthshire. One of the great level Highland moors stretches away beneath the eye, like a dark waveless lake, contrasting with the distant heights, among which Benlawers rears its pyramidal summit to an elevation of upwards of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. Amid this wild Highland landscape the huge standing stones, grey with the moss of ages, produce a singularly grand and imposing effect; and from the idea of lofty height which the distant mountains suggest, they convey a stronger impression of gigantic proportions than is produced even by the first sight of the giant monoliths of Salisbury Plain.

The most remarkable of the Hebridean groups is that of Classernish, near Loch Roag, in the island of Lewis. It consists of a circle sixty-three feet in diameter, with a column in the centre measuring thirteen feet in height, and an avenue of similar stones stretching to the north, while single rows placed towards the other cardinal points complete the cruciform arrangement of the whole. Its greatest length is stated by Logan as 558 feet, and by Macculloch as about 680 feet; but many of the stones are nearly buried in the moss, so that its extreme limits are very imperfectly defined. It appears to have consisted originally of about seventy columns, and smaller circles in the same neighbourhood attest the ancient presence of a numerous population on the long desolate waste, where the grey columns of Classernish are still imposing in their ruins. The magnitude and singularity of this monolithic group have excited the enthusiasm of Celtic antiquaries, some of whom have discovered in it the very hyperborean temple of the ancients, in which, according to Eratosthenes, Apollo hid his golden arrow!146 But perhaps the most interesting of all the temple groups of the Hebrides, is one which furnishes the same indisputable evidence of remote antiquity to which repeated reference has been made. It may perhaps be thought a more potent weapon even than the hammer of Thor, in demolishing the exclusively Scandinavian theory of their origin. In the same island of Lewis a large stone circle may be seen, which within memory of the present generation was so nearly buried in the moss that the surrounding heather and rushes sufficed to conceal the stones. It has now been cleared out to a depth of fifteen feet, by the annual operations of the islanders, in cutting peats for their winter fuel, and as yet without exposing the bases of any of the columns. My authority for this interesting fact is Dr. Macdonald, a gentleman who resided for some years as a medical practitioner on the island, during which time he was accustomed to watch the progressive exhumation of the long-buried Celtic temple with mingled feelings of interest and curiosity. But this is not a solitary example. On various parts of the mainland monolithic groups still remain partially entombed in the slowly accumulating mosses, the growth of unnumbered centuries. On one of the wildest moors in the parish of Tongland, Kirkcudbrightshire, a similar example may be seen, consisting of a circle of eleven stones, with a twelfth of larger dimensions in the centre, the summits of the whole just appearing above the moss. Adjoining the group there stands a large cairn with its base doubtless resting on the older soil beneath. With such evidence at command, it is manifest that however vague many of the speculations may be which have aimed at the elucidation of rites and opinions of the Celtic Druids, and have too often substituted mere theory for true archæological induction, we shall run to an opposite error in ascribing to a Scandinavian origin structures manifestly in existence long prior to the earliest Norwegian or Danish, or even perhaps Celtic, descent on our coasts.

The Scottish cromlech, which belongs to the same period as the standing stones and circular temples, has already been referred to under its true head of Sepulchral Memorials; it need only be added, that some at least of the smaller stone circles appear to belong to the same class, and to have been only the encircling monument that marked out the spot consecrated by the dust of some mighty chief, or formed subsidiary features of a group in which the ruined cromlech still forms the most prominent object. But the idea of a temple has become so indelibly associated even in the minds of intelligent antiquaries with the circle of standing stones, that even when such circles are found in groups, the convenient name is still retained. “Nearly in a line between East and West Law, Fifeshire,” says Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, in his inquiry respecting the site of Mons Grampius, “there are no less than eight Druidical temples.” To account for such a state of things we shall next be compelled to assume that old Scottish Druidism was split into even more rival sects than modern Scottish Presbytery, and perhaps be taught to decipher from the symbolism of the rude monoliths, their number, or their orientation, the degree of heresy that characterized each Druidical conventicle! Such speculations cannot, after all, surpass the extravagant and baseless theories of Sabaism, fire-worship, Druidism, astrology, &c., which have been already deduced from the number of stones, the direction of the entrance, or other equally slight and constantly varying elements of argument.

One other and still more remarkable, class of works remains to be noted: These are the Rocking Stones, which are found among the ancient monuments of England and Ireland, as well as on various parts of the Continent, and are no less frequent in Scotland. No evidences of ancient skill or of primitive superstitious rites are more calculated to awaken our astonishment and admiration of their singular constructors. There is so strange a mixture of extreme rudeness and great mechanical skill in these memorials of the remote past, that they excite greater wonder and awe in the thoughtful mind than even the imposing masses inclosing the sacred area of Stonehenge or the circle of Stennis. It would, I imagine, prove a much more complicated problem for the modern engineer to poise the irregular and amorphous mass on its point of equilibrium, than to rear the largest monolithic group that now stands to attest the mechanical power which the old builders could command.

It has indeed been supposed by some that the origin of Rocking Stones is traceable entirely to natural causes, and this opinion is now adopted by Worsaae and other Danish and Norwegian antiquaries.147 Such a theory, however, seems to stand fully as much in need of proof as that which regards them as stones of ordeal, by which the Druid or Scandinavian priests were wont to test the guilt or innocence of the accused. Apollonius Rhodius speaks of rocking stones placed on the apex of tumuli, and Mr. Akerman refers, in his Archæological Index, to the famous Agglestone Barrow, in the island of Purbeck, as having been similarly surmounted.148 One such undoubted example would abundantly suffice to overthrow this geological theory of natural formation. It is a less conclusive, though not altogether valueless argument, that some of the most remarkable logan stones of Scotland are found in the immediate vicinity of other undoubted primitive stone-works. The great rocking stone in the parish of Kirkmichael, Perthshire, for example, has already been referred to as one of a large group of stone circles, cairns, and other monuments of the same class. Its form is that of a rhombus, of which the greater diagonal is seven feet, and the less five feet, and its weight is calculated at about three tons and half a hundredweight. On pressing down either of the extreme corners, a rocking motion is produced, which increases until the arc through which its longest radius moves exceeds a foot. When the pressure has been continued so as to produce this effect, the stone makes from twenty-six to twenty-eight vibrations from side to side after it is withdrawn. A much larger rocking stone is situated on the Hill of Mealyea, in the parish of Kells, Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Its weight is estimated at from eight to ten tons, and it is so nicely poised that it can be set in motion with the pressure of the finger. To this the name of the Logan Stone is popularly applied in the Stewartry, therein corresponding with the term used in Cornwall and other districts of England. A second rocking stone formerly existed on the same range of hills, but it was thrown down about thirty years since. Others remain in the parish of Dron, Perthshire, on a hill in the neighbourhood of the manse; in the parish of Abernethy, celebrated for its venerable ecclesiastical relics; and on the north side of the Cuff Hill, in the parish of Beith, Ayrshire; but none of them present any very special peculiarity worthy of note. It is not designed to offer a new theory here concerning the purpose of these singular “Stones of Ordeal;” nor even to pronounce on the certainty of their artificial origin; but I cannot help thinking it opposed to every doctrine of probabilities, that nature in the course of her ceaseless operations of denudation and attrition should in so many instances have chanced to wear away an amorphous rock so as to leave it poised in its centre of gravity on a single point. So numerous are the examples of rocking stones, that those who assign to them a natural origin would seem justified in anticipating the discovery of some unknown law of nature tending to such a result. But even if this extravagant doctrine of their origin is adopted, the rocking stones will still justly come within the range of archæological studies, as it can hardly admit of a doubt that they were objects of reverent estimation by the old monolithic builders. It is rare to find them far removed from a stone circle or other primitive structure, which may indeed have owed its erection to the prior existence of the rocking stone, but would more naturally suggest the old conclusion that also originated in the same laborious contrivance and skill which reared the ponderous dolmens, cromlechs, and monolithic groups already described.

Chapter VI — Weapons and Implements

The singular correspondence between many of the weapons and implements of the Stone Period, in almost every quarter of the globe, has already been referred to; but there are not wanting many others presenting such national and local peculiarities as are worthy of careful noting and comparison. In this respect much still remains to be done for Scottish Archæology. A far more abundant store of materials, and a much larger class of intelligent and educated observers are required, before the subject can be placed in its true light as an elementary basis from whence to deduce the legitimate inferences involved in this branch of science. It will meanwhile help towards the establishment of a fixed nomenclature and the basis of more extended classification, as observers increase, to exhibit at one view the chief known varieties of the weapons and implements of the Scottish Stone Period.

The rude and unshapely fragments of flint known by the name of Flint Flakes, and now recognised as specimens of the first stages of weapon manufacture of the period to which they belong, have only very recently fully attracted the attention of archæologists. The merit in this, as in so many other important elementary principles of the science, is due to the intelligence and sagacity of the antiquaries of Copenhagen, and the admirable facilities afforded by the liberality of the Danish Government. The flakes of flint, which are met with in considerable abundance, appear to have been struck off from a solid mass. They are ordinarily found from about one to six inches long, and frequently present a curved form, it being apparently a property of flint to flake off in this manner. Sometimes they occur in the simplest state; in other cases they are partially reduced to their intended form. But rude as they are, they are of the utmost value to us, from the insight which is thereby obtained into the process of manufactory of the primitive lance and arrow-head. It is obvious, from the frequent discovery of such among sepulchral deposits, that considerable value was attached to them; nor must we overlook the fact, that while flint is found in the greatest abundance both in Denmark and the south of England, there are many parts of Scotland where it is scarcely to be met with. Here, therefore, we discover the first traces of primitive trading and barter. The flint flakes were, in fact, the raw material, which had to be imported from other districts before the hunter of the Stone Period could supply himself with the indispensable requisites for the chase. A few examples will suffice to shew the abundance of such materials, and the circumstances under which they are found, though it will readily be believed that it is only rarely that their occurrence is noted, or falls under the observation of those who consider them of the slightest value.

In one of the cases in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland there is a skull found in an ancient cist, on the farm of Clashfarquhar, parish of Banchory-Devenich, Aberdeenshire, in 1822. It is chiefly curious from having on the crown of the head a hole nearly circular, and rather more than an inch in diameter, which there can be little doubt was occasioned by the death-blow. The size and cerebral development of the head nearly resembles the usual character of skulls found in the earliest cists; and it is not difficult to conceive of the wound having been inflicted with the narrow end of a stone celt. In each corner of the cist a few flint flakes were carefully piled up into a little heap. Alexander Thomson, Esq. of Banchory, remarks of them, in a letter which accompanied the donation of the skull:—“They are very proper for being made into arrow-heads, but none of them appear to have been wrought.”149 Similar relics of early art have been noted at various times in the same district of the country:—“On the alluvial soil near the sea,” remarks the author of the New Statistical Account of Belhelvie, “there is a bed of yellow flints, in which a number of very well formed arrow-heads are frequently found;” and in no part of Scotland are these primitive relics more abundant than in the landward districts of Aberdeenshire. In the large cairn of Menzie, on Cairn Moor, Buchan, there was found, in a stone cist, “along with earth and bones, a dart-head of yellow flint, most perfectly shaped, and a little block, also of yellow flint, as if intended to furnish the deceased with more darts, should he have occasion for them on the passage.”150 In 1821 several flint flakes, and imperfectly formed flint implements, were found, along with two perfect arrow-heads of the same material, in an urn containing incinerated bones, on the estate of Closeburn, Dumfriesshire. The urn, and several of the half-formed flints, are now in the Scottish Museum. A similar deposit was discovered only last year (1849) by workmen engaged in digging for stones to build a march dyke between the farm of Swinie and an adjoining one on the neighbouring estate of Wells, Roxburghshire. There were four cairns, two of which, on being demolished, disclosed cists containing urns, and beside them a quantity of flint flakes of various sizes, several of which are now in my possession. Similar examples are of frequent occurrence, but one other may be noted from the unusual amount of flint flakes found with it. North of the Mull of Islay, Argyleshire, there is a road which leads from Port Ellen, in a north-easterly direction, towards the shooting lodge of Islay. At a point in this road, where it is cut into the side of the hill, distant about four miles from Port Ellen, some workmen engaged in widening the road exposed a cist in cutting into the sloping ground, within which lay a skeleton with a large quantity of flint flakes and chips beside it. A distinguished artist, who happened fortunately to be in the neighbourhood at the time of this interesting discovery, has furnished me with sketches of the locality. He describes the flint flakes as so numerous, that they formed a heap of from eighteen inches to two feet in height when removed from the cist.151

Other and scarcely less interesting evidences of ancient population are still observable in remote nooks of the Western Highlands, where the Dalriadic Scots first effected a settlement in the land which has borne their name for so many centuries. The road from Port Ellen to the site of the ancient cist, above described, passes for a considerable way through a narrow winding valley, studded with huge boulders and detached masses of rock, preserving evidences of remarkable geological changes many ages anterior to the earliest occurrence within the range of archæological science. Similar evidences are of frequent occurrence along these western shores, where now the restless Atlantic is slowly but unceasingly gnawing the rocky coast into wilder and more picturesque forms, while it strews the stolen debris on its ocean bed, to form new strata and continents for younger worlds than ours. With these evidences of change we have not now to deal. But in various districts of the same neighbourhood, and particularly amid the scenes on which a new interest has been conferred as those in which the poet Campbell passed some of his early years, the curious traveller may descry, amid “the desolate heath” of the poet,152 indications on the hill-sides of a degree of cultivation having existed at some former period far beyond what is exhibited in that locality at the present day. The soil on the sloping sides of the hills appears to have been retained by dwarf walls, and these singular terraces occur frequently at such altitudes as must convey a remarkably vivid idea of the extent and industry of an ancient population, where now the grazing of a few black cattle alone tempts to the claim of property in the soil. In other districts the half-obliterated furrows are still traceable on heights which have been abandoned for ages to the wild fox or the eagle. Such evidences of ancient population and industry are by no means confined to the remote districts of ancient Dalriada. They occur in many parts of Scotland, startling the believer in the unmitigated barbarism of Scotland prior to the medieval era with evidence of a state of prosperity and civilisation at some remote epoch, the date of which has yet to be ascertained; though there are not wanting periods within the era of authentic Scottish history to which some of these may with considerable probability be assigned. The very simple explanation of such ancient plough-marks which has satisfied the popular mind is apparent in the appellation of elf furrows, by which they are commonly known. The prevalence of these infallible tokens of former industry was noted by the Rev. George Maxwell when drawing up an account of the parish of Buittle, in Galloway, towards the close of last century. The rustic tradition by which the reverend Statist seeks to account for the greater agricultural skill of former ages, though amusing enough, is not without its value to us from the proof it affords of the extent to which such traces must have existed when they made so great an impression on the popular mind:—

“It is here to be observed,” he remarks, “that there are few hills in this part of Galloway, where cultivation is at all practicable, that do not bear distinct marks of the plough. The depths of the furrows, too, plainly declare that this tillage has not been casual, or merely experimental, but frequent and successive. This should set both the ancient population and industry of this part of Scotland in a more favourable light than that in which they are usually held. It also affords probability to a tradition repeated by the country people to this day: that at a time when Scotland was under a Papal interdict, or sentence of cursing from the Pope, it was found that his Holiness had forgot to curse the hills, though he had commanded the land, usually arable, to yield no increase; and that while this sentence remained, the people were necessitated to seek tillage ground in places unusual and improbable!”153

Returning, however, from this digression, to the consideration of the rude primitive implements of stone and flint, and the flint flakes out of which the latter were formed,—the flint arrow and lance heads constructed from these furnish evidence of much patient ingenuity, and exhibit considerable variety of form. It is difficult, indeed, to conceive of the process by which workmen, provided with such imperfect tools as we must presume them to have possessed, were able to split the flint into flakes, and reduce these to such regular forms. The remoteness of the period when this primitive art was superseded by the workers in metal, is proved by the incorporation of the ancient flint implements into some of the most prevalent popular superstitions of the north. The terms Elf-bolt, Elf-shot, or Elfin-arrow, are invariably applied to the flint arrow-head throughout the Scottish Lowlands. The Gaelic name, Sciat-hee, is completely synonymous; while in Shetland and Orkney the idea of their supernatural origin is more frequently conveyed by the term thunderbolt, invariably applied to the stone celt. This variation in the popular mode of giving expression to the idea of the supernatural origin of these primitive weapons, among the inhabitants of the mainland and the northern isles of Scotland, is worthy of passing note, from the evidence it affords of one well-defined early date to which we may refer as a known period when the stone weapons were fully as much relics of a remote past, and objects of popular wonder, as now. The name still applied to the Elf-bolt, by the Norwegian peasantry, is Tordenkiler, or thunderstone,154 so that we can feel little hesitation in assigning to the old Norse colonists of Orkney, the difference still discernible in these expressions of the same popular idea, and inferring from thence, what all other evidence confirms, that the Scottish Stone Period belongs to an era many centuries prior to the oldest date of her written history. The Elf-bolt is associated with many rustic fancies not yet altogether eradicated from the popular mind. It occupied no unimportant part among the paraphernalia of Scottish witches of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the occurrence of any sudden disease amongst cattle was ascribed until a comparatively recent period, to their having been shot by the fairies with Elfin arrows. This ancient superstition is not peculiar to Scotland. In Norway similar diseases, not only of cattle but of men, were called by the same name of Alfskot, and in Denmark, of Elveskud, that is, Elf-shot; though the flint arrow-head is not recognised as the bolt which furnishes for such purposes the quivers of the malignant elves. But other, and probably more ancient Scandinavian legends, prove the existence of similar northern associations with the primitive arrow-head of flint. In the “Fornaldar Sögur Nordlanda,” or Legends from the primitive period of the North, derived from ancient manuscripts, Orvar Odd’s Saga furnishes a curious evidence of this,—

Orvar Odd, who is already furnished with three iron arrows, the gift of Guse, a Fin king possessed of magic power, in the course of his wanderings is hospitably entertained by an old man of singular appearance. On the side where the old man sat he laid three stone arrows on the table near the dish. They were so large and handsome that Orvar thought he had never seen anything like them. He took them up and looked at them, saying, “These arrows are well made.” “If you really think them to be so,” replied his host, “I shall make you a present of them.” “I do not think,” replied Orvar, smiling, “that I need cumber myself with stone arrows.” The old man answered, “Be not sure that you will not some time stand in need of them. I know that you possess three arrows, called the Guse’s gifts, but, though you deem it unlikely, it may happen that the Guse’s weapons prove useless, then these stone arrows will avail you.” Orvar Odd accordingly receives the gift, and chancing soon after to encounter a foe who by like magic was impenetrable to all ordinary weapons, he transfixes him with the stone arrows, which immediately vanish.155

From references to the geographical divisions of Russia, as well as other internal evidence, this version of the legend is believed to have been written not later than the twelfth century. The tradition, however, is doubtless based on a much older belief, so that we cannot err in assuming that at the earliest period of intercourse between Scotland and Norway, sufficiently frequent to assimilate the popular superstition of the two countries, the Stone Period was only known as a state of society so essentially different from every historic tradition with which the people were familiar, that they referred its weapons and implements to the same invisible sprites by whose agency they were wont to account for all incomprehensible or superhuman occurrences.

The Elf-arrow was almost universally esteemed throughout Scotland as an amulet or charm, equally effectual against the malice of Elfin sprites, and the spells of witchcraft. Dipt in the water which cattle were to drink, it was supposed to be the most effectual cure for their diseases, while sewed in the dress, it was no less available for the protection of the human race; and it is still occasionally to be met with perforated or set in gold or silver, for wearing as an amulet. Like other weapons of Elfin artillery, it was supposed to retain its influence at the will of the possessor, and thus became the most effective talisman against elvish malice, witchcraft, or the evil-eye, when in the hands of man. Such traditional myths of vulgar superstition are not without their value, however humble their direct origin may be. They are frequently only distorted images of important truths, and we shall find more than one occasion to recur to them for aid in reuniting the broken skein of primitive history. To follow out the simile, it may sometimes be said of them with truth, that where all other lines of connexion with the past are broken, these are only ravelled and confused.

Arrow-heads of the Stone Period are found in Scotland in great numbers, and of a considerable variety of forms. They are for the most part made of silex, though also met with of agate, cornelian, and other native pebbles, and are frequently finished with much neatness and care. The woodcut exhibits a very fine one, the full size of the original, which was found in the Isle of Skye, and is now in the collection of Mr. John Bell of Dungannon. Pennant has engraved a large cinerary urn, discovered along with three others, on opening a cairn on the hill of Down, near Banff. They contained, in addition to the incinerated remains, bone implements and flint arrow-heads, the largest of them having in it thirteen of the latter, all of the shape to which the term barbed is most commonly applied. This, indeed, while it appears to be one of the most artificial forms, involving the greatest amount of labour and skill in fashioning the material, is also one of most frequent occurrence in Scotland. Those already referred to as found, along with an ancient wooden wheel, in the Blair-Drummond Moss, were of the same shape. So also were some obtained on opening a tumulus in the parish of Killearn, Stirlingshire, during the past year; and indeed they have been met with in nearly every district of the mainland, and of the northern and western isles. Lance- and spear-heads of silex are also not uncommon, both in the tumuli and among the objects turned up where the scenes of primitive population are subjected for the first time to the plough. A very fine spear-head of silex, fifteen inches long, and beautifully finished, was discovered a few years since on the demolition of a cairn on the estate of Craigengelt, near Stirling. Another of somewhat smaller dimensions, also found in a cairn, on the estate of John Guthrie, Esq., Forfarshire, about 1796, is figured and described in the Gentleman’s Magazine of the following year.156

Flint knives, though apparently less abundant than in the different Scandinavian countries, and especially in Denmark, are frequently turned up in the course of agricultural operations. In no instance that has come under my notice have implements been found in Scotland exactly resembling the curious lunar flint knives and saws of such common occurrence in Denmark and Sweden; yet examples of similar form are familiar to American archæologists among the singular contents of the great mounds explored of late years in the valley of the Mississippi, and in other districts of the North American continent. These are generally made of slate, and stone knives analogous to them appear also to have been used in the Scottish primitive periods, to supply similar necessities. In the Shetland and Orkney islands especially stone knives are common, and in other districts knives of flint, though not of the northern lunar shape, are often met with. It is perhaps of fully as much importance, in the present stage of archæological inquiries, to note the dissimilarity, as the correspondence of relics of the same period in different countries. We have already observed a resemblance so remarkable, in the implements of the Stone Period pertaining to countries alike separated by time and space, as to preclude the possibility of ascribing it to any mutual intercourse or common source of knowledge, that nothing but a correspondence in many minute details will justify the inference of international intercourse or similarity of races. Dissimilarity, however, in these primitive implements, if the means of comparison be sufficiently extensive, may suffice to establish the opposite conclusion, that little or no intercourse had existed between Scotland and those countries, such as Norway and Sweden, at least during the earliest historic periods. Little proof, indeed, is required to establish this—if we set aside the opinion, assumed without any investigation of the evidence, that the natives of ancient Caledonia lagged far behind the other races of Northern Europe in the arts of civilisation—for their primitive arts precluded the construction of fleets fitted for the navigation of the intermediate seas, and shut them up to their own native ingenuity. Still it may be that the discovery of a more complete correspondence with the stone implements of other parts of Europe will yet add to our knowledge of the first colonisation of the British Isles, and help us to follow back the track of these nomadic tribes in their wanderings from the eastern cradle land of the human race.

One of the most curious stone implements of frequent occurrence in the northern islands is what the Shetlanders style a Pech’s knife. They have already been referred to as partially resembling the lunar flint knives of Norway and Denmark. But in the Scottish examples the semicircular edge is sharp, while the straight side is thickened like the back of a common knife. Others are oval, or irregular in form, and brought to an edge round the whole circumference. One of the latter, in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum, formed of thin laminæ of madreporite, was found at one of the burghs or round towers of Shetland. It measures 4½ by 4 inches, and does not exceed, in greatest thickness, the tenth of an inch. Similar implements, in the collection of the London Antiquaries at Somerset House, are mentioned by Mr. Albert Way,157 as probably the ancient stone instruments transmitted to Sir Joseph Banks by Mr. Scott of Lerwick, in Shetland, and communicated to the Society, March 9, 1820. Sixteen were found by a man digging peats in the parish of Walls, Shetland, placed regularly on an horizontal line, and overlapping each other like slates upon the roof of a house, each stone standing at an angle of 45°. They lay at a depth of about six feet in the peat moss, and the line of stones ran east and west, with the upper edge towards the east. A considerable number of implements, mostly of the same class, were found on the clay under the ancient mosses of Blair-Drummond and Meiklewood. Some of them are composed of slate, and others of a compact green stone. They are from four to six inches long, flat, and well polished. There were also along with them a number of stone celts and axe heads, mostly made of the same hard green stone. In the Scottish collection is a knife of an entirely different form, made of light grey flint, which was found, along with a stone celt of unusual shape, within the area of a “Druidical circle,” in Strachur parish, Argyleshire. Two others, recently discovered in ploughing a field in the neighbourhood of Largo, Fifeshire, totally differ from any of the numerous examples found in Denmark or Sweden. They are bent back at the point, finished with great care, have a fine edge, and appear to have been attached to bone or wooden handles. Another example, somewhat resembling these, was found in cutting a drain on the Pentland Hills, near Edinburgh, and though simpler, is also peculiar, and apparently unique in form. On showing it recently to an East-Lothian farmer, he remarked that he had frequently seen such things turned up by the plough, but had never thought them worth the trouble of lifting.

Celts 158 and hatchets, or wedges, are among the most abundant of all the relics of the Stone Period. They have been discovered in considerable quantities in almost every part of Scotland, from the remote Orkney and Shetland Isles,159 to the shores of the Solway and the banks of the Tweed. They are frequently found rudely executed, with little appearance of labour except at the edge; while other examples are characterized by the highest finish and the utmost degree of polish that the modern lapidary could confer on them. The manner of attaching the stone celt to a handle has been made the subject of some discussion, though sufficiently illustrated by the practice of the modern Polynesians and other savage tribes still using weapons of stone. M. Boucher de Perthes has succeeded in throwing some new light on the subject by researches in the neighbourhood of Abbeville, which point to the conclusion that the French celt has been inserted into the hollow portion of a stag’s horn having a perforation in it to receive the handle.160 Various other methods, however, have been shewn by which this primitive weapon could be hafted, so as to become available for the war axe of the northern warrior. The example found in the earliest ancient canoe of the Clyde, leaves no room to doubt that it was bound to the handle by thongs or portions of the haft passing round the middle. Both ends are highly polished, while the middle remains rough, having evidently been designed to be covered and concealed.161 One stone celt has been found in Ireland, near Cookstone, in the county of Tyrone, still attached to its wooden handle, the artless rudeness of which could hardly be surpassed.162 Much more efficient means, however, are frequently seen employed in corresponding weapons brought from the South Sea Islands than any of the ancient examples display; and these may suffice to illustrate the improved methods which experience would suggest to the rude Caledonian aborigines.

The stone celt must unquestionably be regarded as a weapon of war. With its thick round edge, when wielded at the end of a long handle, similar to those to which we see the stone axes of the Polynesian savages attached, it would prove an effective lethal weapon, but very few examples of it could be applied to any useful purpose as tools. The flint or stone hatchet was more probably the implement which, with the ever-ready aid of fire, sufficed to hew down the oak, to split and reduce it into requisite forms for domestic uses, or to shape and hollow it out into such rude canoes as have been described in a former chapter. Still it is difficult to draw any very definite line of distinction between the artificer’s and the warrior’s axe, the same implement having doubtless been often employed in waging war on the leafy giants of the old Caledonian forests, and on rival tribes who found a home within their fastnesses. The most perfect, indeed, of the stone hatchets seem ill adapted for the laborious task of felling the knotty oak, and hollowing it for the primitive canoe. But in all such considerations of savage arts it must be borne in remembrance that time, which forms so important an element in modern estimate, hardly comes into account with the savage. Armed with no better tools, the Red Indian, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, is known to cut an incision in the bark round the root of the tree destined for his canoe; into this he places glowing embers until it is charred to a considerable depth, and by the alternate use of the hatchet and the fire the largest tree is brought to the ground, and by the same ingenious process adapted to bear its owner on the open seas.

A very interesting discovery of an example of the use of the stone battle-axe, or celt, is thus described in a letter from Captain Denniston to Mr. Train. About the year 1809, Mr. M’Lean of Mark found it necessary, in the course of some improvements on his farm, to remove a large cairn on the Moor of Glenquicken, Kirkcudbrightshire, which popular tradition assigned as the tomb of some unknown Galwegian king, styled Aldus M’Galdus:—“When the cairn had been removed, the workmen came to a stone coffin of very rude workmanship, and on removing the lid, they found the skeleton of a man of uncommon size. The bones were in such a state of decomposition, that the ribs and vertebræ crumbled into dust on attempting to lift them. The remaining bones being more compact, were taken out, when it was discovered that one of the arms had been almost separated from the shoulder by the stroke of a stone axe, and that a fragment of the axe still remained in the bone. The axe had been of green stone, a species of stone never found in this part of Scotland. There were also found with this skeleton a ball of flint, about three inches in diameter, which was perfectly round and highly polished, and the head of an arrow, also of flint, but not a particle of any metallic substance.”163 Many of the most highly-finished celts and hatchets found in Scotland are made of the same green stone, which is susceptible of a beautiful polish. Other implements of this period are chisels of flint, nearly resembling those of Norway and Denmark. Several examples are in the Scottish Museum; and a curious instance of a perforated chisel, similar to those frequently found in Denmark, was turned up in 1841, in trenching a piece of ground near the Church of Lismore, Argyleshire. It is of the usual square form, measuring four inches long, and is described in the New Statistical Account as a stone needle.164 Another and larger class of Scottish implements are cylindrical or oval perforated stones, of which no examples, I believe, have yet been found in Denmark or Sweden. The woodcut represents one of these implements, measuring 8¼ inches in length, found in a cist near North Berwick Abbey, East-Lothian, where many primitive remains have been discovered. It is flattened at the end where it is perforated, and is made of a very hard polished stone. Another was found in 1832, in the parish of Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire; and similar implements are occasionally mentioned among the contents of Scottish tumuli. In a cist, discovered under a barrow, in Kirkurd parish, Peeblesshire, there were various weapons of flint and stone, including one described as resembling the head of a halbert, another of a circular form, and the third of a cylindrical shape; in all probability a celt, a spherical flint or stone, and one of the implements now referred to, which may be conveniently designated as flail-stones.165 On levelling a large tumulus a few years since, at Dalpatrick, Lanarkshire, a cist was discovered inclosing an urn. Two other specimens of fictile ware, one of them supposed to be a lamp, were found imbedded in the surrounding earth, and also a flail-stone made of trap rock. It is described as “a curious whinstone, of a roundish form, about four inches in diameter, perforated with a circular hole, through which the radicle of an oak growing near the spot had found its way.”166 Similar stone implements have been frequently met with in Scotland, and were perhaps designed for use as offensive weapons, attached to a leather thong or secured by such means to the end of a shaft, like a modern flail. The Shoshonee Indians, and other North American tribes, used such a weapon under the name of a Pogamoggon; the stone not being perforated, but inclosed in leather, by which it was fastened to the handle. Other tribes of the Mississippi valley had a simpler form of the same weapon, possibly corresponding to the spherical relics of flint or stone occasionally found with these, consisting of a grooved ball attached to a long leather thong, which they wielded, like a slung-shot, with deadly effect.167 A medieval offensive weapon, constructed on the same principle, bore the quaint name of “The Morning Star,” an epithet no doubt suggested by its form; as it consisted of a ball of iron armed with radiating spikes, attached by a chain to its handle. Like the ruder flail-stone, the morning star, when efficiently wielded, must have proved a deadly weapon in the desultory warfare of undisciplined assailants; but whenever the value of combined operations was discovered and acted upon it would have to be thrown aside, as probably more fatal to friends than to enemies. In the Scottish flail-stones the perforation is bevelled off so as to admit of their free use without cutting or fraying the thong by which they were held. We shall not probably greatly err in assuming these to be the first “morning stars” of that old twilight, in the uncertain light of which we are groping for some stray truths of the infancy of history.

A stone implement in my own possession, somewhat similar in general form to these flail-stones, was found beside a group of cists near North Berwick, East-Lothian, but its original destination is obvious. It is made of hard sandstone, of a flattened oval form in section, and is worn on the two alternate sides where it has been used as a whetstone—a use for which the hardness and high polish of the others render them totally unfit.

Not the least curious among the primitive relics in the celebrated museum of northern antiquities at Copenhagen, are the various whetstones, some of which have been found in barrows and elsewhere under ground, with half-finished stone-wedges lying upon them, as if the workman had been suddenly interrupted by death in the midst of his laborious industry, and his unaccomplished task had been deemed the fittest memorial to lay beside him. It formed no part of the old Pagan creed that “there is no work nor device in the grave.” Possibly enough the buried celt-maker was expected to resume his occupation and finish his axe-grinding in the spirits’ land. No similar example has yet been noted in Scotland, though smaller hand whetstones, like the one found at North Berwick, are not uncommon. One which is described as very smooth and neat, was obtained among the contents discovered on excavating within the area of the vitrified fort of Craig Phaidrick, near Inverness;168 several such were found in cists at Cockenzie, East-Lothian; and Barry mentions among the miscellaneous contents of the tumuli or cists in the island of Westray, “a flat piece of marble, of a circular form, about two inches and a-half in diameter, and several stones, in shape and appearance like whetstones that had never been used.”169

Great as are the numbers and varieties of the stone weapons and implements of Denmark, compared with those found in Britain, they appear to be surpassed in both respects by the corresponding relics of the Mexican Stone Period. Such facts suggest the inference, which history in some degree confirms, that the metallurgic arts were earlier known in Britain than in Denmark, thereby superseding the arts of the stone-workers before they had been elaborated as elsewhere; while in Mexico, Yucatan, and throughout the districts of the North American continent, where a native civilisation is known to have prevailed, iron was totally unknown, and copper had not completely superseded the stone hatchet and arrow-point when Columbus opened a way to that new world. But who shall say how many more curious and noteworthy reminiscences of the past may have been ignorantly destroyed in Scotland, among the thousands of burial-mounds annually invaded by the unlettered peasant in his agricultural labours.

Among the larger implements of this period the most remarkable and varied are the Stone Hammers and Axes. They are of common occurrence, and present a variety of forms, evidently designed to adapt them to a considerable diversity of purposes. They are therefore available as evidence in estimating the degree of inventive talent manifested in the primitive state of society in which they were produced, showing as they do the intelligent savage coping with the untractable materials with which he had to deal, and supplying many deficiencies by his own ingenuity and skill. With these, as with the elf-bolts of the same period, we find in the reminiscences of early superstition the evidence of their frequent occurrence long after all traces of their origin and uses had been obliterated by the universal substitution of metallic implements. As we find the little flint arrow-head associated with Scottish folk-lore as the Elfin’s bolt, so the stone hammer of the same period was adapted to the creed of the middle ages. The name by which it was popularly known in Scotland almost till the close of last century was that of the Purgatory Hammer. Found as it frequently was within the cist and beside the mouldering bones of its old Pagan possessor, the simple discoverer could devise no likelier use for it than that it was laid there for its owner to bear with him “up the trinal steps,” and with it thunder at the gates of purgatory till the heavenly janitor appeared, that he might

“ask,
With humble heart, that he unbar the bolt.”170

The stone hammer is frequently found in the older cists. In 1832 a farm-servant while ploughing a field on the farm of Downby, in Orkney, struck his ploughshare on a stone which proved to be the cover of a cist of the usual contracted dimensions, in which lay a skeleton that seemed to have been interred in a sitting posture. At the right hand lay a highly polished mallet-head of gneiss, beautifully marked with dark and light streaks.171

The examples figured here furnish a few of the most characteristic varieties of Scottish hammers that have been preserved. They by no means equal in number those found in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. But only a very partial and extremely superficial investigation of such relics has yet been made, and we possess no national collection in Scotland, similar to that of the Christiansborg Palace of Copenhagen, to which the whole available financial and legal machinery of the kingdom is employed in gathering the primitive national antiquities so soon as they are discovered. The Old and New Statistical Accounts abound with notices of opened tumuli and cairns, and of their valuable archæological contents; but unfortunately in nearly every case these are either conveniently ascribed to Romans and Danes, or mentioned so vaguely that no use can be made of them as illustrations of the period to which they belong.

The name of Axe is, with sufficient appropriateness, applied to the double-edged stone implements, and to those of a wedge-shape which have the aperture for inserting the handle near the broad end, whereas other examples perforated sufficiently near the centre to admit of the free use of both ends are with equal propriety styled hammers. They are frequently finished with great neatness and art; not made, like the hatchet, of flint, but of a variety of kinds of stone, from the gray granite, of which the largest are generally made, to trap and even sandstone. Several examples have been discovered in an unfinished state, furnishing curious illustration of the laborious process of manufacture. One large one in particular in the Scottish Museum was found in digging the Caledonian Canal. It is made of gray granite, very symmetrically and beautifully formed, and with the hole partially bored on both sides. This was probably effected with water and sand by the tedious process of turning round a smaller stone until the perforation was at length completed. Tried therefore by the standard of value of the Stone Period, the hammer was perhaps a more costly deposit in the tomb of some favourite chief than the golden armillæ of later times. The Danish antiquaries are familiar with examples of unfinished stone implements, and also with a still more curious class, consisting of broken hammers and otherwise mutilated instruments, which have been perforated with another hole or ground to a new edge, affording striking evidence of the value of such implements to their primitive owners. The example figured here, partaking of the characteristics both of the hammer and axe, was dug up on the farm of Dell, in the parish of Abernethy, and is engraved from a sketch by the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart. It measures eight inches in length, and was found at a depth of about five feet from the surface, in a soil consisting of two feet of mould lying above peat moss.

The following class of objects includes a variety of stone implements the uses of which are extremely doubtful or altogether unknown, though they are often found along with other relics of the Stone Period. The woodcut represents various examples of perforated stone balls, such as are frequently met with, and to which it may be convenient to apply the name of Bead-stones. Some of them are decorated with a variety of incised lines, and may have been worn as marks of distinction or as personal ornaments held in great esteem, as they are not uncommon among the relics deposited in the cist or cinerary urn. One plausible theory of their use which has been suggested is that they are the stone weights used with the distaff, and they have accordingly received in Germany the name of Spindelstein. The Scottish whorle, or fly of the spinning-rock, however, is still familiar to us, and bears only a very partial resemblance to these perforated balls; consisting generally of a flattened disc, much better adapted for the motion required in the distaff. But independently of this, these rude ornaments have been found alongside of male skeletons, and in such numbers as might rather induce the belief that they had formed the collar of honour of some old barbarian chief, esteemed as no less honourable than the golden links of rue and thistle worn by the knights of St. Andrew at the court of the Scottish Jameses. As such, therefore, they should be classed with the personal ornaments of the same period, but their use is still open to question, and they may therefore meanwhile not unfitly rank with the other objects treated of in this chapter.

On demolishing a cairn at Dalpatrick, in Lanarkshire, a few years ago, it was found to cover a cist inclosing an urn, and in the surrounding heap were discovered another urn about six inches high, a smaller vessel of baked clay, and a curious whinstone of roundish form, about four inches in diameter, and perforated with a circular hole.172 “In one of the Orkney graves,” says Barry, “was found a metal spoon, and a glass cup that contained two gills Scotch measure; and in another a number of stones formed into the shape and size of whorles, like those that were formerly used for spinning in Scotland.”173 Two of these bead-stones in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries were discovered in Dumbartonshire, along with various smaller ones, some of them of glass and undoubtedly designed as ornaments. Other examples are more in the form of a truncated cone, and are referred to in a later chapter as perhaps the tablemen for a game somewhat similar to that of draughts, and still called by the Germans Brettsteine. Larger perforated stones have also been found. Mr. Joseph Train describes several obtained in Galloway, five or six inches in diameter, one of which, in his own possession, as black and glossy as polished ebony, had been picked up in the ruins of an old byre, where it had doubtless been used, according to the ideas of that country-side, to counteract the spells of witchcraft.174 Others formed of slate are of frequent occurrence in the Portpatrick parish, Wigtonshire, and are not unknown in other districts.175

Unperforated spherical stones, generally about the size of an orange, have been referred to along with other contents of the Scottish tumulus. It is not always possible to distinguish these from the stone cannon ball which continued in use even in James VI.’s reign. The circumstances under which they occur, however, leave no room to doubt that they ranked among the articles held in esteem by the primitive races of Britain, ages before the chemical properties of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal had been employed to supersede older projectile forces. The distinction is further confirmed by their being occasionally decorated with incised circles and other ornaments, as in the example shewn here, found near the line of the old Roman way which runs through Dumfriesshire on its northern course from Carlisle. Another of highly polished flint has already been described among the remarkable disclosures of a large cairn on the Moor of Glenquicken, Kirkcudbrightshire, and two of similar form were shewn me recently as a part of the contents of a cist opened in the course of farming operations on the estate of Cochno, Dumbartonshire, one of which was made of highly-polished red granite, a species of rock unknown in that district. Similar balls occur among the relics found in the barrows of Denmark. In the “Report addressed by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries to its British and American Members,” printed at Copenhagen in 1836, a class of primitive objects are described under the name of Corn Crushers. The engraving of one of these represents a rude block of stone flattened on the upper side. In the centre of this is a circular cavity, into which a smooth ball of stone has been made to fit, thereby supplying by a less efficient means the same purpose aimed at in the querne, discovered so frequently under a variety of shapes among the relics of various periods of early Scottish history. The shallow circular stone troughs or mortars so often found in Scottish burghs and weems belong to the same class. A still ruder device consists of a pair of stones which have evidently been employed in rubbing against each other, and it may be presumed with the same object in view, that of bruising the grain for domestic use. They have been occasionally noticed among the chance disclosures of the spade or plough in Scotland, and are of common occurrence in the Irish bogs. The author of the Account of Halkirk Parish, Caithness, thus describes the mortars above referred to, and also the pestles or crushers—manifestly a similar device to the Danish corn crushers—which are found together in the burghs:—“I have seen in them numbers of small round hard stones, in the form of a very flat or oblate sphere, of 2½ inches thick in the centre, and about four inches in diameter; also other round stones, perfectly circular, very plain and level on one side, with a small rise at the circumference, and about a foot in diameter. The intention of both these kinds of stones manifestly was to break and grind their grain.”176 It may reasonably be assumed, however, that neither the old British nor Scandinavian warrior deposited under the barrow of his chief, and alongside of his well-proved celt and spear, the homely corn crusher with which his wives or his slaves were wont to prepare the grain for domestic use. The decoration traceable on some of the stone balls confirms this idea; and it is more probable they were employed as weapons of war, like the pogamoggon of the Chippeway and Shoshonee Indians of America, some of which consisted of a spherical stone, weighing from half a pound to two pounds. This they inclosed in leather, and attached to a thong a yard and a half in length, which was wound round the wrist, the more effectually to secure its hold. Along with these objects may also be noted the roughly-shaped spherical discs of flint occasionally found with other stone relics in Scotland, and much more common in Ireland, where they bear the name of “Sling Stones.”

Like other of the more remarkable primitive relics, the spherical stones have been associated with popular superstitions of a later period, and have been esteemed, along with crystal-beads, adder-stones, or waterworn perforated pebbles, and the like efficient armory of vulgar credulity, as invaluable amulets or charms.

“The stone arrow-heads,” says Pennant, “of the old inhabitants of this island, are supposed to be weapons shot by fairies at cattle, to which are attributed any disorders they have. In order to effect a cure, the cow is to be touched by an elf-shot, or made to drink the water in which one has been dipped. The same virtue is said to be found in the crystal gems and in the adder-stone; and it is also believed that good fortune must attend the owner; so, for that reason, the first is called Clach Bhuai, or the powerful stone. Captain Archibald Campbell showed me one, a spheroid set in silver, for the use of which people came above a hundred miles, and brought the water it was to be dipt in with them; for without that in human cases it was believed to have no effect.”177 That such was no modern superstition he conceives is proved by a variety of evidence, as where Montfaucon remarks that it was customary in early times to deposit crystal balls in urns or sepulchres: thus twenty were found at Rome in an alabastrine urn, and one was discovered in 1653 at Tournai, in the tomb of Childeric, King of France, who died A.D. 480.

It appears to be only natural to the uninstructed mind to associate objects which it cannot explain with some mysterious and superhuman end; and hence the superseded implements of a long extinct race become the charms and talismans of their superstitious successors.

One other class of primitive relics remains to be noted, belonging to the same early period. These are the ornaments, weapons, and tools of horn or bone; such as the lances or harpoons already described as found alongside of the stranded whales in the alluvial valley of the Forth. Such relics are by no means rare, notwithstanding the perishable nature of the material of which they are constructed. Barry describes among the contents of the Orkney tumuli, “swords made of the bone of a large fish, and also daggers.”178 The woodcut represents what should perhaps be regarded as a bone dagger. It was found in a stone cist near Kirkwall, lying beside a rude urn, and is now in the possession of Dr. Traill. It measures 7½ inches long, and appears to be made of the outer half of the lower portion of the right metatarsal bone of an ox. The notches cut on it are perhaps designed to give a firmer hold, while they also serve the purpose of rude attempts at ornament. Their effect, however, is greatly to weaken the weapon and render it liable to break. The cross may perhaps suggest to some the associations of a later period, but little importance can be attached to so simple and obvious a means of decoration. Possibly indeed so far from its affording any indication of the influence of “the faith of the cross,” it should be regarded like the incised patterns hereafter alluded to, wrought on later bronze implements, as suggestive of the use of the poisoned blade by the rude aborigines of the Stone Period. Pennant has engraved an implement of horn, carved and perforated at the thick end, found in a large urn under a cairn in Banffshire, and another, closely corresponding to it, was discovered in 1829, in a large urn dug up in the progress of the works requisite for erecting the Dean Bridge at Edinburgh.179 A curious relic of the same class was brought to light on removing part of a remarkable cairn which still stands, though in ruins, on the summit of one of the Ochil Hills, on the northern boundary of Orwell parish, Kinross-shire. It bears the name of Cairn-a-vain, and an ancient traditional rhyme thus refers to a treasure believed to be contained in it:—

In the Dryburn well, beneath a stane,
You’ll find the key o’ Cairn-a-vain,
That will mak’ a’ Scotland rich ane by ane.

Many hundreds of cart-loads of stones have been carried off by the proprietor from this gigantic pile, for the purpose of building fences, but no treasure has yet been found, though eagerly expected by the workmen. A rude stone cist occupied the centre of the pile, within which lay an urn full of bones and charcoal, and amongst these a small implement of bone, about four inches long, very much resembling in figure a cricket-bat notched on the edges.180

Various weapons of horn and bone are preserved in the Scottish collection, some of them so slender as to be rather pins or bodkins than lances. One of the latter, measuring four inches in length, and perforated at the broad end, was found in the year 1786, in the ruins of one of those ancient buildings in Caithness, popularly but perhaps not erroneously styled “Picts’ houses.” Alongside of it lay one of the rings of jet or shale, which are also among the more common relics found in Scottish barrows. To these instances may be added the frequent occurrence of deer’s horns among the contents of tumuli, not seldom bearing similar marks of artificial cutting. Some years since a quantity of deer’s horns which had been sawn asunder were discovered in a bed of charcoal, a few feet below the surface, outside the “Seamhill moat,” in the parish of West Kilbride, Ayrshire.181 A deer’s horn of unusually large size, and from which the brow-antler has been cut off, is now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. It was obtained with others, on levelling a large sepulchral barrow in the neighbourhood of Elphinstone Tower, East-Lothian. Another of smaller dimensions, in the same collection, was discovered in a cist at Cockenzie, in the same county. Pennant mentions the similar discovery of a deer’s horn, “the symbol of the favourite amusement of the deceased,” lying beside the skeleton, in a stone cist, on the demolition of a cairn at Craigmills, Banffshire; and on opening the most conspicuous of a group of tumuli, in the parish of Alvie, Inverness-shire, a human skeleton was observed entire, with a pair of large hart’s horns laid across it.182 To these instances may be added the recent discovery of ancient oaken coffins on the Castlehill of Edinburgh, at a depth of twenty-five feet from the surface,—more particularly described in a later chapter,—alongside which lay a deer’s skull and horns of unusually large proportions.

Examples of this use of the antlers of the deer are by no means rare. It appears to offer some additional corroboration of the date assigned to those simpler rites of sepulture, which it has been suggested may probably indicate an era prior to the introduction of the small stone cist and the practice of interment in a sitting or folded posture; that in several examples which have been carefully noted, the body has been found laid at full length, and in one or two instances with the spreading antlers at the feet, like the sculptured lion or stag which reposes on the altar-tomb of our medieval chantries at the feet of the recumbent Christian knight.

It cannot admit of doubt that bone and horn continued to supply the absence of metallic weapons to the very close of the Stone Period. Nevertheless it suggests the probable antiquity of the examples referred to, that notwithstanding the great susceptibility of the material for receiving ornament, they present so few of those incised decorations common not only on the sepulchral pottery, but on the pateræ, bead-stones, and other relics formed of the hardest materials.

One of the most interesting recent discoveries of this primitive class of implements was made by Mr. G. Petrie, during his exploration of a subterranean dwelling or weem at Skara, in the Bay of Scales, Sandwich. A large accumulation of ashes, bones of domestic animals, the tusks of a very large wild boar, scales of fish, &c., indicated the refuse of many repasts of its aboriginal occupants; and alongside of it, apparently in coeval rubbish, was found a stone cist, containing, among other remains, about two dozen oyster shells, each perforated with a hole large enough to admit the finger. Perchance they supplied to their simple owner a collar not less esteemed than the most coveted orders of a modern peer. A curious variety of bone implements were discovered at the same time. The larger of the two objects in the annexed woodcut represents a pin or bodkin, formed from the left metatarsal bone of an ox of small size, in which the natural form of the joint has been turned to account for forming its head. It measures 5-3/10 inches long. The smaller object is also of bone. One side of the head is broken away, but the perforation has not been in the centre; it measures 3½ inches in length. Others of the tools are still more simple—mere flat pieces of bone, roughly rubbed to an edge, and indicating the merest rudiments of art and contrivance. Two other examples from the same hoard are represented here, the smallest another pin, 2⅘ inches long, formed from the lower end of the metatarsal bone of a sheep, and the larger, perhaps intended as the handle of some implement of delicate structure. It appears to be fashioned from the metatarsal or metacarpal bone of a lamb, and is notched with a rude attempt at ornament, which, however, as in the dagger formerly described, must have greatly impaired its strength.183 Along with these were also found a number of circular discs of slate, about half an inch thick, roughly chipped into shape, and about the size of a common dessert plate. The most ready idea that can be formed of them is, that they were actually designed for a similar purpose.

These simple relics of the primitive period may not inaptly recall to us the evidences of another class of occupants of the old Caledonian forests. At the very era when the Briton had to arm himself with such imperfect weapons, the wolf was one of his most common foes. Long after the era of the Roman invasion the wild boar was a favourite object of the chase, though the huge Bos Primigenius, whose fossil remains are so frequently found in our mosses and marl pits, had then made way for the Bos Longifrons, (rarely accompanying relics of a later era than the Anglo-Roman period,) and the Urus Scoticus, or Caledonian bull, which still forms so singularly interesting an occupant of the ancient forest of Cadzow, Lanarkshire. The large tusks frequently found among later alluvial deposits attest the enormous size attained by the Caledonian boar; and its repeated occurrence on the sculptured legionary tablets of Antoninus’ wall may show that it was pre-eminent among the wild occupants of the forests which then skirted the Roman vallum in the carse of Falkirk, and along the slopes of the Campsie hills; if, indeed, this was not the reason of its adoption as the symbol of the Twentieth Legion. On constructing a new road a few years since, along the southern side of the rock on which Edinburgh Castle stands, deer’s horns and boars’ tusks of the largest dimensions were found; and in an ancient service-book of the monastery of Holyrood, the ground which some of the oldest buildings of the Scottish capital have occupied for many centuries, is described as “ane gret forest, full of hartis, hyndis, toddis, and sic like manner of beistis.” Thus is it with all that is venerable—an older still precedes it; and the docile student, when, by searching, he has found out all attainable knowledge, still sees behind him as before him an unknown, undiminished by all he has recovered. Meanwhile, it seems to become manifest, that the more minutely we investigate the primitive Scottish era, the further it recedes into the past, and approaches to the period of the first dispersion of the human family amid the strange confusion of tongues; if not indeed to that still earlier time when the sons of Javan were born after the flood, and by these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands—thus leading our thoughts, as Sir Thomas Browne quaintly, but devoutly expresses it, “unto old things and considerations of times before us, when even living men were antiquities, when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world could not be properly said, abiit ad plures, to go unto the greater number; and to run up our thoughts upon the Ancient of Days, the antiquary’s truest object, unto whom the eldest parcels are young, and earth itself an infant.”

Chapter VII — Stone Vessels

A great variety of stone vessels, of different forms and sizes, have been found in Scotland under different circumstances, but in nearly all of them the rudeness of the attempts at ornament, and the whole form and character, suggest the probability of their belonging to the earliest period, coeval with the stone celt and hammer, and the bone and flint spears of the Scottish aborigines. Even sepulchral urns of this durable material are not uncommon, especially in the northern and western isles. Wallace thus describes one found in the island of Stronsa:—“It was a whole round stone like a barrel, hollow within, sharp edged at the top, having the bottom joined like the bottom of a barrel. On the mouth was a round stone.”184 From the engraving which accompanies this description it may be more correctly compared in form to a common flower-pot, decorated with a series of parallel lines running at intervals round it. In the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of London there are two rude stone urns, believed to be the same exhibited to the Society by Captain James Veitch in 1822, which were discovered on the demolition of a cairn in the island of Uyea, Shetland, along with many similar urns, mostly broken, and all containing bones and ashes. They are formed of Lapis ollaris, and are described by Mr. Albert Way, in his valuable Catalogue of the Society’s Collection, as two rudely-fashioned vessels of stone, or small cists, of irregular quadrangular form, one of them having a large aperture at the bottom, closed by a piece of stone, fitted in with a groove, but easily displaced. The other has a triangular aperture on one side, and is perforated with several smaller holes regularly arranged. The dimensions of the larger are about 9½ inches by 4, and the other 7 inches by 3½. Dr. Hibbert refers to another of the same class, but probably of superior workmanship, which he saw on his visit to the Island of Uyea. It was found along with various other urns, which he simply mentions as of an interesting description, and is noted as “a well-shaped vessel, that had been apparently constructed of a soft magnesian stone of the nature of the Lapis ollaris. The bottom of the urn had been wrought in a separate piece, and was fitted to it by means of a circular groove. When found it was filled with bones partly consumed by fire.”185 A fragment of another such urn in the Scottish Museum is described by the donor as part of a vase of a steatitic kind of rock, found in 1829 within a kistvaen on the island of Uyea, one of the most northern of the Zetland group. At an earlier period the opening of a barrow in the island of Eigg exposed to view a large sepulchral urn containing human bones. It is described as consisting of a large round stone, which had been hollowed, with the top covered with a thin flag-stone, and was found in a tumulus which tradition assigned as the burial-place of St. Donnan, the patron saint of the isle.186 The singular stone urn figured here, from the original in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, is believed to have been brought from the Hill of Nowth, in the county of Meath, one of the most remarkable chambered cairns yet discovered. The urn is decorated with chevron ornaments, and figures supposed to represent the sun and moon. It is not to be imagined that, unless in some very rare and remarkable examples, cinerary urns thus laboriously hewn out of stone can belong to a period anterior to the use of those formed of the plastic clay. In so far, however, as we may judge from the few examples yet noted, they seem to be the work of a very remote era, when such were the rare and distinguished honours reserved perchance alone for the Arch-Druid, or high-priest of the unknown faith, whose strange rites were once celebrated within the Taoursanan, or mournful circles.187

Another, and much more common Scottish stone vessel, consists of a small round cup or bowl, with a perforated handle on one side, and generally measuring from five to six inches in diameter. Most of them are more or less ornamented, though generally in an extremely rude style; and they have been found made of all varieties of stone, from the soft camstone to the hardest porphyry and granite. The name by which these singular vessels have been generally designated among Scottish antiquaries, is that of Druidical pateræ; though if we are to assume the idea that they were used in the sacred rites of Pagan worship, they more nearly resemble the form of the Roman patella, than of the sacrificial patera, with which libations were poured out to the gods.

In several instances these singular vessels have been found in the immediate vicinity of the so-called Druidical circles. In 1828 two of them were discovered under an ancient causeway leading from a circle of standing stones on Donside, in the parish of Tullynessle, Aberdeenshire. One of these, the handle of which is imperfect, is now deposited in the Scottish Museum, along with various other similar examples found in different parts of Scotland. The other had a handle about nine inches long carved out of the same stone, and terminating with a knob at the end. A similar relic was found some time before, when clearing out the area of another stone circle on the farm of Whiteside, in the same county. The frequency of their occurrence, indeed, would suggest their construction for more common use than the worship of the gods, were we not led to assume their designation for some special object, from the very great labour employed in making them.

Some of the rarer forms of the stone vessels found in Scotland are much more suggestive of domestic purposes. One in my own possession, found in Glen Tilt, is neatly formed in native green marble, with two handles, not unlike the more modern Scottish quech. Another, in the Scottish Collection, found in Atholl, looks like a stone soup-ladle; and a third, of oblong form, as shewn here, measuring 12 by 8½ inches, was found at Brough, in Shetland, in excavating the area of one of the large circular buildings of un-cemented stone, styled Pech’s Burghs. It can hardly be more fitly described than as a stone tureen with handles carved at either end. Others met with under similar circumstances are wide and shallow, and nearly resemble the large stone basins figured here, found in the chambers of the celebrated cairn of Newgrange, in the neighbourhood of Drogheda.

It is a remarkable fact, that these vessels, thus laboriously hewn or wrought out of stone, should be most frequently found either in the neighbourhood of the rude monolithic structures, or of other apparently contemporary works of the earliest period. The very imperfect nature of many of their decorations, however, suffice to prove that they are the work of men destitute of efficient metallic tools, and who were little likely to attempt the hopeless task of hewing the giant columns of their temples into artificial forms. Many of these vessels, indeed, notwithstanding the attempts at decoration visible upon them, exhibit much less symmetry or finished workmanship even than the stone hammers and axes of the same period. So far as I am aware, the Druidical patera, so frequently found in Scotland, is peculiar to it, no similar vessel having been discovered among the primitive remains either of England or Ireland. In the remoter districts of Scotland these ancient vessels were regarded till recently with the same superstitious awe and dread which we have already seen attached to other unfamiliar relics of the same remote era. Mr. Colin M’Kenzie, in describing the antiquities of the island of Lewis, from personal observations made towards the close of last century, remarks in reference to the group of standing stones at Classernish, on the west side of that island, with its remarkable large central stone, surrounded by a deep hollow which retains the rain water:—“Were a ditch cut across the circle to a tolerable depth, some utensils, ashes, &c. might be found to throw more light on the subject. I have been told that a stone bowl was found, and afterwards thrown, through a superstitious dread, into the hollow round of the central stone.”188

With this class may also be reckoned the Scottish querne, unquestionably an invention of the remotest antiquity, though it has continued in use down almost to our own day in some of the western isles and other rarely visited Highland districts. A curious allusion to it occurs in the Life of St. Columba, illustrative of its daily use for the preparation of grain for bread. When the Saint studied under St. Finnian, every night on which it fell to his share to grind the corn with the querne he did it so expeditiously that his companions alleged he had always the assistance of an angel in turning the stone, and envied him accordingly.189 At that period, that is in the early part of the sixth century, there can be little doubt that it was the only mill in use. Even so early as the thirteenth century legal means were employed to compel the people to abandon it for the large water-mills then introduced. In 1284, in the reign of Alexander III., it was provided that “na man sall presume to grind quheit, maishlock, or rye with hands mylne, except he be compelled be storm, or be lack of mills, quhilk sould grind the samen. And in this case, gif a man grinds at hand mylnes, he sall gif the threttein measure as multer; and gif anie man contraveins this our prohibition, he sall tine his hand mylnes perpetuallie.” The prevalence of these simple domestic utensils in the remoter districts of Scotland till the close of the last century proves how ineffectual this law had been in superseding the querne by the public mill.

The commonest form consists simply of two thin circular flat stones, the upper one of which is pierced in the centre, and revolves on a wooden or metal pin inserted in the under one. The upper stone is also occasionally decorated with various ornaments, incised or in relief. In using the querne the grinder dropped the grain into the central hole with one hand, while with the other he made the upper stone revolve by means of a stick inserted in a small hole near the edge. The extreme simplicity of this indispensable piece of household furniture justifies its reference to remote antiquity. It has been already observed that it frequently occurs among the contents of the Scottish weems, or cyclopean underground dwellings of a very primitive state of society. It has also been dug up under a variety of circumstances, all furnishing probable evidence of great antiquity. One upper stone of a querne, now preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, was discovered in 1825, along with the remains of an iron sword, in digging on the summit of a hill called the Camp, near Pitlour House, Fifeshire. Another in the same collection, of still ruder form, was found built into the masonry of an ancient wall of Edinburgh Castle, demolished in 1828.

One type, in which the upper stone is funnel-shaped, with radiating grooves from the centre perforation, is believed to be the portable hand mill of the Roman soldier. It is engraved as such in Stuart’s Caledonia Romana, Plate XIII.; and the only one of the same kind in the Scottish Museum seems to corroborate this, in so far as it was found to the south-west of Camelon, on the line of the great wall of Antoninus Pius. It exhibits, as might be expected, more regularity and method in its construction, and is surrounded with an iron band, now greatly corroded, with a loop or ear, to which the handle was attached for turning it.

We shall not, probably, greatly err in assuming as one of the earliest types of the Scottish hand-mill, the rudely fashioned oaken querne already referred to, which was dug up from a depth of nearly five feet in the Blair-Drummond Moss. It is simply the section of an oak tree, measuring nineteen inches in height by fourteen inches in diameter. The centre has been hollowed out to a depth of about a foot, so as to form a rude oaken mortar; and in this, with the help of a stone or wooden pestle, its primitive possessor was doubtless wont to bruise and pound the grain preparatory to its conversion into food. The circumstances under which the Blair-Drummond querne was found, when compared with the other discoveries in the same locality, scarcely permit us to escape the inference that in it we possess a domestic utensil contemporary with the ancient canoes of the Forth and Clyde, if not with the stranded whales, and the rude harpoons of the carse land from which it was disinterred.

A more artificial, though very ancient form of hand-mill, is what is called the Pot Querne, consisting of a hollowed stone basin, with an aperture through which the meal or flour escapes, and a smaller circular stone fitting into it, and pierced, as in the simpler topstones, with a hole in the centre, through which the grain was thrown into the mill. The woodcut represents one of unusually large size, found on the farm of Westbank, Gladsmuir parish, East-Lothian, and now in the Scottish Museum. It is made of coarse pudding-stone, and measures 17 inches in diameter, and 8½ inches high. It appears to have had two handles attached to it at opposite sides, as the holes in which they were inserted still remain. The iron ring now fastened to it is a modern addition of its last possessor, who used it for securing his horse at the farm-house door. Pot quernes are common in Ireland, though somewhat differing in form from the Scottish examples. They are generally much smaller and shallower than the one described above, and are made with three, or sometimes four feet. They have likewise a cavity in the centre of the under stone, into which the upper one fits by a corresponding projection, so as to preclude the necessity for a metal axis. They are called by the native Irish Cloch a vrone. It is from the word vro or bro, Gaelic bra, (the v and b in the Irish being commutable,) signifying grindings or bruised grain, that our Scottish word brose is derived, rather than from the French brouet, i.e., pottage or broth, though both are probably traceable to a common Celtic root.

Irish pot quernes have been frequently found at great depths in the bogs, under circumstances indicating a very remote antiquity, though they have scarcely yet fallen into total disuse in some of the remotest districts of the west. Dr. Petrie incidentally furnishes a curious evidence of the antiquity of the querne. He has in his possession the topstone of one of these primitive hand-mills, which appears to have been converted to the unlikely purpose of a tombstone after its original use had been lost sight of. It has been elaborately decorated with sculptured ornaments, part of which are effaced to make way for the name of Sechnasach, which its learned owner conceives is probably the “Priest of Durrow,” whose death is recorded in Mageoghegan’s translation of the Annals of Clonmacnoise at the year 928, and in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 931.190

Chapter VIII — Personal Ornaments

There only remain to be noted the earliest traces of luxury and personal adornment contemporary with the rude weapons and implements, and the simple habitations of earth or unhewn stone, described in the previous chapters. These are scarcely less abundant than the implements of war and the chase; and some of them possess a peculiar value for us, as presenting the sole surviving memorials of female influence, and of the position woman held in the primitive social state which we desire to trace out as the true and rudimentary chronological beginning of our island history. There must necessarily be some uncertainty in any attempt to assign to the two sexes their just share of the personal ornaments found in the early tumuli, or discovered in the course of disturbing the uncultivated soil. Man, in such a primitive state as we have abundant grounds for believing the Caledonian aborigines of the Stone Period to have been, delights in assuming to himself the personal ornaments with which, in a more advanced stage of social life, he finds a higher gratification in adorning woman. It should not, therefore, excite surprise when we find ornaments which modern civilisation resigns entirely to the fair sex, such as bracelets, hair-pins, neck ornaments, and the like, mingling with the sword and the spear of the rude barbarian chief. Still, there are some ornaments, and especially bead necklaces, bracelets, and some of the smaller and more delicate armillæ, which we can hardly err in classing among female decorations. The subject, however, is well deserving of further attention, and the more so, as the evidence which is available in the case of sepulchral remains is of so satisfactory and decisive a character when reported on by competent witnesses. There can be no doubt, from the disclosures of numerous tumuli and cists, that the dead were frequently buried “in their habits as they lived,” and with all their most prized personal adornments upon them, though time has made sad havoc of their funeral pomp, and scarcely allows a glimpse even of the naked skeleton that crumbles into dust under our gaze.

The rudest class of personal ornaments which are found in the sepulchral mounds, or in the safer chance depository of the bogs, are those formed of bone or horn; but they are necessarily of rare occurrence, not only from the remoteness of the period to which we conceive them to belong, but from the frail nature of the material in which they have been wrought, which, when deposited among the memorials of the dead, yields to decay not greatly less rapid than the remains it should adorn, and crumbles to dust when restored to light and air. Still some few of these fragile relics have been preserved, consisting of perforated beads of bone, horn pins, perforated animals’ teeth, and other equally rude fragments of necklaces or pendants; but very few of them present much attempt at artificial decoration by means of incised ornaments or carving, such as is found to have been so extensively practised in a later age. One curious set of bone ornaments in the Scottish Museum includes a piece of ivory pierced with a square perforation, and another with a nut or button fitting into it, the clasp or fibula it may be of some robe of honour worn by a chief of the ancient race.

Ornaments of jet or shale and cannel coal, and large beads of glass and pebble, are of much more frequent occurrence in the Scottish grave-mounds, and furnish extremely interesting and varied evidence of the decorative arts of these remote ages. Many of them, however, are found under circumstances which leave no room to doubt that they belong to a period coeval with the introduction of metals, and the skill acquired in the practice of the metallurgic arts.

There is another class of relics, however, which we can feel no hesitation in ranking among the earliest remains of the Stone Period, though it may sometimes be difficult to determine whether we should regard them as mere personal ornaments or as charms employed in the mysterious rites of Pagan superstition, as it is not uncommon to find them used, at a very recent date, by their illiterate inheritors in some of the remoter districts of the Highlands and Isles. One relic, for example, in the Scottish Museum, consists of a flat reddish stone, roughly polished. It measures 4 inches in length, and about 2¾ inches in its greatest breadth, and is notched in a regular form, with two holes perforated through it. It was presented to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries in 1784, as a charm in use among the population of the island of Islay for the cure of diseases. From its correspondence with others of the earliest class of relics, it can hardly admit of a doubt that it belongs to the personal ornaments of the Stone Period, and may have owed the reverence of its more recent possessor to the fact of its discovery within some primitive cist, or in the charmed circle of Taoursanan, the origin of which is commonly ascribed to superhuman powers. It is worthy of note, indeed, that the word Druidheachd is no longer associated with the priesthood of the British groves, but is now only used by the Scottish Highlanders as applicable to sorcery or magic. Another, but much less perfect ornament of perforated reddish stone, in the same collection with the above, was found, along with several flint arrow-heads, in the island of Harris; and a third, still ruder, was discovered, with a similar arrow-head, on the Lomond Hills of Fifeshire. But perhaps the most singular relics of the Stone Period ever discovered in Scotland are two stone collars, found near the celebrated Parallel Roads of Glenroy, and now preserved at the mansion of Tonley, Aberdeenshire. They are each of the full size of a collar adapted to a small Highland horse; the one formed of trap or whinstone, and the other of a fine-grained red granite. They are not, however, to be regarded as the primitive substitutes for the more convenient materials of later introduction. On the contrary, a close imitation of the details of a horse collar of common materials is attempted, including the folds of the leather, nails, buckles, and holes for tying particular parts together. They are finished with much care and a high degree of polish, and are described as obviously the workmanship of a skilful artist. Mr. Skene, who first drew attention to these remarkable relics, suggests the probability of the peculiar natural features of Glenroy having led to the selection of this amphitheatre for the scene of ancient public games; and that these stone collars might commemorate the victor in the chariot race, as the tripods still existing record the victor in the Choragic games of Athens. But no circumstances attending their discovery are known which could aid conjecture either as to the period or purpose of their construction.191

In the year 1832, a large tumulus, on the shore of Broadford Bay, Isle of Skye, was levelled in the progress of some improvements on the estate of Corry, and it was found to cover a rudely vaulted chamber, within which lay a cist inclosing a human skeleton, along with various bones of animals, the species of which were not ascertained. Alongside of the skeleton an ornament of polished pale green stone was discovered, measuring about 2½ inches in length, by 2 inches in breadth. Its form will be best understood by the annexed woodcut. It is convex on the upper side, and concave on the under side, with a small hole drilled at each of the four corners, and an ornamental border of slightly indented ovals along one end. It differs only in dimensions from another previously referred to, in the collection of Adam Arbuthnot, Esq., of Peterhead, which was obtained from a tumulus at Cruden, Aberdeenshire. It measures 4¼ inches in length. Another ornament of polished green stone was afterwards discovered in the neighbourhood of the tumulus at Broadford Bay. It measures about 3½ inches in length, and nearly an inch in breadth at the centre, but tapers to about half an inch in breadth at either end, where a small hole is drilled through. It is only a fifth of an inch in thickness. Simple as are the forms of both of these relics, they represent a class which appear to have been common among the personal decorations of the Stone Period, whether regarded merely as ornaments, or valued for some hidden virtue which may have been supposed to pertain to them. A sepulchral deposit, closely corresponding to that found in the Isle of Skye, was discovered by some labourers employed in sinking a ditch at Tring, in Hertfordshire, about the year 1763. The relics were entirely of the same rude primitive class, and it furnished an example in confirmation of previous remarks regarding the earliest sepulchral rites, as the skeleton was found laid at full length, with legs and arms extended. Between the legs lay some flint arrow-heads, and at the feet ornaments resembling, both in form and material, those found in the tumulus at Broadford Bay.192 Sir R. C. Hoare describes objects of similar character, found in the barrows of Wiltshire, some of which were made of blue slate;193 and small perforated plates of stone or flint, of slightly varying forms, are not uncommon among the contents of the earlier British tumuli. They are not, however, confined to Britain. Simple as are the forms of the two relics figured above, there is a sufficiently marked character about them to excite our surprise when we meet with them in the grave of the ancient native of Skye, and in the cists of Herts or Wiltshire; but ornaments of almost exactly the same forms have been discovered in the mounds of the great valley of the Mississippi,194 accompanied with celts, stone hatchets, and other primitive implements closely resembling those of the British Stone Period; though also with many more so essentially differing, as to forbid us deducing from such chance coincidences any fanciful community of origin between the Allophylian colonists of Europe and the aborigines of America.

Still ruder are the primitive necklaces, formed of the common small shells of our coasts, such as the Nerita litoralis, and even the Patella vulgata, or common limpet, perforated, apparently, by the simple process of rubbing the point on a stone, and then strung together with a fibre or sinew. It may perhaps be thought by some that sufficient space has already been devoted to this infantile period of the race, yet childish as such decorations seem, they are found among the valued relics of men whose giant monuments have outlived many massive structures destined by later ages to perpetuate the memory of historic deeds, or consecrated to the services of the all-powerful Church of medieval Christendom. Underneath the cromlech discovered on levelling a tumulus in the Phœnix Park at Dublin, in 1838, two male skeletons were disclosed, and beside the skull of each lay the perforated shells of a necklace which had doubtless been placed around their necks when they were deposited in the simple but grand mausoleum that still attests the veneration of the ancient natives for their chiefs. A portion of the vegetable fibre with which they had been strung together remained through some of the shells, and the only other relics found in the grave were a small fibula of bone, and a knife or lance-head of flint. The common British bivalves are also found used for similar decorations. In a cist discovered on the coast of the Frith of Forth, during the construction of the Edinburgh and Granton Railway, the only relics deposited beside the skeleton which it enclosed were a quantity of the cardium commune, or cockle, of different sizes, rubbed down until they were reduced nearly to rings; while in another cist, opened at Orkney, and more particularly referred to in a previous chapter, about two dozen oyster shells were discovered, each perforated with a hole nearly an inch in diameter.

Chapter IX — Crania of the Tumuli

Notwithstanding the zeal with which English archæologists have pursued their investigations among the remains of primitive sepulchral deposits, scarcely anything has yet been done towards obtaining a collection of facts in relation to the size and form of the skulls, and the general characteristics of the skeletons of their constructors. In this, as in so many other respects, the archæologists of Sweden and Denmark have set us an example well deserving of imitation, and have shewn the essential dependence of Archæology on the kindred sciences, with which it has heretofore failed to effect a hearty alliance in Britain. Had Sir Richard Colt Hoare examined the osteology of the tumuli of Wiltshire with the same patient accuracy and precision which he devoted to their archæology, a most important basis would have been furnished for ethnological research. Now, however, that such investigations are recognised as coming within the legitimate scope of archæological inquiry, we may hope ere long to ascertain by such evidence somewhat of the characteristics of the aboriginal race of the Stone Period, and also to obtain an answer to the inquiry,—Was the Bronze Period superinduced on the Primeval one by internal improvement and progression, or was it the result of the intruded arts of a superior race? This, it is manifest, can only be determined by an extensive series of observations, since physiologists are generally agreed in admitting that the physical characteristics of races have been largely modified, and even entirely altered, by a change of circumstances. The nomadic Turkish tribes, for example, spread through central Asia, still exhibit the broad-faced, pyramidal skulls which Dr. Prichard has assigned to the nomadic races, while the long civilized European Turks have become closely assimilated to other European races, and possess the characteristic oval skull.195 “The greater relative development of the jaws and zygomata, and of the bones of the face altogether, in comparison with the size of the brain, indicates, in the pyramidal and prognathous skulls, a more ample extension of the organs subservient to sensation and the animal faculties. Such a configuration is adapted, by its results, to the condition of human tribes in the nomadic state, and in that of savage hunters.”196 Two important points, therefore, which remain to be determined in relation to the British tumuli are, whether the forms and proportions of the skulls of their builders indicate the existence of one or of several races? and next, whether the changes in the forms of the crania are sudden and decided, or are gradual, and pass by an undefined transition from the one to the other? It will be found in the succeeding section that archæological evidence clearly points to a transitional state from the Stone to the Bronze Period, such as is at least altogether irreconcilable with the idea of the sudden extermination of the aboriginal race. It at the same time no less distinctly points to the existence of a native population in Britain long anterior to the earliest historic indications of the Arian nations passing into Europe.

To these early races, which we describe loosely as primitive, or as aboriginal or primeval, Dr. Prichard has suggested the application of the conveniently indefinite term “Allophylian,” which suffices to characterize them as distinct from the well ascertained primitive races, without meanwhile assuming any hypothetical origin for them. It remains to be seen whether the archæologist may not be able to supply, in a great degree, the desired information in relation to the habits, arts, and social condition of these unknown races:—

“The Allophylian nations,” Dr. Prichard remarks, “appear to have been spread, in the earliest times, through all the most remote regions of the old continent,—to the northward, eastward, and westward of the Indo-European tribes, whom they seem everywhere to have preceded; so that they appear, in comparison with these Indo-European colonies, in the light of aboriginal or native inhabitants, vanquished, and often banished into remote and inaccessible tracts, by more powerful invading tribes. The latter, namely, the Indo-European nations, seem to have been everywhere superior in mental endowments. Some tribes, indeed, had retained or acquired many characteristics of barbarism and ferocity; but with all these they joined undoubted marks of an earlier intellectual development, particularly a higher culture of language as an instrument of thought, as well as of human intercourse. If we inquire into the degree of improvement in the arts of life which the Indo-European nations had attained at the era of dispersion from their primitive abode, or from the common centre of the whole stock, an investigation of their languages will be our principal guide. It gives us strong grounds for a belief that their advancement in useful arts had been comparatively small. The primitive ancestors of the Indo-European nations were probably ignorant of the use of iron and other metals, since the terms by which these are denoted are different in different languages, and must, as it would appear, have been adopted subsequently to the era of separation. Nothing can be more unlike than gold, χρυσος, and aurum; than silver and argentum; than ferrum and σιδηρος. Other considerations may be advanced to confirm this opinion, that the use of metals was unknown to the earliest colonists of the west.... But though unskilled in many of the most useful arts of life, the Arian people appear to have brought with them a much higher mental culture than the Allophylian races possessed before the Arian tribes were spread among them. They had national poetry, and a culture of language and thought altogether surprising, when compared with their external condition and habits.”197

The religion which consists in mere fetisses, charms, spells, and talismans is in like manner ascribed by Dr. Prichard to these Allophylian nations; in contradistinction to the Eastern doctrine of metempsychosis, with the coincident belief in a system of retributive justice, and the distinct recognition of a future state, which appear to have been common to all the Arian nations, and to have been further developed by their being confided to a distinct order, caste, or priesthood. Of the former races the modern Fins, Lappes, and Esquimaux still remain as characteristic examples. Of the latter, the historic Celtæ, Scandinavian and German-Teutonic races are sufficiently illustrative, while the modern Hindoos are a living evidence of the south-eastern migration of the same great branch of the human family. But of the degree of civilisation of the Arian nomades when they reached the western shores of Europe, or of the state in which they found the countries which they colonized, we as yet know almost nothing; and it still remains to be determined whether they entered into peaceful possession of unpeopled wastes, or won them from primitive Allophylian nations. On these points archæological observation may be expected to throw some light. The irregular or systematic arrangement of the cist, the provisions for the future occupation and welfare of the deceased, and all the peculiarities of primitive sepulchral rites, more or less clearly indicate the arts and habits of those by whom they were practised, and still more, the ideas entertained by them in relation to a future state.

Of the Allophylian colonists of Scandinavia, Professor Nillson assigns to the most ancient the short or brachy-kephalic form of cranium, with prominent parietal tubers, and broad and flattened occiput. To this aboriginal race he conceives succeeds another with a cranium of a more lengthened oval form and prominent and narrow occiput. The third race, which Scandinavian antiquaries incline to regard as that of the bronze or first metallic period, is characterized by a cranium longer than the first and broader than the second, and marked by greater prominence at the sides. The last Professor Nillson considers to have been of Celtic origin. To this succeeded the true Scandinavian race, and the first workers of the native iron ore.198 Professor Eschricht assigns to the crania from the barrows of the oldest Danish series an ample and well-developed form, with the forehead vaulted and tolerably spacious, and the nasal bones prominent. In a skull described by him the zygomata appear large and angular, and the cranium has somewhat of a pyramidal form. The eyes have been deeply set, and the eyebrows are strongly prominent. One of the most remarkable features in these skulls is their round form, approaching to a spherical shape.199

The type of the old Celtic cranium is considered by Professor Nillson as intermediate to the lengthened and shortened oval, or the true dolicho-kephalic and brachy-kephalic forms, and in this conclusion Dr. Thurnam coincides. Dr. Morton describes the Celtic head as “rather elongated, and the forehead narrow and but slightly arched; the brow low, straight, and bushy; the eyes and hair light; the nose and mouth large; and the cheek-bones high.”200 Such characteristics differ decidedly from those of the early barrows. Dr. Prichard, however, hesitates to accept the conclusions adopted by Scandinavian ethnologists, attaching it may be too slight importance to the strictly archæological evidence on which they are to some extent based. He remarks in reference to the description of the skulls of the most ancient Scandinavian barrows:—“They are probably the crania of Celtic races; in Denmark of Cimbrians. The tombs containing ornaments of the precious metals are referred to a later age; but it is uncertain as yet whether they belonged to the same race as the former.”201 One marked difference has hitherto existed between the systems of several of the chief continental ethnologists and those of England, which has somewhat influenced the conclusions of each. While continental investigators into the phenomena of various races have set aside the idea of one primitive stock,—some of them even assuming the primal existence of numerous distinct and independent human races,—British ethnologists, with Dr. Prichard at their head, have held fast by the Adamic history, and in maintaining the origin of all the races of man from one pair, have also given its full force to the influence of external circumstances in modifying the physical peculiarities of each race. That the progress of a people in civilisation must be accompanied with a corresponding improvement in their intellectual faculties and also in their physical conformation is now generally admitted. Long time, however, is required even under the most favourable circumstances, for any very decisive modification affecting the form and features of a whole people, so that the sudden intrusion of a foreign race must be no less readily discernible from their crania than from novel arts or sepulchral rites. Nothing has yet been done by Scottish archæologists with a view to ascertain the physical conformation of the primitive native races; and the small contribution now offered as a beginning, is founded on too limited data to be of very great avail, except perhaps in opening up the subject and leading to more extended observation. Fortunately a few skulls from Scottish tumuli and cists are preserved in the Museums of the Scottish Antiquaries and of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. A comparison of these with the specimens of crania drawn by Dr. Thurnam from examples found in an ancient tumular cemetery at Lamel Hill, near York, believed to be of the Anglo-Saxon period, abundantly proves an essential difference of races.202 The latter, though belonging to the superior or dolicho-kephalic type, are small, very poorly developed, low and narrow in the forehead, and pyramidal in form. A striking feature of one type of crania from the Scottish barrows is a square compact form. Though full in the middle-head, these are by no means deficient in the forehead; but it will be observed from the first class of examples in the following table of measurements, that they are generally of small relative size,—a fact which has been frequently noted, even by casual observers, when seeing them in situ, and contrasting their dimensions with the disproportionate size of the skeleton. The system of measurement employed in the following table is chiefly that adopted by Dr. Morton in his “Crania Americana,” and the terms are used in the sense explained by him under the head “Anatomical Measurements,” (p. 249.) From the fractured and very fragile state of many of the skulls, it was impossible to attempt the measurement of their internal capacity by the ingenious process employed by Dr. Morton. The last column in the table is accordingly found by adding the longitudinal and vertical diameters and the horizontal periphery. This is not assumed as affording any test of the actual capacity of each cranium, but only as a fair relative approximation and element of comparison. Owing to the undetermined form of the processes in several of the crania and the imperfection or total absence of the facial bones, from their greatly decayed state, the additional measurements marked * are given as less liable to error. Some of them, such as the inter-mastoid arch and inter-mastoid line, taken from the upper root of the zygomatic process instead of from the points of the mastoid processes, are also, perhaps, preferable as more uniform and precise.203

The full value of such investigations, and even their precise bearing and the conclusions legitimately deducible from them, may probably be matter of dispute, but there can be no question that a general distinctive cranial conformation is clearly discoverable in modern nations, and is even very markedly observable between the different races of the British Isles. Given a sufficient number of examples of each class, the experienced eye would at once discriminate between the modern European Fin, Germanic Teuton, and British Celt. The conclusion appears therefore inevitable, that if we find in the ancient tumuli like variations in physical form, systematically reducible to two or more classes, we are justified in assuming the existence of diverse primitive races, and of seeking in the accompanying relics for indications of their peculiar arts and customs, as well as of their relative positions as contemporary or successive occupants of the country.

No.		CRANIA.	Longitudinal Diameter.	Parietal Diameter.	Frontal Diameter.	Vertical Diameter.	Inter-Mastoid Arch.	* Inter-Mastoid Arch, from Upper Root of Zygomatic Process.	Inter-Mastoid Line.	* Do. from Upper Root of Zygomatic Process.	Occipito-frontal Arch.	* Do. from Occipital Protuberance to Root of Nose.	Horizontal Periphery.	* Relative Capacity.
	i.	Mexican,	6.8	5.5	4.6	6.	15.6	...	4.4	...	14.6	...	19.9	32.5
	ii.	″	6.4	5.7	4.5	5.4	14.6	...	4.5	...	13.5	...	20.2	31.10
Primitive Dolicho-kephalic, or Kumbe-kephalic.	1.	Cist, Aberdeenshire,	7.	5.4½?	4.9?	4.10	13.11	11.5	3.6½	4.8½	13.9	12.	20.4	32.2
	2.	″ Fifeshire,	7.	4.8	4.4	5.3	13.2	11.	4.1	4.10	14.	11.11	19.6	31.9
	3.	″ Cockenzie, East-Lothian,	6.11	5.3	3.11	5.	...	12.	...	4.8½	14.4	11.4	19.	30.11
	4.	″ ″	7.	4.11	4.4	5.3	13.8	11.4½	4.1	4.10	13.10	11.3	16.7½	28.10½
	5.	″ ″	6.6	4.1?	4.11	4.2?	13.2	11.3	...	4.8?	13.11	12.	19.	29.6
	6.	″ Stonelaws, East-Lothian,	7.3	5.4	4.6	5.2	14.3	11.9	4.4	5.0½	14.8	12.3	20.8½	33.1½
	7.	Cairn, Fifeshire,	7.5	5.2	4.5	5.2	14.3	12.	3.7	4.10½	14.3	12.3	20.7½	33.2½
	8.	Tumulus, Newbattle,	7.9	5.6	4.9	...	...	12.3	...	5.6	15.6	...	21.3	...
	9.	″ Montrose,	7.3	5.8	4.3½	4.9	14.	11.9	3.8½	5.	14.2	11.9	20.7	32.7
Brachy-kephalic.	10.	Cist, Montrose,	7.	6.1	5.3	5.8	15.9	13.1	4.4	5.9½	15.2	13.3	21.	33.8
	11.	Moss, Kilsyth,	...	5.7½?	4.4	5.5	14.6?	12.2?	4.1	...	...	...	21.?	...
	12.	″ Linton,	6.6	5.1	4.1	4.9	13.5	11.3	3.9	4.6	13.6	11.9	18.7½	29.10½
	13.	″ ″	6.7	5.	4.1	4.11	13.4	11.3	3.10	4.6	13.8	11.10	19.7	31.1
	14.	Cist, Ratho,	6.10	6.	5.1	5.6	15.7	12.11	4.2	5.7	14.11	13.	20.	32.4
	15.	″ Linlithgow,	7.2?	5.6	4.9	...	14.10	12.7	4.6	5.5	...	...	20.6	...
	16.	Roman Shaft, Roxburghshire,	7.3	5.4	4.6	5.4	14.7½	12.	5.3½	5.6	14.4	12.9	20.6	33.1
Celtic.	17.	Tarbert, Kintyre,	7.9	5.	4.10	5.6	14.9	11.11	4.	5.4	15.5	13.6	21.3	34.6
	18.	Sea-Shore, Argyleshire,	7.6	5.1	4.6	5.1	14.8	11.3	3.11	5.3	14.6	12.11	20.4	32.11½
	19.	Harris, Hebrides,	7.3	5.3	4.5	5.4½	14.5	12.4	3.11½	4.9	14.9	12.9	20.10	33.5½
	20.	Iona, ″	7.5	5.6½	5.0½	5.6	14.11½	12.3	4.	...	14.9	12.6	20.10	33.9
	21.	″ ″	7.3	5.6½	4.4	5.6	14.8	12.	4.1	5.3	14.5	12.10	20.2	32.11
	22.	″ ″	7.2	5.7	4.5	5.6	14.9	11.10	4.3	5.6	14.4	12.6	20.	32.8
	23.	″ ″	7.3½	5.7	4.6	5.2	15.?	12.4?	...	...	14.8	12.6½	19.10½	32.4
	24.	″ ″	7.2	5.5	4.6	...	...	...	...	...	...	12.10	20.7	...
	25.	Knockstanger, Caithness,	7.8	5.6	4.3½	5.3	14.4	11.8	4.7	5.6	14.6	12.7	20.11	33.10
	26.	Inch Columb Kill, Ireland,	7.9	5.7	5.3	5.6	15.7	13.3	4.0½	5.4	16.4	14.4	21.11	35.2
	27.	Celtic Type (?) Edin. Phrenol. Museum,	7.11	5.5	4.9	...	...	12.	...	5.1	15.5	13.9	21.6	...
Medieval.	28.	Tumular Cemetery, North Berwick,	7.6½	5.9	4.7	5.6	15.2	12.3	3.11	5.2	15.	12.3	21.5	34.5½
29.	″ ″	7.	5.7	4.0½	4.8	13.8	11.4	3.6	4.9	...	12.3	19.9	31.5
30.	″ ″	7.3½	5.10	4.11	5.7	15.5	12.3	...	5.9	15.	13.	21.7	34.5½
31.	Castle Bank, Edinburgh,	7.6	5.4	4.11	...	14.3	12.	4.3	5.5	...	12.6	20.1	...
32.	Flodden Wall, Edinburgh,	7.6	5.4	4.8	5.2	14.6	12.2	4.2	5.1	15.6	...	20.11	33.7
33.	Old St. Giles’s, Edinburgh,	7.3	5.6	4.4	5.1	14.	11.9	4.2½	5.5	14.4	12.	20.2½	32.6½
34.	″ ″	7.6	5.6	4.7	...	14.7	12.	4.1½	5.1	15.	12.10	20.8	...
35.	″ ″	6.11½	5.6	4.4	5.	14.5	12.	3.7½	4.9	14.	11.9	19.10	31.9½
36.	″ ″	6.6	5.3	4.2	4.11	13.3	11.3	3.10½	4.10	13.3	11.	18.7	30.
37.	″ ″	6.11	5.9	4.9	5.1	15.2	12.	4.	5.7	14.	12.2	20.5	32.5
38.	″ ″	7.3	5.7	4.6	5.4	14.7	12.1	4.	5.	14.7	12.7	20.2	32.9
39.	Constitution Street, Leith,	7.	5.9	4.9	5.3	14.6	12.5	3.10½	5.0½	14.3	12.5	20.3	32.6

There is no primitive race known to us which seems so fit to be selected as a type and standard of comparison in relation to cranial development, as the Aztecs or ancient Mexicans. They were the last dominant race among numerous native tribes, who, progressing from the rudimentary Stone Period, were excluded from influences such as those which in Europe superseded the ages of stone and bronze by the more perfect arts of civilisation. These changes archæologists are now agreed in associating with the introduction of iron. But if in this latter point also the parallel be admissible, then we must less conceive of the more perfect arts of civilisation being superinduced on those of the Archaic Period, than of the Allophylian nations being themselves superseded. More extended observations on the physical characteristics of these races will probably, to a great extent, determine this. Two skulls selected from Morton’s Crania Americana are placed at the head of the table, and will afford a very satisfactory comparative estimate of the cranial capacity of the races of the Scottish tumuli. No. i. is figured in Plate XVII. of Dr. Morton’s valuable work, from which it will be seen that it decidedly belongs to the Brachy-kephalic class of Retzius, which again nearly corresponds with the pyramidal division of Dr. Prichard. It is thus described by Dr. Morton:—“With a better forehead than is usual, this skull presents all the prominent characters of the American race—the prominent face, elevated vertex, vertical occiput, and the great swell from the temporal bones upward.” No. ii. is figured in Plate XVIII. of the same work, and closely corresponds to it in type. It is described as “a remarkably well characterized Toltecan head from an ancient tomb near the city of Mexico, whence it was exhumed, with a great variety of antiques, vessels, masks, ornaments,” &c. These, therefore, afford a fair comparative criterion of the capacity of the tumuli builders of Britain for the practice of arts analogous to those in which the later American races so greatly excelled at the epoch of the Spanish Conquest; and it will be seen that the comparison is, upon the whole, in favour of the superior intelligence of the British Brachy-kephalic race, as indicated by the cerebral mass and frontal development. No. 1. is an exceedingly interesting example of a skull of the Stone Period, in the Antiquarian Museum. It was found in 1822 in a rude cist in the parish of Banchory-Devenich, Aberdeenshire. On the top of the head is a hole nearly circular, rather more than an inch in diameter, which there can scarcely be a doubt was caused by the death-blow. In each corner of the cist lay a small pile of flint flakes.—No. 2 was taken from one of thirty cists found near Fifeness, in 1826, and described in a previous chapter.—Nos. 3, 4, and 5 were obtained from a group of rude cists discovered in the neighbourhood of Cockenzie, East-Lothian, in 1840. Nos. 3 and 4, as well as the two previous examples, are in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. No. 5 has been obtained from J. M. Mitchell, Esq., who was present when the graves at Cockenzie were opened, and is here figured as a characteristic example of the class. No relics were found along with these remains, but the cists were of the primitive circumscribed dimensions, and presented the rudest characteristics of early sepulture.—No. 6 is a skull in the Edinburgh Phrenological Museum found on the farm of Stonelaws, East-Lothian, where a number of rude primitive cists have been exposed in the course of agricultural operations. Some of these lie east and west, with the heads at the west end, according to Christian practice, but others are irregularly laid; and the example here noted was found with the head at the east end of the grave.—No. 7 was obtained from a cist discovered under a large cairn at Nether Urquhart, Fifeshire, in 1835. An account of the opening of several cairns and tumuli in the same district is given by Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, in his “Inquiry respecting the Site of the Battle of Mons Grampius.”204 Some of them contained urns and burnt bones, ornaments of jet and shale, and the like early relics, while in others were found implements or weapons of iron. It is selected here as another example of the same class of crania.—No. 8 was found in a cist under a tumulus opened at Newbattle, East-Lothian, in 1782. This, there can be little doubt, was the large encircled tumulus in the immediate vicinity of the Abbey, which was found to cover a cist nearly seven feet long. The cranium is well proportioned and of unusually large dimensions, and probably pertained to a chief of gigantic stature.—No. 9 is from a tumulus at Montrose. The whole of these, more or less, nearly agree with the lengthened oval form described by Professor Nillson as the second race of the Scandinavian tumuli. They have mostly a singularly narrow and elongated occiput; and with their comparatively low and narrow forehead, might not inaptly be described by the familiar term boat-shaped. It is probable that further investigation will establish this as the type of a primitive, if not of the primeval native race. Though they approach in form to a superior type, falling under the first or Dolicho-kephalic class of Professor Retzius’ arrangement, their capacity is generally small, and their development, for the most part, poor; so that there is nothing in their cranial characteristics inconsistent with such evidence as seems to assign to them the rude arts and extremely limited knowledge of the British Stone Period.

No. 10 is an exceedingly characteristic example of an entirely different type of cranium. It was obtained under very remarkable circumstances, more particularly detailed in a subsequent chapter. On the demolition, in 1833, of the old Town Steeple of Montrose, a building of great antiquity, it was found that at some depth beneath its ancient foundations there lay the sepulchres of a much more remote period. Mr. William Smith of Montrose, remarks in a communication sent to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1834, along with the donation of an urn:—“The accompanying urn or vase is one of four of the same description found about the beginning of April 1833 below the foundation of the Old Steeple in Montrose, beside the skeleton of a human body,—two of them being at each side of the head, and two near the feet.... Exactly below the foundations of the Old Steeple the skeleton was discovered, with the vases disposed about it as mentioned. It measured six feet in length. The thigh bones, which were very stout, and the teeth, were the only parts in good preservation. The skull was a little wasted, and was given to the Rev. Mr. Liddell, of Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel, who intended to present it to Mr. Combe of the Phrenological Society.”205 The skull, of which the measurements are given in No. 10, is the same here referred to, presented to the Phrenological Museum by the Rev. Mr. Liddell. It is a very striking example of the British Brachy-kephalic type; square and compact in form, broad and short, but well balanced, and with a good frontal development. It no doubt pertained to some primitive chief, or arch-priest, sage, it may be, in council, and brave in war. The site of his place of sepulture has obviously been chosen for the same reasons which led to its selection at a later period for the erection of the belfry and beacon-tower of the old burgh. It is the most elevated spot in the neighbourhood, and here his cist had been laid, and the memorial mound piled over it, which doubtless remained untouched so long as his memory was cherished in the traditions of his people.—No. 11 was found in a moss near Kilsyth, Stirlingshire. It is nearly black, and quite firm and sound, from the action of the peat. Its general characteristics clearly belong to this second group, but it has been injured in parts, and apparently subjected to great pressure, so as to render some of the measurements doubtful.—Nos. 12 and 13 are skulls found at different times, at a considerable depth, in a moss at Linton, Peeblesshire.—No. 14 is a very characteristic example of the Brachy-kephalic type of cranium. It was found in a cist under a tumulus in the parish of Ratho, Mid-Lothian, and alongside of the skeleton stood a small rude clay urn, within which lay several bronze rings.—No. 15 is also a good example of the same type. It was obtained, in 1849, from a cist partly hollowed out of the natural trap rock on the farm of East Broadlaw, in the parish and county of Linlithgow. It was covered with two unhewn slabs of stone, and measured internally about six feet long. The skeleton was in good preservation, and lay at full length. Only a few inches of soil covered the slabs with which it was inclosed. No relics were found in the cist, but some time prior to its discovery a bronze celt and spear-head were turned up in its immediate vicinity.

Few as these examples are, they will probably be found, on further investigation, to belong to a race entirely distinct from those previously described. They correspond very nearly to the Brachy-kephalic crania of the supposed primeval race of Scandinavia, described by Professor Nillson as short, with prominent parietal tubers, and broad and flattened occiput. In frontal development, however, they are decidedly superior to the previous class of crania, and such evidence as we possess seems to point to a very different succession of races to that which Scandinavian ethnologists now recognise in the primitive history of the north of Europe. Our data are as yet too few to admit of our doing more than noticing these indications of the evidence that has been produced, in the hope that it may stimulate to the further prosecution of this interesting branch of primitive ethnology.

No. 16 is a cranium chiefly interesting from the circumstances under which it was found. During the construction of the Edinburgh and Hawick Railway, in 1846, extensive Roman remains were brought to light in the vicinity of the village of Newstead, Roxburghshire. These are described in a subsequent chapter. In the progress of the work the excavators exposed a group of circular shafts, or well-like pits, varying from three feet to about twenty feet in depth. They were filled with black fetid earth, intermixed with bones of animals, Roman pottery, mortaria, amphoræ, Samian ware, &c., whole and in fragments. In one of these shafts was found the entire skeleton of a man, standing upright, with a long iron spear at his side, and various specimens of Roman pottery in the debris with which the pit was filled.206 Of the period, therefore, to which the cranium belongs, there can be no doubt, though no sufficient evidence exists to determine whether it pertained to a Roman legionary, or a contemporary native Briton. The latter is, perhaps, more probable. The skull is of moderate size, but exceedingly well proportioned, the teeth are in perfect preservation, with the crowns very little worn, and the markings of all the muscles are unusually strong and well defined.

The succeeding group of crania, Nos. 17-27, afford a fair average criterion of the Celtic type.—No. 17 is a skull dug up in a cave on the sea-coast, at the Mull of Kintyre, Argyleshire, near to where tradition affirms a battle to have been fought between the natives and an invading host of Northmen.—No. 18 is in like manner a memorial of Scandinavian aggression, and is marked in the catalogue of the Phrenological Museum as the skull of a Dane. It was dug out of the sand on the sea-beach, near Larnahinden, Argyleshire, where a party of Danes are believed to have landed and been defeated. It exhibits some remarkable measurements, especially in the small proportion of the vertical diameter; and a comparison of its various dimensions with those of the Roman skull, No. 16, brings out very distinctly the points of disagreement of two essentially different forms of crania. No. 18, however, is not to be accepted as a good Celtic type. The best medium form of the Celtic cranium is No. 20, which appears, in so far as the present amount of observation admits of such conclusions, to be a fair standard of this important class of crania. It forms one of a very interesting group of skulls in the Phrenological Museum. No. 19 was brought from Harray, near Lewis, and Nos. 20-24 from Iona. The whole of these were presented to the Society, in 1833, by Mr. Donald Gregory, Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and they are each marked by him as the “Skull of a Druid from the Hebrides.” They were no doubt obtained during the operations carried on by the members of the Iona Club, thus described in the introduction to the Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis:—

“In order to celebrate the institution of the Club, a meeting was held in the island of Iona, upon the 7th day of September 1833, permission having been obtained from His Grace the Duke of Argyle, the President, to make such excavations in the island as the Club might deem necessary. A search was made in the ancient cemetery called Relig Oran, for such tombstones as might in the process of time have been concealed by the accumulation of rubbish. The result of these operations was, that a considerable number of finely carved tombstones was brought to view, which none of the inhabitants had ever seen before.”

The sepulchres of the Scottish kings were also explored, which were used for the last time as a royal cemetery when Macbeth was interred there beside his Queen Gruoch, the daughter of Bodhe,—as a record in the St. Andrew’s Chartulary informs us was the unromantic name of Lady Macbeth.207 Mr. Donald Gregory was secretary of the Iona Club, and one of the ablest Celtic scholars of his day. The designation which he affixed to the crania brought from Iona may be accepted as undoubted evidence of their having been found under circumstances which afforded proof of their high antiquity; though it is not necessary to assume from this that they had pertained to Druids. Most probably nothing more was intended by the epithet which Mr. Gregory applied to them, than to indicate, in the briefest manner, that he believed them to have belonged to the native population prior to the introduction of Christianity in the sixth century, when Columba landed at Innis nan Druidheanach, or the Isle of the Druids, as Iona is still occasionally styled by the native Highlander. The crania thus brought from the venerable centre of Celtic civilisation may not unreasonably be looked upon as furnishing characteristic types of the oldest historical race of the north of Europe.—No. 25 is also a good Celtic cranium, though less true to the type than No. 20, from its excess in longitudinal diameter. It was dug up at Knockstanger, Caithness, at a spot where a number of the Clan Mackay were interred, after being defeated in a battle fought with the Sinclairs in 1437. To these have been added No. 26, a skull in the Phrenological Museum, brought from an ancient cemetery at Inchmore, or Columb Kill, county of Longford, Ireland; and No. 27, a cast of a skull in the Phrenological Museum, marked as the Celtic type, and described as one of a series of skulls “selected from a number of the same tribe or nation, so as to present, as nearly as possible, a type of the whole in the Society’s collection.”208 It is characterized in the printed catalogue as a “Long Celtic Skull,” but would not, I think, be accepted by ethnologists as at all typical of the true Celtic cranium. It falls decidedly under the class designated by Professor Retzius as Dolicho-kephalæ, and is introduced in the table of measurements chiefly as furnishing useful elements of comparison. Contrasted with No. 20, it will be seen that it is 7.11 to 7.5, exceeding the latter in longitudinal diameter by 6/12, or half an inch, while in parietal diameter it falls short of it by 3/24. The difference is equally in favour of the true Celtic cranium, No. 20, in other measurements of breadth, including the frontal diameter and the inter-mastoid arch. This mode of comparison is still more remarkable and characteristic when the same skull, No. 27, is placed alongside of No. 10, a good example of the Brachy-kephalic class, the excess in the one set of measurements being fully balanced by a corresponding diminution in the others. The proportions of these Scottish Celtic crania entirely agree with the assumed type already referred to, as recognised by the ablest ethnologists. Professors Nillson and Retzius, and Dr. Thurnam, all concur in describing the type of the old Celtic cranium as intermediate to the true Dolicho-kephalic and Brachy-kephalic forms. Dr. Norton Shaw also recognises the same characteristic proportions, and refers in evidence to a skull in the museum of Dr. Buckland, which was found in a tin mine in Cornwall at a depth of 500 feet.209

Returning to the table of measurements.—No. 28 is a skull in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. It was found in what appears to have been an ancient tumular cemetery, at North-Berwick, East-Lothian, from whence also a specimen of early medieval pottery, figured in a later chapter, was procured. Many ancient relics have been obtained at the same place, including a circular silver fibula, apparently of the Anglo-Saxon era. A large surrounding area appears to have been used as a burial ground, probably for many centuries, as the encroachments of the sea frequently expose human bones, and the skeletons may be occasionally discerned in the newly exposed strata, after an unusually high tide.—Nos. 29 and 30 are crania in the Phrenological Museum from the same locality. Of these No. 29 is a markedly inferior example of cranial development. While all the measurements are small, the frontal diameter is inferior to that of No. 12, the smallest of all the Brachy-kephalic examples, which it exceeds in longitudinal diameter by half an inch. So extremely poor is the frontal development of this skull, that its diameter at the zygomatic processes is barely 3.5½. It is only introduced here in order to afford a series of examples selected without any reference to theory.

The remaining skulls with which these are classed may be regarded as a fair series of examples of medieval Scottish crania.—No. 31 was found in 1828, in a deep cutting about midway up the south side of the rock on which Edinburgh Castle stands, during the construction of a new approach to the old town. Beside it were several large boars’ tusks, and an iron weapon greatly corroded.—No. 32 was obtained in 1829, in digging the foundations of a school built in the Vennel of Edinburgh, on the site of part of the town wall, erected immediately after the disastrous battle of Flodden in 1513. The woodcut represents the ancient tower, which still remains, almost the last remnant of the civic fortifications reared at that memorable crisis in Scottish history, and the relic which is here associated with these venerable defences is not without features appropriate to the stern memorials of that epoch. The skull has a deep gash, apparently from the blow of a sword or axe, and pertained, we may presume, to some old civic warder of the Scottish capital, slain at his post on the city wall.—Nos. 33-38 were all discovered in the course of excavations made to the south of the old Parliament House at Edinburgh in 1844, for the purpose of building new court-houses, when several ancient oak coffins and other early relics were brought to light.210 They lay alongside of the earliest city wall, built by James III. in 1450, and within the Nether Kirkyard of St. Giles’, which appears to have fallen into disuse in the reign of Queen Mary. To these are added No. 39, a skull found in digging a drain in Constitution Street, Leith, probably within the ancient limits of St. Mary’s Church-yard, which was bounded on that side by the ancient town wall, razed to the ground immediately after the siege of Leith in 1560. These crania, it should be added, are apparently all males, with the exception of No. 4, and perhaps also No. 36.

Such are the elements from which it has been attempted to deduce some conclusions of general import in regard to the successive primitive races that have occupied Scotland prior to the era of authentic historic records. The data are much too few to justify the dogmatic assertion of any general inferences, or to admit of positive answers to the questions naturally suggested by the conclusions arrived at by Nillson and Eschricht in relation to the races of Scandinavia. They include, however, all the examples that could be obtained, and are in so far valuable as trustworthy examples of the cranial characteristics of Scottish races, that they have been selected from various localities, by different individuals, with no single purpose in view. It is difficult, however, even after obtaining the proper crania, to determine the most trustworthy elements of relative proportion. Dr. Walter Adam, who had the advantage of studying under both Dr. Barclay and Mr. Abernethy, carried out an extensive series of measurements of crania, chiefly from examples found in the catacombs of Paris, and preserved in the University Museum there. These I now possess, through the kindness of Dr. Adam, and he remarks in writing to me on the subject:—“So far as appeared, precision could only be obtained by referring every dimension to the compression of the zygoma; the measurement being seven-eighths of what I consider the normal transverse of at least the Caucasian cranium; that is, of half the length of the head—the long-admitted statuary scale.” Owing to the imperfect state of the zygomata in the great majority of skulls from the tumuli, this measurement is unfortunately rarely attainable. Next in importance, however, is one of the additional ones in the table, marked as the inter-mastoid line, from the upper root of the zygomatic process. The relative proportions of this and of the parietal diameter, when compared with the longitudinal diameter, afford the most characteristic elements of comparison between the different types. Another interesting element of comparison appears to consist in the relative proportions of the parietal and vertical diameters. So far as appears from the table of measurements, the following laws would seem to be indicated:—In the primitive or elongated dolicho-kephalic type—for which the distinctive title of kumbe-kephalic is here suggested—the parietal diameter is remarkably small, being frequently exceeded by the vertical diameter; in the second or brachy-kephalic class, the parietal diameter is the greater of the two; in the Celtic crania they are nearly equal; and in the medieval or true dolicho-kephalic heads, the parietal diameter is again found decidedly in excess; while the preponderance or deficiency of the longitudinal in its relative proportion to the other diameters, furnishes the most characteristic features referred to in the classification of the kumbe-kephalic, brachy-kephalic, Celtic, and dolicho-kephalic types. Not the least interesting indications which these results afford, both to the ethnologist and the archæologist, are the evidences of native primitive races in Scotland prior to the intrusion of the Celtæ; and also the probability of these races having succeeded each other in a different order from the primitive colonists of Scandinavia. Of the former fact, viz., the existence of primitive races prior to the Celtæ, I think no doubt can now be entertained. Of the order of their succession, and their exact share in the changes and progressive development of the native arts which the archæologist detects, we still stand in need of further proof; and the assumed primeval position of the kumbe-kephalic race of Scotland is advanced here only interrogatively, and with the view of inducing others to take up the same interesting inquiry. The subject demands much more extended observation before any such conclusion can be dogmatically affirmed concerning the primitive Scottish races. We have also still to obtain the proofs of that abrupt change from the one form to the other, only to be procured as the result of numerous independent observations, but which can alone satisfactorily establish the fact of the intrusion of new races. The same evidence may also be expected to show whether the primitive race was entirely superseded by later colonists. If the Allophylian aborigines were not exterminated, but were admitted to share in the superior arts of their conquerors, some proof may yet be recoverable of the gradual progression in physical conformation as they abandoned the nomadic and wild hunter state for a pastoral life, so that they were not finally extirpated, but interfused into the mixed race which now occupies the country, as we know was to some extent the case, at a later period, with its Celtic population.

Not only in the annual operations of the agriculturist, but also in the deliberate researches of the archæologist, hundreds of tumular crania have been disinterred. Of these, however, scarcely any note has been taken, nor can we hope to obtain sufficient data for the determination of the interesting questions involved in the investigation till its importance is more generally recognised. A few facts, however, have been noted from time to time, some of which, in the absence of more precise observations, may help to throw light on the physical characteristics of the primitive British races. With this view, therefore, the following additional notices are selected.

In 1825 one of the singular northern circular forts usually styled burghs, situated at Burghar, in the parish of Evie, Orkney, was explored by the son of the resident clergyman, when there was found within the area a human skeleton, a rude bone comb of most primitive fashion, and part of a deer’s horn. The comb, which is now preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, is figured in another chapter; it measures four inches in length, and could not readily be surpassed in the rudeness of its construction or attempts at ornament. Along with this curious relic, the skull was forwarded to Edinburgh by Alexander Peterkin, Esq., but it is described in his communication as then in fragments, and has not been preserved. Mr. Peterkin remarks of it,—“Although the upper part of the skull be separated into two parts, you will observe on joining them together that it is of a very singular conformation. The extreme lowness of the forehead and length backward, present a peculiarity which may be interesting to phrenologists.”211 This, therefore, would appear to have belonged to the primitive Kumbekephalæ.

Other observations on the physical characteristics of the remains found in primitive Scottish sepulchres are much less definite. Alexander Thomson, Esq. of Banchory, remarks in a communication to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, describing two urns found in a cist on his estate in Aberdeenshire:—“The skeleton was far from entire, but there were fragments of every part of it found. The teeth are perfectly fresh, and from the appearance of the jaws, the skeleton must be that of a full-grown person, though of small size. I was told that the skeleton lay quite regular when first found.”212 It may be presumed that in this case, as in other examples of the physical conformation of the primitive race, the smallness of the head was not a precise criterion of the dimensions of the skeleton. Another correspondent describes a cist discovered by the plough on the farm of Farrochie, in the parish of Feteress, Kincardineshire, within which was found a small urn and upwards of one hundred beads of polished black shale:—

“The interior of the tomb measured three feet in length, two feet in breadth, and twenty inches in depth. The top, sides, and ends were each formed of one stone, and at each corner the end of a flat-stone, set on its edge, was introduced angularly between the stones of the sides and ends. The slab that formed the cover of the tomb measured three feet eight inches in length, by three feet two inches in breadth. The body had been laid upon its right side, with the face towards the south. The limbs had been bent upwards, and it was observed when the tomb was opened that one of the leg bones had been broken near the middle. The length of the leg bones was eighteen inches, and that of the thigh bones twenty inches, with very strong joints. The skull appeared to be small in proportion to the other parts of the body. In both jaws the teeth were complete and in beautiful preservation. The ribs and other small bones crumbled into dust soon after they were exposed to the air. The urn was lying in the tomb as if it had been folded in the arms of the corpse.”213

Dr. Prichard remarks in reply to the question,—Was there anything peculiar in the conformation of the head in the British or Gaulish races? “There are probably in existence sufficient means for deciding this inquiry in the skulls found in old British cairns or places of sepulture. I have seen about half a dozen skulls found in different parts of England, in situations which rendered it highly probable that they belonged to ancient Britons. All these partook of one striking characteristic, viz., a remarkable narrowness of the forehead compared with the occiput, giving a very small space to the anterior lobes of the brain, and allowing room for a large development of the posterior lobes. There are some modern English and Welsh heads to be seen of a similar form, but they are not numerous.”214

The crania already noticed from the Scottish tumuli, it is obvious, include two greatly differing types, one of which, at least, cannot with strict propriety be described as either remarkably narrow or very small in the forehead, when compared with the occiput. The description of Dr. Prichard will, however, be frequently found applicable to those of the brachy-kephalic type, examples of which, it may be presumed, have fallen under his notice. The peculiar characteristic of the primeval Scottish type appears rather to be a narrow prolongation of the occiput in the region of the cerebellum, suggesting the term already applied to them of boat-shaped, and for which the name of Kumbekephalæ may perhaps be conveniently employed to distinguish them from the higher type with which they are otherwise apt to be confounded. Dr. Thurnam remarks,—“The few crania which I have myself seen from early British tumuli, correspond very much with Dr. Prichard’s description. They had, for the most part, a shortened oval form; ample behind, and somewhat narrow and receding in the forehead. The cranium from the undoubtedly British tumulus at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, has this general form; it is, however, unusually large, and not deficient in frontal development; its form, too, is in some respects fine, particularly as regards the full supra-orbital region, and the high and fully developed middle head.”215 The Rev. Abner W. Brown, vicar of Pitchley, Northamptonshire, furnished to the Archæological Association in 1846 an interesting account of some British Kistvaens found there under very remarkable circumstances. The name of the locality is spelt in Doomsday-book Pihtes-lea and Picts-lei, terms sufficiently suggestive of the Celtic Picts or Ffichti of the north. “The skeleton which we have endeavoured to preserve,” the writer remarks, “is that of a muscular well-proportioned young man, probably five feet nine inches high. The teeth are fine; the wisdom teeth scarcely developed. The facial line in some of the skulls appeared to be very fine. This skull exhibits the peculiar lengthy form, the prominent and high cheek-bones, and the remarkable narrowness of forehead which characterize the Celtic races, and distinguish theirs from the rounder, broader skulls, and more upright facial line, of the Teutonic tribes.”216 It is obvious, however, from the above description, that the ancient crania of Pihtes-lea differ greatly from the true Celtic type, and correspond rather to the Kumbekephalæ. The whole circumstances attendant on their discovery indicate their belonging to a very remote era. The venerable church of Pitchley, an edifice still retaining original work of the beginning of the twelfth century, having begun to exhibit alarming symptoms of decrepitude, was carefully repaired and restored, even to the foundations. In reconstructing one of the principal pillars, the startling fact was brought to light, that the Norman builders had laid the foundation of the pillar in ignorance of a rude hollow cist lying directly underneath, with only about a foot of soil between. Other portions of the edifice were discovered to have been, in like manner, unconsciously founded above the graves of an elder race, and it at length became apparent that the ancient churchyard was entirely superimposed on a still older cemetery. “Below the foundation, though above the level of the kistvaens, there were common graves; in one of them was the skeleton of a beheaded person lying at full length, the head placed upon the breast, one of the neck-bones having apparently been divided.” Pitchley Church belonged, even before the Conquest, to the Abbey of Peterborough. It was probably one of the earliest English sites of a Christian church; yet the British or Saxon graves of the upper tier, made in ignorance of the older cists below, had become sufficiently consolidated at the date of the Norman foundation to admit of the building of a solid and durable fabric above them. The cists lay nearly east and west, the bodies at full length, lying on their right sides, with the faces looking to the south, and the arms crossed in a peculiar way—the right arm across the breast, with its hand touching the left shoulder, and the left arm straight across, so that its hand touched the right elbow.217 Both Norman and Roman coins were found near the surface; deeper down lay fragments of coarse unglazed British and also of Roman pottery, and close to, or within one of the cists, a rude oblong amethyst, about an inch long, perforated lengthwise. In another were small pieces of charcoal, and a fragment of British pottery; and in a third an unusually large tusk of a wild boar. Mr. Brown, conceiving the position of the bodies to prove the introduction of Christian sepulchral rites, supposes these cists to have belonged to the Christians of Romanized Britain, before the Saxon invasion. It seems more probable that they pertain to that far older era which preceded the singular Pagan rites accompanying the circumscribed cist. The cranial characteristics appear to confirm this idea, and it is only on such a supposition that we can conceive of the establishment of the graveyard upon the site, in entire ignorance of the primeval cemetery buried beneath the accumulated debris of later generations. Another skeleton, found near Maidstone, in a circumscribed cist of peculiar construction, and undoubtedly of Pagan origin, is thus described by the Rev. Beal Post:—“The state of the skull, from the sutures being much obliterated, shewed the individual to have been about seventy years of age; the form of the skull also shewed that he did not belong to the present race which possess the island, but to the Celtic division of the European family. It was very narrow in the front part, and low in the forehead, exhibiting but little development of the intellectual faculties, while the organs of self-preservation, and other inferior organs in the hinder parts of the skull, were strongly developed. The bones seem to be those of a person about five feet seven inches high, the thigh-bone being seventeen inches long, and the other bones in proportion. The teeth, apparently, had been every one in a sound state. None of those found were in a state of decay, even incipiently so.”218 In both of these interesting examples it is obvious that the term Celtic is loosely applied in contradistinction to Saxon or Teutonic, and in accordance with the preconceived idea that the Celtæ are the primeval colonists of Britain. The forms of these crania appear clearly to lead to a different conclusion. Such are some of the observations heretofore made on the physical characteristics of the primitive Briton. Scanty as they are, they possess considerable value to us in the attempt to recover the lost chapters of his history. Imperfect as the development of the intellectual faculties appear to have been, there is sufficient evidence to justify the conclusion, that the races of the tumuli, whether regarded as Allophylian or Celtic, were abundantly capable of civilisation, and possessed a cerebral capacity fully equal to that of nations which have carried the practical and decorative arts far in advance of a mere archaic period.

One characteristic feature observed in the skulls of various tumuli is the state of the teeth. It is rare to find among them any symptoms of irregularity or decay. Sir R. C. Hoare remarks of those of Wiltshire,—“The singular beauty of the teeth has often attracted our attention; we have seldom found one unsound or one missing, except in the cases of apparent old age. This peculiarity may be easily accounted for. The Britons led a pastoral life, feeding upon the milk of their flocks and the venison of their forests; and the sweets of the West Indies were to them totally unknown.” In the tumular cemetery at North Berwick, the teeth of the skulls, though sound, were worn, in most cases completely flat, like those of a ruminating animal. Dr. Thurnam remarks the same to have been the case with the teeth examined by him in those of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Lamel Hill; and it is also observable in an under jaw found along with other remains of a human skull, an iron hatchet, and several large boars’ tusks, in a deep excavation on the south bank of the Castlehill of Edinburgh. The jaw, with the accompanying relics, are in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. The same peculiarity is referred to, as observed in a remarkable discovery of human remains in the Kent’s Hole Cave, near Torquay, made by the late Rev. J. MacEnery during his geological researches in that locality. As the account of this discovery, which is accompanied with details of great value to the archæologist, has only been recovered through the zeal of Mr. Edward Vivian, since the death of the author, and printed in a local periodical,219 it is extracted here at considerable length. It was to Mr. MacEnery’s researches that Buckland and others of the earlier modern geologists owed their most valuable data; and some of the rarest palæontological specimens in the British Museum originally belonged to his private collection. Kent’s Hole is referred to by Professor Owen, in his History of British Fossil Mammals, as “perhaps the richest cave depository of bears hitherto found in England.” The roof is clustered with pendant cones of stalactite, and the floor thickly paved with concretions of stalagmite, the accumulations of many centuries, which have sealed down the floor hermetically, and preserved the relics both of the geologist and the archæologist safe from disturbance, and protected from decay.

“The floor we found, at our first visit, covered, through its whole extent, with a darkish mould, varying in depth from a few inches to a foot. It only dates since the cavern became a popular place of resort, and the further progress of the stalagmite in open situations was interrupted by the trampling of visitors. In the vestibule were found, deep imbedded in it, those curiously shaped pieces of oak to which the appellation of Druids’ sandal was given,220 together with a quantity of decomposed animal and vegetable matter, the remains of fires and feasts, mingled with rabbit bones....

“At the hazard of unnecessarily charging the thread of my narrative with seemingly frivolous particulars, I proceed to note down the characters presented by its general aspect, no less than its contents, before it was altered by those operations which have since left no part of it in its virgin state. It is only on a just appreciation of all their circumstances that a true estimate can be founded of those facts which should serve as the basis of all reasoning on its nature and history.

“The floor of the entrance, except that it had the appearance of being broken up, offered nothing remarkable to detain us; we shall have occasion to return to it presently. Not so the lateral branch by which it communicates with the body of the cavern on the left. Under a ledge on the left was found the usual sprinkling of modern bones, and, in the mould beneath, which had acquired the consistence of hard clay, were fragments of pottery, calcined bones, charcoal, and ashes; in the midst of all were dispersed arrow-heads of flint and chert. The ashes furnished a large proportion of the mould.

“In the same heap were discovered round slabs of roofing slate of a plate-like form, some crushed, others entire. The pottery is of the rudest description, made of coarse gritty earth, not turned on a lathe, and sunbaked; on its external margin it bears zigzag indentations, not unlike those represented on the urns found by Sir Richard Hoare in the barrows of Wiltshire. These fragments, there seems no reason for doubting, are the remains of cinerary urns which once contained the substances scattered around, and to which the slates served for covers.

“At a short distance, nearer the entrance, were found, in a continuation of the same mould, articles of bone of three sorts; some of an inch long, and pointed at one end, or arrow-heads; others about three inches long, rounded, slender, and likewise pointed. Conjecture was long busy as to their destination—they were thought by some to be bodkins, by others for confining the hair, like those ornaments used by the women in Italy; lastly, they were supposed, with more probability, to be a species of pin for fastening the skin in front which served savages for garments. The third article does not seem so easy to explain; it is of a different shape, quite flat, broad at one end, pointed at the other, the broad part retains the truncated form of a comb, the teeth of which were broken off near their root; whether it was used as a comb, or for making nets for fishing, is not clear. There was only this solitary one found, and two of the former, but several of the first, with a quantity of bone chips. All three bore marks of polish.

“Nearer the mouth are collected a good number of shells of the muscle, limpet, and oyster, with a palate of the scarus. This, as well as the nacker of oysters which was thickly disseminated through the mould, served, as they do at the present day among savages, most probably for ornament. The shell-fish may have furnished bait for fishing. The presence of these rude articles render it probable that they were collected here by the ancient aborigines, who divided their time between the chase and fishing in the adjacent sea.

“Close to the opposite wall, in the same passage, buried in black mould, I found a stone hatchet, or celt, of sienite, the only one found in the cavern. Another of the same material, but of a different shape, I found shortly after not far from the cavern near Anstis Cove, which labourers engaged in making the new cut had just thrown up with the mould.

“As we advanced towards the second mouth, on the same level, were found, though sparingly, pieces of pottery. The most remarkable product of this gallery were round pieces of blue slate, about an inch and a-half in diameter and a quarter thick. They may have served, like the Kimmeridge coal, for money. In the same quarter were likewise found several round pieces of sandstone grit, about the form and size of a dollar, but thicker and rounded at the edge, and in the centre pierced with a hole, by means of which they seem to have been strung together like beads. Clusters of small pipes or icicles of spar, such as depended from the roof at our first visit, we saw collected here in heaps, buried in the mud. Similar collections we had occasion to observe accompanied by charcoal, throughout the entire range of the cavern, sometimes in pits excavated in the stalagmite. Copper ore—with these various articles in the same stuff was picked up—a lump much oxydized, which the late Mr. Phillips analyzed, was found to be pure virgin ore.

“Having taken a general survey of the surface of the floor, we returned to the point from which we set out, viz., the common passage, for the purpose of piercing into the materials below the mould. Here in sinking a foot into the soil, (for of stalagmite there remained only the broken edges adhering to the sides of the passage, and which appeared to be repeated at intervals,) we came upon flints in all forms, confusedly disseminated through the earth, and intermixed with fossil and human bones, the whole slightly agglutinated together by calcareous matter derived from the roof. My collection possesses an example of this aggregation in a mass consisting of pebbles, clay, and bone, in the midst of which is imbedded a fine blade of flint, all united together by sparry cement.

“The flints were in all conditions; from the rounded pebble as it came out of the chalk, to the instruments fabricated from them, as arrow and spear-heads, and hatchets. Some of the flint blocks were chipped only on one side, such as had probably furnished the axes, others on several faces, presenting planes corresponding exactly to the long blades found by their side, and from which they had been evidently sliced off; other pebbles still more angular and chipped at all points, were no doubt those which yielded the small arrow-heads. These abounded in by far the greatest number. Small irregular splinters, not referrible to any of the above divisions, and which seem to have been struck off in the operation of detaching the latter, not unlike the small chips in a sculptor’s shop, were thickly scattered through the stuff, indicating that this spot was the workshop where the savage prepared his weapons of the chase, taking advantage of its cover and the light.

“I have discovered in this passage precisely similar arrow-heads to those which I detected in an urn from a barrow presented to me by the Rev. Mr. Welland.

“With the exception of the Boar spear [of iron] and a blade of the same metal found not far from it, very much rusted, all the articles in the mould or in the disturbed soil consisted of flint, chert, sienite, and bone—such primitive substances as have been in all countries and down to the present, used by the savage for the fabrication of his weapons, whether for the chase or battle.

“At a still greater depth, near the common entrance in the passage, lay extended lengthwise in the ordinary position of burial, the remains of a human skeleton much decayed; two portions only of the jaw and some single teeth, with the mouldering vertebræ and ribs, were all that remained. As in the case of the flint knife mass, already described, there adhered to the jaw portions of the soil on which it lay, and of the stalagmite which partly covered it.

“The teeth were so worn down that the flat crowns of the incisors might be mistaken for molars,221 indicating the advanced age of the individual. M. Cuvier, to whom I submitted the fragment in 1831, was struck with the form of the jaw. He pronounced it to belong to the Caucasian race. He promised to bestow particular notice on it, but death, unhappily for science, put a stop to his labours. All the specimens, together with a collection of fossil bones, the third I had presented to the museum of the Jardin des Plantes, I transmitted to him before I quitted the continent, and they may be found among his effects. The skeleton lay about a foot and a half below the surface; from the tumbled state of the earth, the admixture of flags of stalagmite, added to the presence of flint articles and pieces of slate, it was manifest that the floor had been dug up for the reception of the body, and that it was again covered over with the materials thrown up from the excavation. The earthy covering consisted of the red soil, containing fossil bones mixed up with recent mould, the mound of earth outside the mouth, at the right hand, was thrown up from the passage to render it more accessible. It was precisely that which covered the human skeleton, and contained the admixture of human and fossil relics.

“Previous to the disturbance of the floor for the admission of the body, it would appear, from the presence of flags of stalagmite in the rubble, that it was covered with a continuous crust, the edges indeed of which still adhere to the sides. It further appears from the repetition of similar crusts, as indicated by the broken edges at the sides, that there were periods of repose which allowed new floors to form, marking clearly their repeated destruction and renovation at intervals of time.

“With the exception of single teeth and an occasional rib or vertebra in charcoal, which may have possibly belonged to the same subject, there were no other traces of human remains.”222

The peculiarity in the teeth of certain classes of ancient crania above referred to is of very general application, and has been observed as common even among British sailors. The cause is obvious, resulting from the similarity of food in both cases. The old Briton of the Anglo-Roman period, and the Saxon both of England and the Scottish Lothians, had lived to a great extent on barley bread, oaten cakes, parched peas, or the like fare, producing the same results on his teeth as the hard sea-biscuit does on those of the British sailor. Such, however, is not generally the case, and in no instance, indeed, to the same extent in the skulls found in the earlier British tumuli. In the Scottish examples described above the teeth are mostly very perfect, and their crowns not at all worn down. In that marked No. 5, one of those found at Cockenzie, the under jaw has been preserved, and in it the wisdom teeth are only partially developed, indicating the age of the individual. The perfectly formed teeth are not much more worn than those which had never pierced the gums.

The inferences to be drawn from such a comparison are of considerable value in the indications they afford of the domestic habits and social life of a race, the last survivor of which has mouldered underneath his green tumulus, perchance for centuries before the era of our earliest authentic chronicles. As a means of comparison this characteristic appearance of the teeth manifestly furnishes one means of discriminating between an early and a still earlier, if not primeval period, and though not in itself conclusive, it may be found of considerable value when taken in connexion with the other and still more obvious peculiarities of the crania of the earliest barrows. We perceive from it, at least, that a very decided change took place in the common food of the country, from the period when the native Briton of the primeval period pursued the chase with the flint lance and arrow, and the spear of deer’s horn, to that comparatively recent period when the Saxon marauders began to effect settlements and build houses on the scenes where they had ravaged the villages of the older British natives. The first class, we may infer, attempted little cultivation of the soil. Improving on the precarious chances of a mere nomadic or hunter life, we have been led to suppose, from other evidence, that the early Briton introduced the rudiments of a pastoral life, while yet his dwelling was only the slight circular earth-pit, in-covered with overhanging boughs and skins. To the spoils of the chase he would then add the milk of his flock of goats or sheep, probably with no other addition than such wild esculents, mast, or fruits, as might be gathered without labour in the glades of the neighbouring forest. But the social state in the British Isles was a progressive one. Whether by the gradual improvement of the aboriginal race, or by the incursion of foreign tribes already familiar with the fruits of agricultural labour, the wild pastoral or hunter life of the first settlers was exchanged for one more suited to call forth the social virtues. The increase of the population, whether by the ingress of such new tribes, or by the numerical progression of the first settlers, would of itself put an end to the possibility of finding subsistence by means of the chase. Thus it might be from the inventive industry which privations force into activity that new wants were first discovered, new tastes were created, and satisfied by the annual harvests of golden grain. The ploughshare and the pruning-hook divided attention with the sword and the spear, which they could not supplant; and the ingenious agriculturist devised his oaken querne, his stone-rubber, or corn-crusher, and at length his simple yet effective hand-mill, which resisted, during many centuries of change and progress, all attempts to supersede it by more complicated machinery. Dr. Pettigrew, in communicating the results of a series of observations on the bones found in various English barrows, remarks,—“The state of the teeth in all of them indicated that the people had lived chiefly on grain and roots.”223 The dry, hard oaten cake of the Scottish peasant, which may have been in use almost from the first attempt at cultivation of the favourite national grain, would probably prove as effective as any of the presumed vegetable foods for producing such results. We need not, at any rate, evidence to satisfy us that the luxuries which have rendered the services of the dentist so indispensable to the modern Briton were altogether excluded from the regimen of his rude forefathers.

Sir Richard Colt Hoare commences the great work which has secured for him so distinguished a place among British archæologists, with the motto—“We speak from facts, not theory.” While seeking to render the facts of Scottish Archæology fully available, it is my earnest desire to follow in the footsteps of a leader so proved. The inferences attempted to be deduced from such facts as have been accumulated here, with a view to discover some elementary principles for the guidance of Scottish archæologists, are such as appear naturally and logically to follow from them. Still they are stated apart from the premises, and those who have followed thus far ungrudgingly in exploring the primeval sepulchres of Scotland, will find no difficulty in pausing ere they commit themselves to the same guidance in seeking also some glimpses of the native hearth and pastoral inclosures, and of the evidences of that inventive skill which succeeded to such simple arts. We would fain reanimate the ashes in these long buried urns, and interrogate the rude British patriarch regarding a state of being which for centuries—perhaps for many ages—pertained on these very spots where now our churches, palaces, and our homeliest dwellings are reared, but which seems almost as inconceivable to us as that other state of being, to which we know the old Briton, with all the seed of Adam, has passed.

It may appear to some a service of little value, the unrolling of these “mute inglorious” records. Yet somewhat is surely gained when we reach the beginnings of things, and substitute for the old historic mist-land of myth and fable, a coherent and intelligible, though dry and somewhat meagre array of facts and legitimate deductions. It is no longer needful, however, to defend the object of our research. It is to some extent the same which the ethnologist is pursuing by a different route; though the palæontological investigations of the archæologist have yet to establish their true value in the estimation of men of science by the nature of their results. For this we wait in hope. I would only meanwhile repeat, that we cannot be justified in concluding any knowledge which once existed to be utterly lost beyond recall; and if the geologist has been able to recover so much from annals that seemed to have been folded up and laid aside ere this race was summoned into being to people a renovated world, surely we ought not to despair of being yet able to fill up our meagre outline with many details which shall satisfy the severest demands of inductive philosophy, and rest their claims to acceptance not on theory but on fact.

Footnotes

20 Owen’s British Fossil Mammals, p. 179.

21 Owen’s British Fossil Mammals, p. 462.

22 Ibid. Introd. p. xxxiii.

23 British Association for Advancement of Science, Report for 1847, p. 31; and Owen, Introd. p. xxxiii.

24 Owen’s British Fossil Mammals, p. 107. An interesting account of the discovery of antiquities of human remains in Kent’s Hole, one of the most remarkable British ossiferous caves, is given in a subsequent chapter from the narrative of the Rev. J. M’Enery, F.G.S.

25 Ibid. p. 197.

26 History of British Animals, p. 24.

27 British Fossil Mammals, p. 500.

28 British Fossil Mammals, p. 162.

29 Anniversary Address to the Zoological Society, 1830.

30 Pennant’s Tour, vol. ii. p. 107.

31 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. vol. i. p. 160.

32 New Stat. Acc. vol. iv. Wigtonshire, p. 179.

33 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. vol. viii. p. 305. New Stat. Acc. vol. iv., Kirkcudbrightshire, p. 155.

34 Archæologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 299.

35 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. vol. xv. p. 68.

36 Beauties of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 419.

37 Bibliotheca Topog. Britan., No. II. Part III. p. 242.

38 Wernerian Trans. vol. iv. p. 58.

39 Wernerian Trans. vol. v. p. 44.

40 Brit. Fossil Mammals, p. 542.

41 Vide Wern. Trans. vol. iii. p. 125, for the characteristic remains included in the recent alluvial formation of the valley of the Forth.

42 For access to this interesting relic, as well as for much other valuable information, I am indebted to John Buchanan, Esq., of Glasgow.

43 Chapman’s Picture of Glasgow, 1818, p. 152.

44 Chambers’s Ancient Sea Margins, pp. 203-209.

45 MS. Letters of J. Buchanan, Esq.

46 New Statist. Acc. vol. vi. p. 601.

47 New Statistical Account, vol. xii. p. 1059.

48 MS. Letter of Lieut. Claudius Shaw, R.N. Lib. Soc. Antiq. Scot., April 19, 1833.

49 Annals, vol. i. p. 266.

50 Sir Thomas Browne’s Hydriotaphia.

51 Hibbert’s Shetland, p. 452.

52 Account of the Islands of Orkney, by James Wallace, M.D., 1700, p. 58.

53 Notices of remains found in tumuli and cists, of gigantic stature, frequently occur in the Statistical Accounts and other local records, but the statements are generally too vague to be of any value. Erroneous opinions, I believe, most frequently arise from comparing the femur or thigh-bone with the apparent length of the thigh, by persons ignorant of anatomy. Nothing, however, more readily secures distinction among a rude warlike people than the personal strength accompanying superior stature, if combined with corresponding courage; it need not therefore excite surprise if the larger tumuli should occasionally be found to cover the remains of some primitive chief of gigantic stature.

54 The account which Tacitus gives of the simpler rites of the ancient Germans probably more nearly accords with those of the primitive Britons: “Funerum nulla ambitio; id solum observatur, ut corpora clarorum virorum certis lignis crementur. Struem rogi nec vestibus, nec odoribus cumulant; sua cuique arma, quorundam igni et equus adjicitur.”—Tacit. de Morib. Germ. cap. 27.

55 Ipsum cremare apud Romanos non fuit veteris instituti, terra condebantur.—Hist. Nat. lib. vii. c. 54.

56 Cases occur where the original tumulus has been adopted as a place of sepulture long subsequent to its original construction. Care is therefore required to discriminate between superficial interments of late date, and the original cist or urns; but it is rarely difficult to detect the evidences of intrusion. The slight depth at which they are generally interred affords in itself a striking contrast to the labour exercised by the constructors of the sepulchral mound. It is also to be borne in remembrance, that all the urns found in tumuli are not sepulchral, or proofs of cremation.

57 De Bell. Gall. lib. vi. chap. 19.

58 Dr. Hodgkin read a paper at the meeting of the British Association, held at York in 1844, on the dog as the associate of man, chiefly with a view to shew how much the study of the inferior animals which, by accident or design, have accompanied man in his diffusion over the globe, is calculated to throw light on the affinities of races.

59 Ure’s History of Rutherglen, p. 124.

60 Ure’s History of Kilbride, pp. 216-219.

61 By N. K. Sjöborg. Two vols. quarto. Stockholm, 1822.

62 Graham’s Antiquities of Iona, Plate III.

63 Worsaae’s Primeval Antiquities, p. 109.

64 Sinclair’s Statist. Acc. vol. xix. p. 441.

65 New Statist. Acc. vol. x. p. 717.

66 Petrie’s Eccles. Architect. of Ireland, pp. 103-5.

67 Add. to Camd. Brit. in Radnorshire.

68 New Statist. Acc. vol. iv., Kirkcudbright, pp. 132, 133.

69 Pennant’s Tour, vol. i. p. 156.

70 New Statist. Acc., Dumfriesshire, vol. iv. p. 475.

71 Itiner. Septen. Append. pp. 171-177.

72 Dumfries Journal, June 24, 1828. MS. Communication, Soc. Antiq. Scot., Andrew Brown, Esq., read March 9, 1829.

73 Sinclair’s Statistical Account, vol. i. p. 292.

74 Ure’s Kilbride, p. 213.

75 Itin. Septen. p. 42.

76 Sinclair’s Statistical Account, vol. viii. p. 497.

77 This point has been conclusively established in the valuable communications of Mr. F. C. Lukis to the Archæological Journal, on the Primeval Antiquities of the Channel Islands, vol. i. pp. 142, 222. The original merit, however, of showing that cromlechs are “sepulchral chambers,” and not “Druidical altars,” is, I believe, due to a well-known and zealous antiquary, Mr. John Bell, of Dungannon, who published his views in the Newry Magazine, 1816, vol. ii. p. 234, from whence they were copied into various other journals.

78 E. B. Barrett.

79 Martin’s Western Isles, p. 220.

80 Archæol. Scot. vol. iii. p. 43.

81 Journal of Brit. Archæol. Association, vol. iii. p. 342.

82 While this sheet is passing through the press, I have had an opportunity of exploring this cromlech. The natural rock was laid bare at a very little depth without meeting with the slightest traces of sepulchral remains, and were it not for the remarkable line of perforations along the centre of the capstone, the whole might have been ascribed to a natural origin. It was found impossible, however, to get directly under the great stone, without the risk of overthrowing the whole.

83 MS. Letter, George Petrie, Kirkwall.

84 Archæol. Scot. vol. iii. p. 42.

85 Archæol. Scot. vol. ii. pp. 77, 100.

86 Archæol. Scot. vol. iii. p. 48.

87 Archæol. Scot. vol. iii. p. 49.

88 Ure’s Kilbride, p. 213.

89 MS. Letter, G. W. Knight, Libr. Soc. Antiq. Scot. 1829.

90 Ure’s Rutherglen, p. 223.

91 Archæol. Scot. vol. ii. p. 54.

92 Bell. Gall. lib. v. c. xii.

93 Sinclair’s Statist. Acc. vol. iv. p. 101.

94 Caledonia, vol. i. p. 97. Vide also New Stat. Acc. vol. vii., Renfrewshire, 502, &c.

95 Martin’s Western Isles, pp. 67, 87, 154.

96 Archæol. Scot. vol. ii. p. 52.

97 New Statist. Acc. vol. xii. p. 545.

98 Sinclair’s Statist. Acc. vol. xiv. p. 526.

99 Sinclair’s Statist, Acc. vol. xiii. p. 117.

100 Pennant’s Tour, vol. i. Appendix, p. 339.

101 De Moribus Germanorum, c. 16.

102 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. vol. xvii. p. 237.

103 History of Orkney, p. 99.

104 Pennant’s Tour, vol. iii. p. 454.

105 Lord of the Isles, Canto iv.

106 Caledonia, vol. i. p. 97.

107 Sinclair’s Statist. Acc. vol. iv. p. 546.

108 Archæologia, vol. xxv. p. 24. References to such landmarks are not uncommon in ancient charters. Notice of certain bound stones, at Stansfield, Staffordshire, occurs in a deed dated 6 Henry VII., ibid. vol. ii. p. 359, and similar allusions are common in the Scottish chartularies.

109 Joshua xv. 6; xviii. 17; Deut. xix. 14; Prov. xxii. 28, &c.

110 Wyntoun’s Cronyklis, book v. chap. vii. fol. 88.

111 Gael. cam; Gr. καμψος; Lat. curvus; Gael. camus, a bay. The prefix cam, or crooked, enters into many Gaelic compounds and proper names.

112 Bellenden’s Boece, b. xi. chap. viii.

113 Roy’s Military Antiquities, p. 103.

114 Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 233.

115 Gael. Tanaiste, a thane or lord, the next heir to an estate.

116 Wyntownis Cronykil, book iii. chap. ix.

117 Transac. Royal Irish Academy, vol. xviii. p. 159. Dr. Petrie challenges the pedigree of the Scottish Lia Fail, and even goes some length to establish the reputation of a stone at Tara as the genuine one, but the Scottish stone has too faithfully fulfilled its character as the Stone of Destiny to admit of any such unaccredited rival!

118 Vide Hailes’ Annals, note, vol. ii. p. 242.

119 Judges ix. 6.

120 2 Kings xi. 14.

121 Archæol. Hibern. p. 19.

122 Borlase, p. 177, Plate XIV.

123 Archæol. Scot. vol iii. p. 122.

124 Eyrbiggia Saga. Abstract Illust. of Northern Antiquities, p. 479.

125 Sir Walter Scott speaks of this ceremony as confined to the lower classes, at the time of his writing the “Pirate;” but this is contradicted by the statement of Dr. Henry, and there is every reason to believe that it had fallen at a much earlier period into disuse.

126 Archæol. Scot. vol. i. p. 263.

127 Sinclair’s Statist. Acc. vol. xvii. p. 235.

128 Peterkin’s Notes on Orkney, p. 21.

129 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. i.

130 Pyramids of Gizeh, vol. i. p. 54.

131 The Menai tubes, composed of wrought-iron plates, measure each 1524 feet in length, and the weight of the whole is estimated at 10,540 tons. This enormous structure had to be raised a height of 100 feet, and thrown over an arm of the sea 1100 feet in width, and navigable by the largest ships.

132 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. vol. xvii. p. 110.

133 Archæologia, vol. vii. p. 414.

134 Wallace’s Orkney, p. 53.

135 A. Z., a native of Orkney, resident in London, who under this title presented to the Society from time to time a curious and valuable collection of books relating to the Orkney and Shetland Islands, accompanied with copious MS. notes, some of which contain touching allusions to the fond recollections cherished by him of his native place.

136 Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 480.

137 The following is the passage to which Sir Walter Scott refers:—“Visitur ibi hodiedum circulus concessus judicialis intra quem homines, Diis victima fieri jubebantur. Eminensque in isto circulo Saxum Thoris, in quo hominibus sacrificio destinatis terga confracta sunt, quodque sanguinem adhuc colorem conspiciendum præbet,” &c. (Eyrbiggia Saga. G. J. Thorkelin, 1787. P. 27.) But a much more minute account is given in an earlier portion of the Saga, where Thorolf ascertains the destined site of the new temple by casting its wooden pillars into the sea, and accepting as the sacred spot a promontory to which they were borne by the tides. This is the description of the erection, which it will be seen is something different from a mere circle of stones:—“At Hofsvog he caused a temple to be erected, a house of vast magnitude, with doors in the side wall, somewhat near to either extremity. Within the doors were the pillars of the chief seat, secured with nails, and called sacred or divine. In the interior another chamber was constructed in the shape which the chancels of churches now have, in the middle of the pavement of which stood the pulvinar, as well as the altar,” &c. Vide Ibid. p. 11.

138 MS. Letter, John Stuart, Esq., Advocate, Aberdeen, 1888. Libr. Soc. Antiq. Scot.

139 The name Stennis, of Norwegian origin, was obviously the apposite description suggested to the first Scandinavian voyagers by the appearance of the singular tongue of land, crowned by its monolithic circle; but the death of Earl Havard, as mentioned in the Northern Sagas, conferred on it new associations and a corresponding name. Professor Munch, whose natural bias as a Norwegian might have inclined him to claim for his countrymen the erection of the Great Scottish Circle, remarks, in a recent letter to me:—“Stennis is the old Norn Steinsnes, that is, ‘the promontory of the stones;’ and that name it bore already when Havard fell, in the beginning of the island, being Scandinavian. This shows that the Scandinavian settlers found the stones already standing;—in other words, that the standing stones belonged to the population previous to the Scandinavian settlement.”

140 Archæol. Scot. vol. iii. p. 211.

141 Archæologia, vol. xxii. p. 55; vol. xxv. p. 614, &c.

142 Hibbert on the Tings of Orkney and Shetland. Archæol. Scot. vol. iii. p. 141.

143 Regist. Episcop. Aberdon. vol. i. p. 79.

144 Regist. Episcop. Morav. p. 184.

145 Archæologia, vol. xvi. p. 353.

146 Logan’s Scottish Gael, vol. ii. p. 322; Macculloch’s Highlands and Isles, vol. iii. p. 232.

147 Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, p. 110.

148 Archæol. Index, p. 34.

149 Archæol. Scot. vol. iii. p. 46.

150 Scots Mag., Feb. 7, 1790.

151 MS. letters, Mr. J. C. Brown, A.R.S.A. An interesting account of the discovery of numerous flint flakes, and weapons in all stages of progress, in the celebrated ossiferous cave of Kent’s Hole, near Torquay, is introduced in a subsequent chapter.

[152] Lines written on visiting a scene in Argyleshire.

153 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. vol. xvii. p. 115.

154 They are described by this name of thunderstones in Sir Robert Sibbald’s Portes Coloniæ et Castellæ, Plate II. Nos. 1-6.

155 Fornaldar Sögur Nordlanda. Copenhagen, 1829.

156 Gentleman’s Mag. 1797, Part II. p. 200.

157 Catalogue of Antiquities, Soc. Antiq. Lond. p. 14.

158 I have retained the name of stone celt, notwithstanding its rejection by Mr. Worsaae and his intelligent English editor, in the “Primeval Antiquities of Denmark applied to the illustration of similar remains in England.” The advantage of a fixed terminology cannot be overestimated; but in this case the term is of great value in order to distinguish a peculiar class of stone implements more frequently found in Scotland and Ireland than the stone or flint hatchet, and to which the British antiquary has special grounds for applying it. Both Owen and Spurrel give, as the meaning of the ancient Cambro-British celt, a flint stone. I propose, therefore, to retain it in what is obviously its primary acceptation, applying the name of bronze celt to the metal weapon afterwards substituted for it.

159 Vide Hibbert’s Shetland, pp. 247-250.

160 Antiquités Celtiques et Antidiluviennes.

161 Vide ante, p. 35.

162 Archæological Journal, vol. iv. p. 3.

163 New Statist. Acc., Kirkcudbrightshire, vol. iv. p. 332.

164 New Statist. Acc, Argyleshire, vol. vii. p. 243.

165 Sinclair’s Statistical Account, vol. x. p. 186.

166 New Statist. Acc. vol. vi. p. 734.

167 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi, p. 219.

168 Archæol. Scotica, vol. iv. p. 188.

169 Barry’s Hist. Orkney Islands, p. 206.

170 Carey’s Dante, Canto ix. l. 97.

171 MS. Soc. Ant. Scot. Rev. Charles Clouston.

172 New Stat. Acc., Lanarkshire, vol. vi. p 734.

173 Barry’s Orkney, p. 206.

174 New Stat. Acc., Kirkcudbrightshire, vol. iv. p. 196.

175 New Stat. Acc., Wigtonshire, p. 143.

176 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. vol. xix. p. 59.

177 Pennant’s Tour, vol i. p. 116.

178 Barry’s History of the Orkney Islands, p. 206.

179 Minutes of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 27th April 1829.

180 New Statist. Acc. vol. ix. p. 60.

181 New Statist. Acc. vol. v. p. 256.

182 Sinclair’s Statist. Acc. vol. xiii. p. 383. Vide also vol iii. p. 57. Archæological Journal, vol. ii. p. 80.

183 The inferior articular surface of the bone has separated, which supplies evidence of its having been a lamb, union not having taken place owing to the youth of the animal.

184 Wallace’s Orkney, p. 56.

185 Hibbert’s Shetland, p. 412.

186 Sinclair’s Statist. Acc. vol. xvii. p. 287.

187 This is a name given to circles of standing stones in the Gaelic, from Taoursach or Tuirseach, mournful, and has been supposed to originate in the traditions of human sacrifices believed to have been offered within these inclosures. Vide Archæol. Scot. vol. i. p. 283. In the Journal of the Archæological Association (vol. ii. p. 340) a notice occurs of “a singular bowl-shaped cist and triangular cover of Bethesden limestone, found in Charing Church, Kent.”

188 Archæol. Scot. vol. i. p. 284.

189 Smith’s Life of Columba, p. 60.

190 Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, 2d edit. p. 342.

191 Archæol. Scot. vol. iii. p. 299.

192 Archæologia, vol. viii. p. 429. Plate XXX. fig. 6.

193 Ancient Wiltshire, Plates II. and XII.

194 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. i. p. 237.

195 Prichard’s Natural Hist. of Man, 3d edit. p. 108.

196 Ibid. p. 21.

197 Natural History of Man, p. 186.

198 On the Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia, by Professor Nillson of Lund.

199 Natural History of Man, pp. 192, 193.

200 Morton’s Crania Americana, p. 16.

201 Natural History of Man, p. 193.

202 Archæol. Journal, vol. vi. pp. 27-39, 123-136.

203 In taking these measurements I have been efficiently assisted by Mr. John Zaglas, anatomical assistant to Professor Goodsir of Edinburgh University, and by Dr. John Alexander Smith. Nearly all of the measurements have been repeated several times, and may therefore be received as accurate.

204 Archæol. Scot. vol. iv. pp. 43, 44.

205 MSS. Library S.A. Scot. Nov. 28, 1834.

206 Two mortaria, obtained from this shaft, along with the iron spear-head, are now in the possession of John Miller, Esq. of Millfield, C.E. The spear-head will be found figured in a later chapter. The skull is now in the possession of John Alexander Smith, M.D., but it is his intention to deposit it in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries.

207 Regist. Prior. S. Andree, p. 114. Lulach the Foolish is mentioned by Scottish chroniclers as reigning after Macbeth for four months, when he also was slain, and interred at Iona.—Annals of the Scots, A.D. 1058.

208 Phrenological Journal, vol. vi. p. 144.

209 Report of British Association for Advancement of Science. Seventeenth Session, 1848. P. 32.

210 Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, vol. ii. p. 110.

211 Archæol. Scotica, vol. iii. p. 44.

212 MSS. Letter, Libr. Soc. Antiq. Scot., December 8, 1817.

213 MSS. Letter, Mr. William Duncan, 13th December 1838.

214 History of Mankind, vol. ii. p. 92.

215 Description of tumular cemetery at Lamel Hill, Archæological Journal, vol. vi. p. 129.

216 Archæological Journal, vol. iii. p. 113.

217 Minute details, such as are given in the text, of the disposition of the arms and hands, are always open to some doubt. Unless where the cist is filled with earth, the bones must necessarily fall from their original position on the decay of the enveloping tissues; and when so filled, the earth has generally percolated into it long subsequent to the interment. Those who have frequently opened barrows must be well aware how difficult it is to ascertain with any certainty much more than the general relative position of the bones and skull.

218 Jour. of Archæol. Association, vol. iv. p. 65.

219 Torquay and Tor Directory, Aug. 14, 1850.

220 “Discovered in the black mould certain rudely shaped pieces of oak, one of which was immediately shewn me by the finder. It was about the length and form of the human foot, and hollowed in the centre, not unlike a sandal.” The name, it should be added, was only meant as a convenient distinctive appellation.

221 In the original notes from which the memoir appears to have been compiled, the condition of this skeleton is thus described:—“Its teeth, most of which I collected, are with one exception sound and un-discoloured, that they belonged to a robust adult, they and the fragments of the skull and vertebræ abundantly testify. The front or incisor teeth are what are called double teeth.”

222 Cavern Researches, or Discoveries of Organic Remains, and of British and Roman Reliques in the Caves of Kent’s Hole, Anstis Cove, &c. By the Rev. J. MacEnery, F.G.S.

223 Archæological Journal, vol. i. p. 272.

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