anything that surpasses the Chambered Cairns of the Stone Age in
significance and interest. Their great antiquity, their peculiarity
of type, and their structural characteristics, associated with the
phenomena of their internal deposits, offer a subject for examination
of prime historic value. There is little doubt that the Long Barrows of
England, and the Chambered Cairns of Caithness, Argyle, and Orkney, are
the monuments of one and the same people; and that in the latter, so
far as we can discover, we reach the representative of primeval man in
Scotland.
Both the long and the short horned cairns of Caithness differ widely
from those of the Bronze Age, and from those of all later periods.
Their structural type is distinguished by two characteristics, namely:
1, by having an internal chamber accessible by a passage; 2, by having
a regular external outline on the ground-plan, structurally defined
by a double or single retaining wall. During the last thirty years a
considerable number of them have been excavated and carefully explored;
and I cannot do better than reproduce briefly a description of a few
typical examples, and then present some details of their internal
contents.
The external dimensions of some of the horned cairns are very great. On
the crest of a hill overlooking the south end of the loch of Yarhouse,
in Caithness, there are two cairns of great magnitude not far from each
other. They lie across the hill from east to west, and have at both
their ends curved horn-like projections, falling gradually to the level
of the ground. The length of the longest one was two hundred and forty
feet, the breadth at its eastern end was sixty-six feet, and at its
western end thirty-six feet; but the curved horns expanded so that the
line across their tips at the eastern end was ninety-two feet, and at
the western end fifty-three feet. The height of the cairn at the east
end was twelve feet, sloping gradually to below five feet at the west
end. When the loose stones were removed from the upper part of the
highest end, a chamber with a passage leading into it was disclosed.
The outer opening of the passage was in the middle between the
projecting horns; and two flat stones placed on end, 2½ feet high,
formed the door jambs on the outside of the entrance. A well built
passage two feet wide runs inward for ten feet, and where it opens
into the chamber, two stones similar to those at the outside entrance,
but higher, are set on end, and form a doorway of eighteen inches wide.
The chamber itself is small compared with the external magnitude of the
cairn; and it only measured twelve feet in length from front to back,
and six feet from side to side. The side walls were entire to a height
of seven feet, and at this height they began to converge to form a
rudely vaulted roof, like the roofs of other erections of dry-built
stone. The chamber is divided into three parts by two pairs of
divisional stones projecting from the side walls opposite to each
other; these stones are undressed flags sunk on end into the floor,
and leaving about two feet between their edges. When the explorers
had cleared the three compartments of the chamber and ascertained
its construction, seeing that the chamber did not occupy more than
a twentieth part of the length of the cairn, they thought that other
chambers would be found within it. The centre was then tried, and
trials were made all round the cairn, but no other chamber was found
in it. The floor of the chamber itself was formed of a dark clay five
inches thick, intermixed with ashes and calcined bones, in a state of
extreme comminution; this layer was easily detached from the natural
subsoil below, and was raised in large cake like masses, each of which
was carried outside to be crumbled and searched. No single fragment
of bone was discovered exceeding an inch in length; and the few bits
which afforded any clear indications, such as portions of teeth and
jawbones, were unmistakably human. A number of small flint chips, and
two fragments of pottery, were the only manufactured articles found.¹
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 230‒236.
The other cairn closely resembled the first one, and stood about three
hundred yards from it. But on the floor of the first compartment of
its chamber a cist was placed to the left of the entrance. The cist was
formed of slabs; and it was four feet four inches long, twenty inches
wide, and nine inches deep to the level of the floor; and in the dark
earthy clay inside of it, there was a whitish layer of softened bones
in a condition of extreme decay. In the east end of the cist, fragments
of an urn were found, and a necklace of small beads of lignite. The
floor of the chamber consisted of a layer of clay and ashes over six
inches thick, intermixed with burnt human bones, and animal bones;
and in the corners of the chamber there were numbers of human teeth,
of which the osseous parts had perished, and the enamel of the crowns
only remained. About three miles from this cairn, another of the same
character lies on the ridge of a height in the Moor of Camster. Its
contents presented phenomena similar to the preceding ones. In the
loose layer on the surface of the floor of the chamber, a few fragments
of skulls and other unburnt bones of the human skeleton were found,
mingled with the splintered bones of the horse, ox, deer, and swine. No
fragments of pottery, flint-chips, or tools of any kind were found in
it.¹
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 237‒243.
In a short cairn of the horned class which lies on a small height at
Ormiegill, near Ulbster, there were found in its chamber a polished
hammer of gray granite, an oval flint knife, and an arrow head, several
flint flakes serrated on one side, and a number of well made scrapers.
Another of the same class, locally called the Cairn of Get, lies in
a hollow among the hills at Garrywhin, near Bruan. Its extreme length
is eighty feet, and its greatest breadth sixty feet; the horns project
about twenty feet in front, and about fifteen feet behind. On the
surface of the floor of the first compartment of the chamber there were
four unburnt human skeletons, and the skulls lying close to the wall
on the right of the entrance. The skulls appeared to Dr. Anderson “to
be fully as well formed as many of the heads to be seen on living men
of the present day.” In the compacted mass of the floor of the chamber,
there were an enormous quantity of human and animal bones, mostly more
or less burnt; and with these were intermixed many chips and flakes of
flint and fragments of pottery.¹
¹ _Ibid._, pages 244‒249.
There are many chambered cairns in Caithness without the external
peculiarity of horns, oval shaped or roundish ones, some of which have
been excavated, and the internal characteristics of their structure
are similar to that of the preceding ones. On the crests of the hills
of Yarhouse, there were four chambered cairns which the late Mr. A. H.
Rhind explored. On the surface of the floors of the chambers he found
unburnt bones and pottery, and in the layers burnt bones and pottery,
but no flints or tools of any description. Dr. Anderson excavated
another cairn on the hill above Bruan, the characteristics of which he
considered as forming a connecting link between the Caithness and the
Orkney forms of chambered cairns. This cairn was forty feet in diameter
and fourteen feet in height, and the passage was ten feet long and two
feet nine inches wide at the entrance, where it was three feet high,
increasing in width and height inwards to the chamber. The interior
differed from that of the preceding ones, inasmuch as it consisted
of a principal chamber of two compartments, and also presented the
peculiarity of a small side chamber opening off the principal one. The
divisional slabs did not rise to the roof, which formed one vault over
both the compartments of the chamber. The walls sloped outwards from
the base to near the middle of their height, and were then brought
inward above the middle by the overlapping of the stones to form
a dome-shaped roof. The small side chamber off the principal one,
measured four feet by three, and three feet six inches in height. Its
floor was formed of a single flag, and on raising it, another flag
was found underneath, and under both a layer of clay four inches deep,
intermingled with charcoal, ashes, and burnt bones; and under this
layer there was a third flag which lay upon the subsoil of the hill.
The entire floor of the principal chamber and the inner part of the
entrance passage was a mass twelve inches thick of broken and burnt
bones mixed with ashes; the human bones were numerous, but so much
broken that it was impossible to determine how many skeletons they
represented. Amongst the animal bones, those of the horse, ox, red-deer,
sheep or goat, and a large-sized dog, were distinguishable. A number of
flint chips, a great quantity of broken pottery, amounting to several
hundreds of fragments, and an oblong pebble with smoothed ends and
sides, and a flat piece of bone three inches long, with a smoothed
chisel-like edge, were found.¹
¹ Anderson’s _Stone and Bronze Ages_, pages 253‒260. A group
of three cairns at Rhinavie, near Skelpick, in Strathnaver,
Sutherlandshire, were examined by the late Mr. MacKay of
Skelpick at the instance of the late Dr. John Stuart; and
more recently, they have been described by the Rev. Robert
Munro, in the _Proceedings of the Society of the Antiquaries
of Scotland_, Volume XVIII., page 228, _et seq._
As mentioned in a preceding page, the long cairns have been found in
many parts of England, in some of the south-western counties, also in
Yorkshire, and they are numerous in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and
Dorsetshire. The long cairns of Caithness “agree with those of England
in being, as a rule, placed approximately east and west, also in having
one end, and that the east, broader and higher than the other, as well
as in other particulars. They are also frequently provided with walls,
which enclose and support them, and have sometimes the peculiarity of
having what have been termed ‘horns.’ These are formed by the enclosing
walls inclining outwards at the ends and then returning with a curve
inwards, making at the point in question a figure something like the
conventional representation of the human heart. This curve usually
constitutes the mode of approach into the burial chamber when it is
placed at the end of the mound. The same remarkable feature is found
in some of the long barrows of the south-west of England. The barrow,
then (a long one at Upper Swell, in Gloucestershire,) may be taken as
a fairly illustrative specimen of the horned variety of Long Barrow――a
variety of the tumulus of the non-metallic period which is represented
in Caithness, as described by Dr. Joseph Anderson, as well as in the
south-west of England, and found to contain there interments similarly
arranged, and pottery and implements of similar type and rudeness
to those we have found here.... This Upper Swell barrow, however,
differs from the other horned cairns in Caithness, Wiltshire, and
Gloucestershire, in having its grave sunk below the natural surface
of the ground, instead of being represented by a chamber with upright
slabs for its walls, and placed on the surface and defined by the
piling of stones round it.”¹ On the other hand, the English specimens
of Long Barrows with horns, have the horns at one end only, usually
at the widest end; while the Caithness cairns have horns at both ends,
and externally this is the chief difference between them. But in the
internal arrangements of the chambers there are also, as might be
expected, several varying features. The character of the internal
deposits in those of England and the North are remarkably similar; the
bones of animals of the same species are found in both, and the tools
and pottery, though not usually numerous in either of their contents,
are also similar; but in the south of England the interments in them
are mostly unburnt, while in the north of Scotland cremation seems to
have been more common.²
¹ _British Barrows_, by Wm. Greenwell, M.A., pages 480, 481,
535‒536.
² “The similarity of this pottery, whether found in
Caithness, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Gloucestershire,
or Wiltshire, is a fact of less doubtful interpretation
and greater significance; especially when we couple with
it a consideration of the similarity of the weapons and
implements, of the similarity of the ground plans of the
Scottish horned cairns and of so many of the Gloucestershire,
Wiltshire, and Somersetshire long barrows, and finally
of the similarity of the skulls from the neolithic
tumuli of all these localities. These similarities are
the more surprising when we recollect how difficult
intercommunication must have been at the period when they
existed.” _British Barrows_, page 537. “The occurrence of
animal bones is another frequent incident. It is rare indeed
to meet with a barrow (where the material is such as to
favour the preservation of bone) without a considerable
number of them being scattered indiscriminately throughout
the mound.... For instance, in one at Rudstone, they were
literally in hundreds, placed with flint-chippings and
shreds of pottery, in a dark-coloured, unctuous layer,
which extended throughout the whole area of the mound,
on the natural surface of the ground.... They may be the
remains of food offered to the dead, an observance which has
extensively prevailed in many countries and in various ages.
They would in this case form part of the practice of the
worship of our ancestors, which has been a feature almost
universal in the growth of the religions of the human race,
and allied always with fear.” _Ibid._, pages 9, 10.
Having indicated at some length one characteristic type of sepulchral
constructions, which prevailed in both divisions of the island, which
seems to show that one ♦homogeneous race had spread over Britain at
a very remote period. The other varieties of chambered cairns can
be noticed only in the briefest terms. Farther north than Caithness,
in the Orkney Isles, there is a remarkable group of cairns of an
exceedingly interesting character; the most notable of these is the
chambered mound of Maeshowe. It lies about a mile to the east of
the great stone circle of Stennis, and externally it presents the
appearance of a mound thirty-six feet in height, ninety-two feet in
diameter, and surrounded by a trench forty feet wide, and still in
some parts eight feet deep. When it was opened from the top a central
chamber was discovered, which measured about fifteen feet square on the
level of the floor, and thirteen feet in height to the top of the walls;
but the upper part of the wall had fallen in, and its original height
may have been about twenty feet. In the east, north, and south sides
of the chamber there are three small openings, at a height of three
feet above the floor, which gives access to cells measuring about four
feet six inches wide, from seven feet to five feet six inches long,
and three feet high. In the middle of the west side of the chamber, the
passage leading to the outside of the mound opens; the doorway is four
feet eight inches high, and three feet four inches wide, decreasing in
height and width as it proceeds outward, and at the external entrance
it is only two feet four inches wide. At thirty feet outward from
the chamber there are checks for a door, and behind them a recess in
one side of the passage, in front of which there was a slab, which
might have been used as a door; and from this point inward the passage
is four feet four inches high, and three feet three inches wide,
continuing thus for twenty-six feet, when it becomes narrowed to two
feet five inches by two slabs placed upright to form checks for the
inmost door.²
♦ “homogenous” replaced with “homogeneous”
² _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume V., pages 247‒252; Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of
Scotland_, Volume I., page 67. I was deeply indebted to the
late Mr. Andrew Gibb, F.S.A. Scotland, of Aberdeen, for
particulars about Maeshowe, and suggestions on many other
points of our prehistoric annals.
The chamber is built of undressed slabs and blocks of the close-grained
claystone of the locality, and, although the walls are built without
any lime or mortar, the masonry is very neat. “Whoever built it, the
chamber of Maeshowe is the most perfect and elegant known to exist in
any sepulchre of its class, on this side of the Alps.”¹ Dr. Anderson
remarks that the indications of its original purpose, and the evidence
of its earlier history, probably lay hidden in its floor, “and have not
been placed on record either by its earlier or later explorers.” From
the character of the structure itself, however, he rightly classes it
with the Caithness chambered cairns.²
¹ _The Brochs and the Rude Stone Monuments of the Orkney
Islands and the North of Scotland_, by J. Fergusson, D.C.L.,
page 28, 1877.
² Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, page 280. It is believed
on pretty good evidence that the chamber of Maeshowe was
broken open by the Norsemen, in the hope of finding treasure,
about the middle of the twelfth century. The walls of
the chamber are covered with Runic inscriptions slightly
scratched on the stones, comprising, it is said, nearly
one thousand letters, and there is no doubt that the
inscriptions were made after the breaking open of the mound.
See _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume V., pages 247‒252, 262‒278; and Anderson’s _Bronze
and Stone Ages_, pages 277‒279.
At Quoyness, in Elsness, in the Island of Sanday, Orkney, a large
chambered cairn was explored in 1867. It lies close to the sea, only
a few feet above high water mark; and its size had been reduced by the
removal of stones for various purposes before it was examined. It was
circular in form, with the entrance to the passage on the south-east
side, and the passage was twenty-four feet long, three feet high, and
twenty inches wide, covered by flat stones laid across, and slightly
widening and increasing in height towards the chamber. The chamber was
oblong, and measured twelve feet six inches in length, and five feet
six inches wide; the walls still stood to a height of twelve feet, but
the roof was gone. Opening off the chamber there were six entrances
to six small oval cells, two of which were placed on each of the long
sides of the central chamber, and one at each of its ends. The walls
of the cells rose with an inward curve to a height of from five to six
feet, and then their roofs were closed with flat stones; the largest of
these cells was seven feet two inches long, and four feet eight inches
wide, and the others somewhat smaller. “At the distance of twelve feet
within the external wall there was a retaining wall, within the mass
of the cairn surrounding the chamber, similar to that in the cairn at
Ormiegill, near Ulbster, in Caithness. The structural characteristics
of this cairn thus combine the peculiarities of two local groups:
the double external walling defining its circular outlines, and the
retaining wall surrounding the chamber, are features of the Caithness
group, and the oblong rectangular chamber, with smaller cells opening
from its sides, are features of the Orkney group.” In the central
chamber, and in three of the smaller cells, quantities of unburnt human
bones were found; and Dr. Thurnam said of them:――“There are fragments
of twelve or fifteen skulls, some male and some female, some of them
children or quite young persons; one or two of them have the appearance
of being cleft prior to being interred, and the teeth in the lower jaws
are much corroded.” Two implements of polished stone were found in one
of the side cells, and a bone tool seven inches long.¹
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 283‒287.
There are other cairns in Orkney of a similar structure. At Quanterness,
near Kirkwall, on the north side of the Wideford Hill, there was
one a hundred and twenty-eight feet in circumference at the base,
and fourteen feet in height. On the western slope of the same hill,
overlooking the Bay of Firth, there is another of a similar class,
which was explored by Mr. George Petrie in 1849. In its chamber
and side cells quantities of the bones of the horse, ox, sheep,
and swine, were found, but no human remains were noticed. There are
other sepulchral cairns in Orkney which show features more closely
resembling the Caithness group. On the Holm of Papa Westray, there
is a cairn which presented the threefold division of the chamber, so
characteristic of the Caithness cairns; and another in the Island of
Burray, which was sixty feet in length. On the floor of the chamber
of the Burray cairn, the remains of a large number of unburnt human
skeletons were found; and ten human skulls were lying in the first
compartment of the chamber, near the opening of the entrance passage.
Large quantities of the bones of the common domestic animals were
identified, amongst which were the skulls of seven dogs. At Ustan,
near the Bridge of Waith, Stennis, a chambered cairn which lies on
a little promontory projecting into the lake, was recently excavated
by Mr. R. S. Clouston. It is round, but it presented the constructive
characteristics of the Caithness cairns, except a slight variation in
the internal arrangement. A passage two feet wide and fourteen feet
in length, led into an oblong chamber of twenty-one feet long, and six
feet six inches at its widest part. The chamber was divided into five
compartments, by slabs placed on edge similar to the Caithness cairns.
The sepulchral deposits in this cairn were almost similar to those
found in the chambered cairns of Caithness and Argyle. In the floor
of the chamber and the inner part of the passage, a large quantity of
unburnt human bones and animal bones were found; and numerous fragments
of pottery, supposed to represent about thirty urns, and also charcoal
and burnt bones were found. The implements and weapons found in the
chamber, consisted of four leaf-shaped arrow-heads of large size, and
well formed, and one with barbs and stem of smaller size, a finely made
flint scraper, and a flint knife with the edge ground smooth, and a
flint flaking tool.¹
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 287‒298. “Taking
the Orkney group of chambered cairns as a whole, we find
it presenting the same essential characteristics as are
exhibited by the groups which have been described on the
mainland of Scotland. There is a considerable variation
in the arrangement of the chambers, and a strongly marked
tendency to a grouping of smaller cells round the main
chamber, which may be regarded as a local characteristic
peculiar to the Orkney Islands. But with this local
peculiarity there are associated instances of the tripartite
chamber so characteristic of the northern mainland area, and
in several cases the still more characteristic features of
the bounding wall and the curved extremities are presented.”
_Ibid._, page 299.
A group of cairns once existed in the plain of Clava, in ♦Strathnairn,
a few miles from Inverness. There seems to have been seven or eight
cairns, of these, only two now remain in a condition to show the
characteristics of their structure. Complete and accurate ground plans
of these have recently been published.²
♦ “Strathnain” replaced with “Strathnairn”
² By Mr. J. Fraser, C.E.; see also _Proceedings of the Society
of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume XVIII., page 328, _et
seq._
Perhaps it may be thought, that I should offer some explanation of the
occurrence of such large quantities of animal bones found intermingled
with the human remains in the series of cairn interments, which have
been briefly described. This, however, can hardly, as yet, be presented
in a satisfactory manner; but some customs and incidents, supposed to
have been associated with the funerals of the departed in prehistoric
times, may be mentioned. It has been repeatedly asserted that our early
ancestors of the stone period were addicted to cannibalism; that at
their tombs many human victims, mothers and infants, were sacrificed;
and that at their great funeral feasts there was always a general
holocaust of human and animal sacrifice. But the evidence adduced
to prove the prevalence of these practices among the prehistoric
inhabitants of this Island is utterly insufficient. Indeed, much
of what has been advanced as evidence of such customs amongst the
people of the Neolithic period in Britain, rests upon an unwarranted
assumption which assumes this form:――Seeing that in such and such
quarters of the globe certain existing savage tribes are addicted
to cannibalism, and certain other savage tribes in some other part
of the earth practice the custom of human sacrifice; these tribes are
in a certain social stage, the stone age people of Britain were in a
similar stage; therefore, the stone age people of Britain must have
been addicted to cannibalism, and human sacrifice. Funeral feasts were,
no doubt common, at which many animals were killed, but that human
beings were sacrificed at these feasts in Britain, there is no reliable
evidence to prove.¹
¹ Sir J. Lubbock, Mr. Bateman, and Dr. Thurnam, have asserted
that human sacrifice prevailed in Britain in prehistoric
times, and the latter especially, implicitly averred that
the stone age people were cannibals, and that even the
bronze age people practised human sacrifice. In a paper
published in the third volume of the _Memoirs of the
Anthropological Society of London_, in 1870, Dr. Thurnam
maintained that the people who constructed the Long Barrows
of England were addicted to many extremely barbarous customs,
and that, “if not addicted to cannibalism, they, without
doubt, sacrificed many human victims, whose cleft skulls
and half-charred bones are found in their tombs,” page 76.
In the first edition of this volume, published in 1877, I
canvassed his evidence for the above assertions, and found
it altogether insufficient to sustain his conclusions. I
also carefully examined the evidence advanced by Sir J.
Lubbock in reference to the prevalence of these inhuman
practices among the prehistoric people of Britain, and found
it not only quite insufficient, but in many points clearly
irrelevant and inapplicable, while some of his far-fetched
analogies and inferences based thereon, were manifestly
delusive. I am, therefore, glad to find that Mr. Wm.
Greenwell, and the late Professor Rolleston, have contested
Dr. Thurnam’s conclusions. They have given more reasonable
and probable explanations of the contents and the phenomena
of the barrows. See especially pages 544‒548, of that great
and invaluable work――_British Barrows_, by Wm. Greenwell,
M.A., F.S.A., 1879. In the very able and exhaustive
remarks which Professor Rolleston made upon the series
of prehistoric Crania, discovered in the barrows which
Mr. Greenwell had so carefully explored, he completely
overthrows Dr. Thurnam’s conclusions on the points in
question. I can only give a short quotation:――“I have to say
that the bones found in the Long Barrows of England do not
seem to me to bear the interpretation which Dr. Thurnam has
put upon them.” He proceeds to show at length the grounds
and the reasons why Dr. Thurnam’s conclusions are untenable,
pages 684‒692. Rolleston then remarks, the question arises,
“how is it that in the very large number of interments
recorded in this book we have never come upon any bony
remains bearing their evidence to the existence of a
practice which is spoken of by such a very large number of
literary authorities? In answer to this, I have to say that
the literary evidence, when duly considered, proves simply
that slaves and captives were slaughtered at the funeral of
their lords, without proving that they were allowed to lie
beside them afterwards.... We have a large mass of literary
evidence in favour of the continuation of this practice into
historical times amongst the Gauls, and other foreign races
with whom the Romans and Greeks came into contact.” _Ibid._,
pages 684, 692.
In so far as the early inhabitants of Britain are concerned,
I attach very little importance to this mass of literary
evidence; when closely examined, it yields no definite or
conclusive evidence on the points in question.
As already indicated, the bones of animals found in the chambered
cairns may be the remains of food offered to the dead; and thus would
have formed a part of the worship of their ancestors, so that feasts
might not only have been celebrated at the actual funerals, but also
long afterwards at certain times in commemoration of the departed
ancestors. There also may have been a form of animal worship among our
ancestors of the Stone Age, which may have assumed practical expression
in association with the interment of the dead. Reasoning by analogy,
they may have imagined that seeing animals were exceedingly useful
to the living, therefore they must be useful to the dead. On the same
ground of imagined use to the dead, we may account for the occurrence
of weapons, tools, and ornaments in the closest association with human
remains.
Regarding the extreme comminution of the human remains in the chambered
cairns of Scotland, several causes may reasonably be assigned. First,
the process of cremation which seems to have been the prevailing mode
of burial in these cairns, though not exclusively so, as unburnt
remains also occur in them. This taken in connection with the great
antiquity of the interments, the thousands of years which have elapsed
since they took place, and the action of the natural agencies around
them during that long period. Second, it seems obvious that in many of
these cairns numerous interments have been made at longer or shorter
intervals; and this might partly account for the bones being so much
broken and mixed as they appear in the compacted layers of the floors
in the internal chambers. But owing to the very limited dimensions
of the entrance passages leading into the internal chambers of these
cairns, it is hardly conceivable that interments could have often taken
place after the cairns were externally and internally finished. It is
possible that there may have been some interments after the completion
of a cairn, as a person might have crept through the low narrow passage
with an urn, and placed it on the floor of the chamber; but it is in
the highest degree improbable that this mode of depositing the remains
took place. Such being the real state of the matter, I offer the
following view as to how the interments were originally made:――1, When
a site for a cairn was fixed on, the first thing done was to mark off
the ground plan of the cairn and to erect the external retaining wall;
2, Then the space where the internal chamber of the cairn was to be
erected, was definitely marked off; 3, Interments might then be made
in the space where the chamber was designed to be. Now it is not only
conceivable, but also highly probable, that the structure may have
remained in this incomplete state for an indefinite period; and thus
a number of successive interments on the same spot could have been
made through one or more generations, or until the head of the family
or tribe resolved that the structure should be completed. The great
funeral feasts would be held in and around the outline of the cairn at
each successive interment; and also the feasts held in commemoration
of their departed ancestors. On which occasions the actions and
proceedings of the people in giving expression to their worship and
rejoicing, were all performed on and around the same spot. We may
imagine the scene: the slaughter and roasting of horses, oxen, sheep,
and dogs; and the people moving to and fro in a state of intense
excitement, when the remains of another ancestor was consigned to its
last resting place. This view of successive interments before the cairn
was closed up and completed, would in some measure at least account for
the layers on the floors of the chambers, and the state of the human
remains as we now find them.
It has been said that, “there is not a vestige of a dwelling or a
defensive construction in Scotland which can be proved by evidence to
be the work of the men of the Stone Age.”¹ This may be the case; and
yet we may be certain that the people who erected the chambered cairns
of Scotland, would have contrived to construct dwellings to protect
themselves from the cold and frost, incident to a rather severe climate.
Although they have left much clear evidence of their skill and industry
in relation to the dead, still we cannot assume that the dead were more
cared for than the living. If no trace of the dwellings in which they
lived can be found, then they must have been a very peculiar people. We
have seen evidence that they had horses, cattle, swine, and dogs; and
that they were skilful in making tools and weapons in such materials as
were available to them. Let us therefore carefully look over the many
prehistoric structures of Scotland, and try to find if any of them can
be assigned to the men of the Stone Age.
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, page 305; 1886.
There is only one type of structures which could on any reasonable
grounds be assigned to this period, and that is the “earth houses.”
The period of this class has been recently fixed as lying between
“the general establishment of Christianity and the departure of the
Romans from Scotland.” The grounds on which this conclusion rests are
these:――1, That in two of the earth-houses some of the stones in their
walls had distinctively Roman mouldings on them; and consequently
they must have been built after the Roman occupation. One of these was
discovered near the village of Newstead, Roxburghshire, and the other
at Crichton Mains, in Mid Lothian. A Roman type of pottery and traces
of Samian ware have also been found in some of the earth-houses. 2,
“The presence in most of them of querns and implements of the Iron Age,
and the entire absence of such implements as are characteristic of the
ages of stone and bronze.”¹
¹ _Ibid._, pages 300‒304.
The first point is conclusive evidence so far as it goes; but it
does not follow that these two earth-houses were the first structures
of this type built in Scotland. For anything that we know their
construction might have been the result of special circumstances
of an individual character. So far as known, the earth-houses are
not numerous in that quarter of the country. Let it then be clearly
understood, that merely to show the limit of the age of one or two
in a certain locality, is not conclusive evidence of the origin and
the possible age of a type of so peculiarly characteristic structures,
spread over a wide area, unless where other evidence in harmony with
the natural and known surroundings of the people is adduced. Thus the
strongest point is inconclusive touching the origin and possible age
of this special class of structures.
The second point is not quite accurate. For it is recorded that some
of the earth houses have been found empty; that in others cinders and
charred wood, the bones of the ox, deer, and other animals, shells and
remains of fish, a few objects of flint, bone, and bronze, as well as
querns and iron implements, have been discovered in them.¹ Although
there had been nothing but querns and iron implements found in
them, that would not afford conclusive evidence as to their origin
and possible age, but only evidence of their latest frequenters or
temporary occupiers.
¹ _Chalmers’ Caledonia_, Volume I., page 97; Wilson’s
_Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 108‒110;
_Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume I., pages 260‒263; Volume III., pages 465‒471; Volume
IV., pages 64, 492‒499; Volume VI., pages 249‒250; Volume
VII., pages 276, 532‒534; Volume VIII., page 24; Volume X.
page 287.
1, Now it can hardly be questioned that the men who erected the
horned and chambered cairns were capable in point of skill, power,
and persistency of will, to construct the earth-houses. This much will
be admitted. 2, Taking into account the climate and the circumstances
under which our ancestors of the Stone Age lived and moved; and also
having regard to their imperfect means of protecting themselves from
the biting cold and frost, if we duly consider these things, it will
at once be perceived that the earth-houses were the most suitable
dwellings for their condition and circumstances. 3, Let us carefully
examine the entrances and passages of the chambered cairns, the
internal structure and characteristics of the chambers; and then
compare these with the entrances and the galleries and chambers of the
earth-houses, not fanciful but striking resemblances will be perceived
between the two classes of structures. Indeed this resemblance is
so marked that it is difficult to imagine that they were not both
constructed by the same people. 4, So far as I know, the people of
the Stone Age were a quiet race; and seeing that they found leisure to
erect such great memorials to the dead, it may be reasonably assumed
that they also found time to erect the earth-houses, which were in
harmony with their genius and conditions of life, excepting of course
the two with the Roman stones, which were no doubt the product of
some eccentric and timid individual, born out of due time. 5, It is
well known that the different races and tribes in Scotland, after the
departure of the Romans, were so much engaged in conflicts with one
another that they could scarcely have found time to construct the
earth-houses, which could not have been built in a day or perhaps in
a year. Besides, is there any direct evidence that the Celtic people
of Scotland constructed underground galleries for any purpose after
the departure of the Romans? There was but one people whose genius,
condition, and circumstances, harmonised with the earth-houses, and
that was the race who erected the chambered cairns.
The area of the earth-houses extends from Berwickshire to the Orkney
Islands, embracing all the eastern region of Scotland; but not many of
them have been discovered on the south side of the Forth. These curious
structures are sometimes found singly, and sometimes in groups of
from five up to forty. Many of them lie in cultivated lands, and have
often been discovered by the plough striking on the stones of their
roofs. I will first give a general description of their structure, and
then point out the features which bear a resemblance to some of the
characteristics of the chambered cairns.
Their chief features are:――1, They are under the natural level of
the ground; 2, A narrow and low entrance, apt to escape notice, and a
narrow passage; 3, A more or less curved chamber, gradually widening
inwards and usually terminating with a rounded end; 4, The internal
characteristics of the chamber, which is sometimes single, in others
small chambers run off the main one, to the right and left; 5,
Converging side walls which support a lintelled roof. They vary greatly
in size, but their features are pretty similar.
At Airlie, in Forfarshire, there is a group of five, one of which
was sixty-seven feet long, and about seven feet wide. The entrance
was under two feet in height, and the floor gradually slopes down for
twenty feet till it reaches a height of six feet. The walls are pretty
regularly built of undressed boulders, and they converge inward to
four feet at the roof, which is formed of large stones, many of them
over seven feet long and four feet wide. Its contents consisted of an
accumulation of ashes, and bones of animals, fragments of querns, a
stone vessel, and a brass pin.¹
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Iron Ages_, page 292.
In 1816, Professor John Stuart of Aberdeen, discovered a group spread
over a space of about a mile in diameter, on what was then a dry
moor,¹ in the parishes of Auchindoir and Kildrummy, Aberdeenshire.
He estimated the number then discovered in this locality at upwards
of forty; and he states that the ground where they lay had originally
been a forest, as the trunks of large trees were still dug up there.
There was no indication of them on the surface of the ground. The only
entrance was a small opening of about eighteen inches wide between two
projecting stones, through which a man might enter, and then descending
a sloping passage of five or six feet, he comes to a vaulted chamber.
The chambers of this group are from six to eight feet in height, from
six to nine feet wide, and thirty feet long and upwards. They are
built of rough blocks of granite, many of which are five to six feet
long and more than a ton in weight; the side walls converge inward by
overlapping to form a rude arch, and are covered with large stones. On
the surface of the ground close to these structures, Professor Stuart
found a number of spaces from ten to fifteen yards square, and about
two feet deep, with the earth thrown outward; and these excavated
spaces he conjectured to have been the sites of the summer huts of the
people, who retired to the underground places in winter, and stored
their provisions in them all the year round. He added that no articles
of furniture or instruments either of stone or metal had been found
in them, so far as could be ascertained, but only wood, ashes, and
charcoal――mostly at the inmost end, where in some of them a small
opening appeared at the top, supposed to be an outlet for the smoke.²
Foundations of huts on the surface of the ground have been observed in
association with a few other earth-houses, one example was found near
Arbroath, in Forfarshire.³
¹ This moor is now under cultivation.
² _Archæologia Scotica_, Volume II., pages 56‒58.
³ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume IV., pages 492‒499.
In other localities the earth-houses vary much in length, some examples
reaching to sixty feet long; and as already observed, some of them have
smaller chambers branching off the main chamber. But on the whole they
are remarkably similar in structure.
Some resemblances between those underground houses and the chambered
cairns may now be noticed. 1, The hidden nature of the entrance, and
its lowness and narrowness, are features peculiar to both classes of
structures. From a comparison of a considerable number of recorded
measurements of the height and width of both classes of structures
at their entrances, I have found that the highest entrance in an
earth-house is 3 feet, and the lowest 18 inches, the average being
about 2 feet. Now the highest entrance of a chambered cairn is 3 feet
6 inches, and its width 2 feet, while the lowest is 21 inches in height,
and the same in breadth. The average height and width of the entrances
to the passages of the cairns and those of the earth-houses are almost
identical; and it is difficult to believe that this coincidence could
have been the result of chance. 2, In some of the earth-houses there
are small chambers opening off the main chamber, a feature which occurs
in some of the chambered cairns. 3, The mode of forming the roof or
the device for closing in the walls at the top is similar in both
classes of these structures. 4, These coincidences and similarities are
difficult to explain, except upon the ground that both classes of these
structures were originated by one race of people, and belong to the
same period. Moreover the bones of the same animals have been found
in both classes of structures; while the mere absence of stone weapons
and implements is not of much historic significance, seeing that these
rarely occur even in the chambered cairns themselves.
The most probable conclusion seems to be that the people of the Stone
Age, who erected the chambered cairns, also originated the underground
structures which we call earth-houses; and that they constructed a
considerable number of those specimens which are still known to exist,
though not necessarily the whole of them. In succeeding centuries such
structures may have been constructed in localities where the exigences
and circumstances of the people suggested their utility, down even to
the time of the departure of the Romans. I take the view suggested by
Professor Stuart, that from the first these underground structures have
never been continuously occupied as common dwellings, but only at the
seasons of extreme cold and frost, when the people resorted to them
in order to protect themselves in some measure from the inclemency
of the weather. Recently distinct traces of overground huts have been
discovered, so closely associated with earth-houses as to leave no
doubt that both belonged to the same family. Still it seems that some
at least of the earth-houses were occasionally frequented by certain
people even late into the Iron Age; but that circumstance affords no
evidence to invalidate the conclusion that they were originated by and
belonged to the Stone Age people.¹
¹ There is a group of underground structures in Ireland,
but they differ considerably from the Scottish class. The
Irish specimens are mostly associated with forts or raths,
excavated in the ground and enclosed by the rampart of a
fort; and they consist of various forms of chambers which
are connected by low narrow passages. There is also a group
of underground structures in Cornwall, which in some of
their features resemble those of Scotland; but they appear
to have been usually associated with overground dwellings.
From the natural features of the country, and the very varied
intersection of the land and water, it might be expected that boats
would have come into use at an early period, and this appears to have
been the case. The primitive boats of the early inhabitants were made
by simply hollowing out the middle of a single oak tree with such tools
as have been described, or some have supposed that this was effected
by the application of fire. They are sometimes called canoes, and have
been often found in lakes associated with the Crannogs. But they have
been discovered in every quarter of the country, in lochs and mosses,
on the banks and in the beds of rivers; and many of them have been
found imbedded at a depth of from thirteen to thirty feet below the
surface of the ground. In Lochar Moss, Dumfriesshire, a track bordering
on the Solway Firth, a number of canoes have from time to time been
dug up, one of which measured 8 feet 8 inches in length, 2 feet in
breadth, and 11 inches in depth. The Valley of the Clyde has yielded
the greatest number of these single tree boats. Under the streets of
Glasgow, and in its vicinity, when digging the foundation of houses,
cutting drains, and in operations connected with the harbour work,
and the dredging of the channel of the Clyde, nearly thirty have been
discovered.¹ These vary considerably in length and depth, but they all
belong to the first stage of shipbuilding; which here, and from this
primitive starting-point, has at last attained a development as yet
unsurpassed in any quarter of the globe.
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume I., pages 44, 211‒213; Volume VI., pages 119, 121,
146, 148, 458; J. Geikie’s _Great Ice Age_, page 212;
Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., pages
52‒55.
From what has been presented in the preceding pages, we may imagine
our early ancestors of the Stone Age as living and moving in a state
of comparative safety and comfort. They possessed the greater number
of the domesticated animals which are still common in this country;
they built such structures for habitations as were suited to their
condition and the surrounding circumstances, and the means within their
reach. They manifested much intelligence, skill, and industry in the
manufacture of their weapons, tools, and implements――using the only
available means and materials at their command with admirable ingenuity
and striking effect. We can discern and trace the evidence of mind
and of thought even in the fragments of their works; and the memorials
which they erected to the memory of the dead, have long survived the
wreck of proud empires, dynasties, and thrones.
SECTION V.
_The Bronze Age._
This section will deal with the introduction of metals, and touch on
the transition from the stone to the bronze period. A description of
the various bronze objects, weapons, tools, and gold ornaments will
be presented. The defensive works, habitations, and other matters
associated with the daily life of the people will be treated. The
modes of burial of the bronze period, and the phenomena associated with
interments. Finally, an expository statement and summary touching the
religion, social state, and culture of the prehistoric people will be
offered.
The question of the introduction of the use of metals or bronze is
easily understood, but the question of the origin of bronze, or the
original centre where it was discovered, is a more difficult matter,
and has caused much inquiry and discussion. It is the first only of
these questions which comes within the scope of my work, and the second
will be very briefly touched. As to the original centre where bronze
was discovered, this is a problem still under discussion; and, like the
origin of the Aryans, it is not likely to be soon solved. Some writers
have pointed to Western Asia, the supposed cradle and original source
of early civilisation; but, in truth, when or where the alloy called
bronze was first discovered and manufactured for use no one really
knows.¹ It is, however, well ascertained that bronze weapons and tools
were used much earlier in some quarters of the globe than in others,
for instance in Egypt, and the regions around the Mediterranean, long
before it was used in Britain or other Northern European countries.²
¹ Touching the early sources of copper and tin in Europe,
it may be observed that native copper occurs in Hungary,
Norway, Sweden, Saxony and Cornwall; and copper and its ores
are abundant in Ireland. Copper pyrites is very general in
most countries of the world, in more or less abundance. In
early times tin seems to have been found in large quantities
in some parts of Spain; and we know that the tin mines of
Cornwall, in Britain, were worked at an early period. In
the East, Malacca was a source from which tin may have been
obtained in early times. Evans’ _Ancient Bronze Implements_,
pages 419, 424.
² Bronze was extensively used in Egypt for weapons and tools
as early as 3000 B.C.; but the use of iron seems to have
been restricted, owing probably to some religious motive.
_Ibid._, pages 6, 7, 8. Among the Aryans iron seems to have
been used at an early period.
Concerning the means through which the use of bronze was introduced
to Britain different views have been held. Some authorities have
maintained that the use of bronze was spread from a common centre by an
intruding and conquering race, or the migration of tribes; others hold
that the people of each separate country, where bronze is known to have
been used, discovered the art independently and manufactured their own
implements; some again maintain that the art was discovered and the
articles manufactured on one spot, and thence disseminated by means of
commerce; and finally, others aver that the art of making bronze was
spread from a common centre, but that the implements were usually made
in the countries in which they have been found.¹ A discussion of these
views would require a separate volume, and I can only indicate the
region whence Britain, or rather Scotland, probably received the first
instruction in the use of bronze.
¹ _Ibid._, page 475. “The familiarity of the ancient Britons
with tin, though this metal does not occur in a native state,
may be readily accounted for from the one being frequently
found near the surface, and requiring only the use of
charcoal and a very moderate degree of heat to reduce it
to the state of metal.” Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of
Scotland_, Volume I., page 304. 1863.
It has frequently been stated that the use of bronze was introduced
into Britain by invasion and conquest. Professor Dawkins advances the
idea that the Celts arrived on the southern shores of Britain with
bronze swords in their hands, and thus introduced the use of bronze
into this country.¹ But this mode of explanation is seldom satisfactory,
unless well supported by other circumstances and evidence; and,
although it is highly probable that the people of Britain did receive
the knowledge of the use of bronze from France, it was by means of
barter and not by warfare; seeing that the first arrival of Celtic
tribes in the south of Britain was probably long anterior to the
general use of bronze in France itself or the Continent. It appears
to me that the Celts had overrun the whole of England, and penetrated
into Scotland, as far at least as Glenmore, before bronze began to
be introduced in the south of Britain. The view which supposes that
the art of making bronze was discovered at a single centre, where
implements were manufactured and afterwards spread by commerce, is
probably in a limited sense true. For wheresoever the discovery of
bronze may have originated, there is evidence of its use having spread
over the greater part of Europe, and probably at first bronze tools
and implements were widely diffused by barter. The view, however, which
comes nearest to the requisite conditions of the known facts everywhere
associated with the subject, assumes that the art of making bronze
was spread from a common centre, though the weapons and tools were
manufactured in greater or less numbers in each country where the use
of bronze prevailed. This does not imply that in any given district all
the weapons and tools found in it were of home manufacture, and none of
them imported, for there is evidence in most countries that some of the
bronze articles found there are of foreign manufacture, and had been
introduced by commerce or other means of intercourse.²
¹ _Early Man in Britain_, pages 321, 322, 343. 1880. This
writer is perhaps wrong in his statement of facts and in
the inferences which he draws. The Silures, whom he supposes
to have been Iberians, were in all probability mixed
Celtic tribes. And this much is certain, that the tribes
called Silures, made a desperate and prolonged resistance
to the advance of the Roman legions――a resistance quite
inconsistent with the feeble characteristics of the Iberians.
² Evans’ _Ancient Bronze Implements_, pages 420, 475‒477.
There is ample evidence that in Britain, in course of time, the
manufacture of bronze weapons and tools was extensively and widely
carried on. The moulds for casting various tools and weapons have been
found both in England and in Scotland, and they are numerous in Ireland;
and founders hoards have been found in many places in Britain. There
were also travelling founders, who practised their art at any place
where their work was required. In these and in other ways, many of
the bronze weapons and tools found in England, Scotland, and Ireland,
were manufactured. Amongst the hoards of bronze articles which have
from time to time been found, some are considered to represent the
stock-in-trade of the ancient bronze founders; and other hoards, from
their characteristics, are considered to have belonged to dealers in
bronze articles.¹ Some of the moulds found in Scotland will be noticed
in connection with the description of the weapons and implements.
¹ Evans’ _Ancient Bronze Implements_, pages 422, 428, 438‒453.
“Judging from the unfinished condition of the tools and
weapons in some of the old bronze founders hoards, and from
the large deposits of socketed celts having been found with
the clay cores still in them, it seems not improbable that
the founders often bartered away their castings nearly in
the state in which they came from the moulds, with only
the runners broken off, and that those who acquired them
finished the manufacture themselves.” _Ibid._, page 451.
From a concurrence of circumstances and ascertained facts, it is
evident that the transitional stage from stone weapons and tools to
the use of metal ones extended over a long period. The one class of
articles and tools did not supersede the other suddenly; for there is
much evidence that stone, bone, and horn weapons and tools continued to
be used long after bronze, and even iron, was introduced. For such work
as stone and bone tools were naturally suitable, they continued to be
used, as they were much easier obtained than bronze ones; and in some
instances stone implements were used down to a comparatively recent
period. In the case of certain ornaments which belong to a somewhat
later period, bronze and brass were used.
In Scotland bronze weapons, tools, and articles have been found under
various circumstances. A few have been found associated with interments;
a greater number have been discovered in hoards from time to time;
some casually found in the soil; and others when carefully sought in
excavating the early sites of human habitation. I will first touch on
a few of the hoards, and then proceed to describe the different kinds
of weapons, implements, and ornaments of the bronze period, as it is
represented in Scotland.
In the process of marl dredging in the Loch of Duddingston, near
Edinburgh, in 1775, the workmen dragged up a heap of swords,
spear-heads, and other lumps of bronze. They seem to have been mostly
broken; and the hoard as presented to the National Museum, consisted
of twenty-nine pieces of broken swords; twenty-three portions of spear
heads; and a ring and staple of large size. The fragments of the swords
were mostly under six inches in length, and show that the weapons were
of the leaf-shaped type; the spear-heads were pieces of large weapons
with sockets and leaf-shaped blades.¹ In 1849, a hoard of bronze
weapons was discovered in a moss on the north side of the point
of Sleat, in the Isle of Skye, which consisted of one sword of the
leaf-shaped form, with a flat handle-plate pierced for rivet holes;
two spear-heads; and a long thin pin with a cup-shaped head; and
also a curious socketed tool of a bent leaf-shaped form, four inches
long. A hoard of bronze weapons and objects was found at Tarves,
Aberdeenshire, which mostly consisted of swords; and in 1853, at
Cauldhame, near Brechin, a hoard was found, consisting of four
leaf-shaped swords, and a large spear-head. One of the swords was
twenty-four inches long. In 1868, at Achtertyre, near Elgin, a hoard
of bronze articles was discovered in ploughing a mossy field, which
consisted of one axe-head; two spear-heads; two penannular rings,
some fragments of broken rings; and portions of a ring, which on
analysis yielded only tin and lead, no copper. When a gravel hillock
was being trenched at Monadhmor, Killin, Perthshire, in 1868, the
workmen discovered a hoard of bronze objects, consisting of two
socketed axe-heads; a leaf-shaped spear-head; a socketed gouge of rare
occurrence in Scotland; a portion of a leaf-shaped sword; a hollow
circular ring, a ♦penannular ring, and nine plain annular rings. In
1869, when the foundation of a house in Grosvenor Crescent, Edinburgh,
was being dug, a hoard of bronze weapons was found, said to have
consisted of some fourteen or fifteen swords, but only four of these
are now known; and with them were found a bronze ring and a broken
pin.²
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume I., pages 132‒133. The proprietor of the estate on
the side of the Loch, Sir Alexander Dick, who commenced
the dredging operations, said――“Some of the lumps of brass
seemed as if half melted; and my conjecture is, that there
had been upon the side of the hill, near the lake, some
manufacture for brass arms of the several kinds for which
there was a demand.”
♦ “pennanular” replaced with “penannular”
² _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume I., pages 181, 224; Volume III., page 182; Volume IX.,
page 435; Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 142‒153.
All the bronze articles found in Scotland and reasonably assigned to
this period, may be classified as weapons, useful tools, and ornaments.
The first class includes swords, daggers, spear-heads, and shields. The
sword of the bronze period is amongst the finest of the ancient weapons.
The small and short leaf-shaped blade, and its hilt without a guard, is
a form greatly admired. Different specimens in the Scottish collection
vary in size; a fine example was dredged up from the bottom of the
Tay near Perth, it measures 28½ inches in length, and is the largest
one known in Scotland. Another from the Isle of South Uist, measures
27 inches; and one found in the parish of Latheron, Caithness, is 25
inches long. In rare specimens, such as one of the swords found in the
hoard at Edinburgh, the hilt is formed and cast in the same mould with
the blade. Another form of sword, of rare occurrence in Scotland, is
characterised by a narrow rapier-shaped blade, without a handle-plate,
the hilt being made of bone or wood and attached to the flattened base
of the blade by rivets. The leaf-shaped swords are numerous in Scotland,
and have been found in almost every quarter of the country.¹
¹ “Among ancient weapons of bronze, perhaps the most
remarkable, both for elegance of form and for the skill
displayed in their casting, are the leaf-shaped swords, of
which a considerable number have come down to our time. The
only other forms that can vie with them in these points are
the spear-heads, of which many are gracefully proportioned,
while the coring of their sockets for the reception of the
shafts would do credit to the most skillful modern founder.
Neither the one nor the other belong to the earliest period
when bronze first came into general use for weapons and
tools, the flat celts and the knife-daggers characteristic
of that period being as a rule absent from the hoards in
which fragments of swords and spear-heads are present.”
Evans’ _Ancient Bronze Implements_, page 273.
Apparently both these classes of sword-blades were cast in stone moulds;
but no sword moulds have as yet been discovered in Scotland. Two stone
moulds were found in the parish of Hennock, in Devonshire, which were
both for the production of rapier-shaped blades.¹
¹ _Ibid._, page 434.
The dagger blades are usually thick and heavy in proportion to
their length. They differ from the thin flat blades of smaller size
occasionally found in the graves of the period. The thick daggers
vary much in size, from six inches in length to over thirteen, and in
breadth some of the larger ones are from three inches to over four.
Some of them have two and others four rivet-holes for attaching their
handles. A few of them are slightly ornamented, and many of them are
finely shaped.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume X., pages 84, 459; Volume XII., pages 439, 440, 449,
456; Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume I.,
page 392.
The spear-head of the bronze period is usually a socketed weapon,
without barbs, and often leaf-shaped; and the variation in their length
and the taper of the blades is extreme. The largest specimen in the
National Museum is nineteen inches long, and exceedingly well formed.
The larger ones are often pierced with segmental openings in the sides,
formed in the casting, which diminish their weight and add to the
beauty of the finished weapons. Another class, with the base of the
blade pierced by loop-like holes, have been found exceeding fifteen
inches long, but other specimens of the same class are only eight
inches long, and some not over six inches. The looped variety of
spear-heads have also been found in Scotland, some specimens of which
have the loops low down on the socket. These are very common in Ireland,
and are more elaborately ornamented than the Scotch examples.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume V., page 214; Volume XXIII., pages 9, 150, 224;
Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 184, 185.
The spear-heads, like the sword and dagger blades, were cast in moulds
of stone. Two stone moulds for looped spear-heads were found together
under the surface of the ground near Campbeltown, in Argyleshire.
Similar moulds have been found in England, Ireland, and in other
countries.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume VI., page 48; Volume XVI., page 103; Evans’ _Ancient
Bronze Implements_, pages 435‒438.
Bronze shields are not numerous in Scotland, but a few specimens have
been found. In 1779 a fine example was discovered in a peat moss in
the parish of Beith, Ayrshire, which was afterwards presented to the
Society of Antiquaries of London. This shield is formed of thin beaten
bronze, circular in form, and 26½ inches in diameter. Its surface is
ornamented with concentric circles of ridges, and also hammered up from
the back between the circular rows of studs; the handle is fixed across
the inner side of the boss, and the grip rounded by turning the edges
inwards. In 1837 a shield of a similar character was found in digging a
drain in a marshy piece of ground at Yetholm, in Roxburghshire; and in
1870 another shield was ploughed up in the same piece of ground. They
are beautiful and finely finished. They were not intended for use on
the arm, like the shields of later times, but held in the left hand by
a single handle riveted across the hollow of the central boss.¹
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 155‒159;
_Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume V., page 165; Volume VIII., page 393.
Only one specimen of a bronze battle-axe is known in Scotland, which
was found in a morass at Bannockburn. It is a very peculiar weapon,
four pounds in weight, and has been figured by Dr. Anderson.
A fine specimen of a cast bronze war trumpet was found in the parish
of Tarbolton, Ayrshire, about the year 1653, and since preserved in
Coilsfield House. It is the only one of the class known in Scotland. A
portion of a bronze side-blast trumpet was found at Innermessan in the
parish of Inch, Wigtonshire. These bronze war trumpets are more common
in Ireland and in Denmark than in Scotland.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume XII., page 565; Volume XXIII., pages 151, 224.
Having noticed the warlike weapons, I turn to the tools and implements
which appear to have been used for the purposes of every-day life,
beginning with those which seem to have come earliest into use. The
flat, bronze axe-heads are broad at the cutting end, and vary greatly
in size. Some of them are five inches in length and three inches across
the cutting face, which is always their broadest part. The largest
specimen known in Scotland is 13⅜ inches in length and 9 inches across
the cutting face; it was found in digging a drain on the farm of
Loanhead, on the south side of the Pentland Hills. Amongst a number
found on the farm of Colleonard, in Banffshire, there were two with a
series of short lines incised upon their flat sides, and another one
had raised ribs lengthwise. Others have been found over the whole area
of Scotland. It has been supposed that this class of axe-heads were
cast in open moulds of stone.¹
¹ _Ibid._, Volume IV., pages 187, 380; Volume IX., pages 182,
430, 431; Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume
I., page 344; Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages
190‒194.
There are several other varieties of axe-heads which have been termed
fanged and socketed. Some of these are very finely formed, and more or
less ornamented. The two halfs of a stone mould for casting socketed
axe-heads of bronze were found at Rooskeen, in Ross-shire, and have
been figured by Wilson and Dr. Anderson.
The difference between the axes and the chisels of the bronze period
appears more in the mode of hafting and of use than in the form of the
tool itself. Tools of the chisel form are not very numerous in Scotland,
they are much more common in Ireland. Some good specimens, however,
have been found in the southern and northern counties of Scotland.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume XII., pages 6, 13; Volume XVII., page 338; Anderson’s
_Bronze and Stone Ages_, page 201.
Awls, needles, and fish-hooks of bronze have occasionally been found
in Scotland. Bronze awls have frequently been found in England, and
sometimes in association with interments.¹ Only three specimens of
bronze sickles are known in Scotland. One was found at Edengerach,
in the parish of Premnay, Aberdeenshire, which is a curved, tapering
blade set at right angles to the end of an oval socket; the blade is
imperfect, but seems to have been over four inches in length. Another
sickle was dredged from the bed of the Tay, near Errol, in 1840, and
it is preserved in the Museum of the Literary and Antiquarian Society
of Perth. The blade is a little over six inches in length, and over an
inch in breadth at its junction with the socket. The third sickle is in
the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, and its blade is five inches in length.
These are the only agricultural implements of the bronze period as yet
discovered in the kingdom, though it was stated in the _Old Statistical
Account of Scotland_ that an implement of this class was found at
Ledberg, in Sutherlandshire.²
¹ Evans’ _Ancient Bronze Implements_, pages 188‒191.
² _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume VII., page 376; Volume XXII., pages 339, 350.
No bronze hammers have been found in Scotland, and only one example
of the Bronze Age anvil has yet been discovered. The anvil was found
near Kyle of Oykel, in Sutherlandshire, and is preserved in the museum
of Dunrobin Castle. Several good specimens of large cauldrons, formed
of thin bronze plates riveted together, have been found associated
with the leaf-shaped swords and the socketed axe-heads, as in the loch
of Duddingston, Kilkerran in Ayrshire, and Poolewe; some of them are
beautifully formed and finely made.¹
¹ _Ibid._, Volume XXII., pages 36‒42; Anderson’s _Bronze and
Stone Ages_, pages 205‒207.
The people of the Bronze Age seem to have adorned themselves profusely
with fine ornaments, for gold ornaments assigned to this period have
been found in every quarter of the kingdom. They are suggestive of a
magnificence of attire and a life which ill accords with the view that
I have often seen stated, namely, that our prehistoric ancestors were
simply untutored savages! Men, indeed, who assumed the upright attitude,
but savages nevertheless. Two beautiful golden diadems were found on
the farm of Southside, near Coulter, Lanarkshire, in 1860. Their form
is a broad lunette of beaten gold, terminating in disc-shaped ends; and
the central opening is wide enough to admit of the ornament being worn
on the head as a diadem or on the neck as a gorget. Another beautiful
gold diadem of a similar form was found at Auchentaggart, in the parish
of Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, which, when turned up by the plough, was
folded and rolled up almost into a ball. A magnificent specimen of
a large and massive armlet, formed of intertwisted rods of gold, was
found at Slateford, near Edinburgh, in 1864. It consisted of three gold
rods twisted together round a common centre, and uniting at the ends
in a single rod, which recurves and forms a terminal hook; and it was
so coiled as to encircle the arm in four complete coils, which, when
extended, measured 4½ feet long. This armlet “was by far the finest
specimen of goldsmith’s work from the bronze age that had ever been
seen in this country, and the only one of its kind then or now known
to exist; yet it was clipped to pieces and consigned to the melting-pot
by a jeweller in Edinburgh. A cast of it, however, is preserved in the
National Museum.”¹
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 220‒223.
Another exceedingly beautiful gold armlet is formed of a flat band,
tapering slightly from the middle to the end, and twisted like
the thread of a screw, passing at the ends into slender hook-like
terminations, with conical knobs which interlock and serve to fasten
the armlet when worn. In 1848 a hoard of four of these armlets was
discovered on the top of a steep bank at the village of Lower Largo, in
Fifeshire. They are most beautifully formed, and all nearly of the same
size. Another hoard of gold armlets of a similar type was turned up by
the plough on the farm of Law, in the parish of Urquhart, Elginshire,
in 1857; the number found amounted to thirty-six, and they were all
nearly of the same style and pattern. A gold armlet of a similar
pattern was found at Belhelvie, in Aberdeenshire; another near the
border of the parish of Coulter, Lanarkshire; one at the head of
Little Lochbroom, in Ross-shire; and a very massive one on the Moor
of Rannoch.¹
¹ _Ibid._, pages 214, 219.
In 1856 a hoard of gold ornaments was discovered in a moss in the
West Highlands, amongst which were two penannular armlets. These are
formed of solid rods of gold, bent to a slightly elliptical form, and
terminating in slightly expanded ends. The heaviest one weighed 19 dwts.
6 grs. In 1852 a massive gold armlet, formed of solid rods, was found
at Bonnyside, in Stirlingshire, and it weighed 6 ozs. 10 dwts. 6 grs.
Four armlets, formed of solid rods of gold, of a similar pattern, were
found in digging a drain at Ormidale, near Brodick, in the Island of
Arran, in 1864. In 1845 five similar armlets were found in digging a
drain in the vicinity of the Gallow Hill, in the parish of St. Vigeans,
Forfarshire, and these were sold to a pedlar “as old drawer handles.”
In 1834 three penannular gold armlets were found in Stonehill Wood,
in the parish of Carmichael, Lanarkshire, and the largest one weighed
4 ozs. 212 grs. A hoard of thirty-six gold armlets was ploughed up on
the farm of Coul, in the Isle of Islay, in 1780; and about 1784 a gold
armlet, weighing over 5 ozs., was found by a labourer in Galloway.
In 1871 two gold armlets were found in the vicinity of Killmailie,
Inverness-shire; other two found in Argyleshire are preserved in
Inveraray Castle. About 1827 five penannular gold rings were discovered
on the estate of the Duke of Fife, near Duff House, Banffshire, and
these rings were associated with a bronze age interment. From the
associated circumstances in which several of these gold ornaments have
been found, there is no question that they belong to the bronze period.
Besides the gold ornaments mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, and
many others of gold which I have not mentioned, there were bronze rings,
armlets, pins, and jet necklaces, which have been found in many parts
of the country. Some of the jet necklaces and the bronze armlets are
very pretty.¹
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 58, 59, 60, 61‒63,
144, 208‒214; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland_, Volume VI., page 311; Volume VII., pages 351, 352;
Volume VIII., pages 28‒32, 407, 408; Wilson’s _Prehistoric
Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 434‒475.
The curious phenomena of the prevalence of the use of gold in the form
of ornaments amongst the Bronze Age people, at a time when silver and
iron were unknown, and bronze the only metal used in their manufactured
products, seems to indicate a taste and culture which could scarcely
have been expected. This will be again touched on after the available
evidence in other directions has been gone over, to which attention
must be directed.
It may be “that not a trace of a dwelling or site of a settlement
of the Bronze Age has been discovered in Scotland.”¹ Still, when the
historian finds that the people lived, and moved, and died, and were
interred in various forms in the Bronze Age, he must endeavour to find
traces of their dwellings and sites. Seeing that their tombs have been
discovered, it is more than probable that their sites and dwellings
were at no great distance from their tombs. We have already seen
evidence that there must have been considerable organisation and united
action among our ancestors of the Stone and Bronze Ages, and therefore,
in consistency, we should try to find traces of their dwellings;
although possibly we cannot obtain positive information about them.
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, page 227.
Traces of what may reasonably be supposed to have been the foundations
of prehistoric dwellings, have been observed in many quarters of
Scotland, in short from Mid Lothian to Caithness. The rudest of
these hut foundations are simply shallow excavations in the ground,
usually circular in form and from seven to eight feet in diameter,
and generally occur in groups. But the foundations of many groups of
circular huts of larger dimensions have been observed in Scotland.
The structure of those hut circles consists of two concentric rows of
stones separated by a space of six or eight inches, which is filled by
small stones and earth, the whole forming a rude wall of about eighteen
inches in height; and the space within this wall is generally from
twenty to thirty feet in diameter. They have often been discovered on
the summits, the brows, and the sides of hills; and also on the lower
grounds, the sea beaches, and on the banks of lochs and of rivers.¹ Now
it is probable that these were the foundations of prehistoric dwellings,
and that above these foundations a structure formed of wood was erected.
Many indications, circumstances, and final results, tend to show that
the sites and settlements of the prehistoric people of Scotland were
often on elevated positions――on heights and hills. The natural reasons
and circumstances which originally led the prehistoric people to select
the heights for their habitations, probably were that abodes erected
upon the high grounds would be more likely to escape the ravages of
inundation from a high tide, a heavy rainfall, a sudden thaw of snow,
or any unusual rising of the waters upon the lower grounds; while the
heights were also best adapted for defence against the attacks of
enemies. Thus it is in the highest degree probable that the earliest
dwellings of man in Scotland were on pretty elevated positions. Further,
many of the towns of Scotland which stretch back into the prehistoric
period, were originally sites of human habitation upon heights or
hills, such as Edinburgh, Stirling, Paisley, Dundee, Aberdeen, Banff,
Inverness, and many others. As indicated in the second section, man
selected the sites for his dwellings with remarkable sagacity.
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume VII., pages 291, 297, 300, 541; Volume VIII., page
410; Volume IX., pages 158, 169; Wilson’s _Prehistoric
Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 103‒106.
But in the prehistoric ages it frequently happened that the
advantages of the elevated sites, great as they were――mainly owing
to the difficulties of obtaining food――these advantages were partly
counterbalanced, and hence the selection of spots on the banks of
lakes and rivers, and near the sea, as sites of early occupation.
Thus, traces of hut foundations have been observed on the sea beaches,
the banks of lakes and rivers, in close association with shell mounds,
kitchen middens, and grave mounds. On the links between the Meikle and
Little Ferries, Sutherlandshire, the hut foundations, the shell mounds,
and the grave mounds, were found in close proximity with each other;
and similar traces and remains occur in Elginshire, and in other parts
of the country. From these indications it has reasonably been inferred
that these places were sites of early habitation, and that shell fish
or eatable mussel formed a main part of the food of those people. A
few flint and stone implements, and the bones of animals, were found
embedded amongst these shell heaps.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume VI., pages 423‒426; Volume VIII., pages 63‒64,
177‒178; Volume IX., pages 250‒260, 452‒454, 45‒52.
There are a number of caves in Scotland which appear to have
been used for human habitations, or hiding places; but their
occupation cannot be assigned to definite periods, unless in
rare instances. In quite recent times travelling tinkers and
bands of vagrants occasionally lived in caves. Several of
the early Scottish saints sometimes resorted to caves.
In the Gaswork Cave, at Wemyss, there was a mass of debris
like a kitchen midden, containing bones of the ox, sheep,
pig, deer, hare, and bones of birds; and also shells of the
limpet and the whelk. Another cave at Seacliff, near North
Berwick, contained similar evidence of human occupation.
――_Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 87‒88.
The Burness Cave in the Parish of Borgue, Kirkcudbrightshire,
the exploration of which commenced in 1872, presented
evidence of prolonged occupation. Large quantities of the
bones of animals and of birds were found in it, and also
indications that its occupiers had used grain. Nearly two
hundred implements, tools, and objects of human art, were
disinterred from this cave; and the greater part of these
implements were made of bone, comparatively few stone or
bronze tools were found in it. _Proceedings of the Society
of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume X., pages 479‒507; also
Volume XI.
There is always more or less uncertainty in assigning prehistoric
structures to a given period; for from the nature of the subject such
evidence as exists is rarely conclusive. This is the case with the
Scotch Crannogs and the Hill Forts. Both these classes of structures
are prehistoric, and it would be difficult to determine which of them
is the oldest. The period of the Scotch Crannogs has been placed after
the departure of the Romans; a time of darkness and confusion, which
somehow seems to have been exceedingly fertile in originating new
buildings and structures.¹ But looking at the antiquity assigned to a
somewhat similar class of structures in Switzerland and Italy, which
were constructed by a kindred race, and other circumstances of the
people themselves associated with the Crannogs in Scotland, it appears
to me highly probable that they were originated and some of them
constructed in the later stage of the Bronze Age. In fact, only the
origin of the Crannogs within the area of the Kingdom of Strathclyde
are accounted for, on Dr. Munro’s hypothesis, as he explicitly
admits:――“Turning now to the Celtic area beyond the limits of the
Scottish portion of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, I may at once state
that there is no data derived from an examination of its artificial
islands, nor any relics of their occupiers, which can give even an
approximate notion of their chronological range.”² Thus the question
of their origin and possible age is left unsettled for the greater part
of Scotland. An attempt therefore may be made to indicate the natural
causes and the conditions which led to their origin and construction,
without having recourse to a special line of explanation.
¹ Dr. P. Munro, who has specially examined and has given a
very interesting account of the Scottish Crannogs, and also
in a larger work presented a masterly account of this class
of structures in Europe; touching those of Scotland, he
says:――“There is, in my opinion, only one hypothesis that
can satisfactorily account for all the facts and phenomena
here adduced, viz., that the lake dwellings in the south-west
of Scotland were constructed by the Celtic inhabitants as a
means of protecting themselves and their movable property,
when, upon the frequent withdrawal of the Roman soldiers
from the district, they were left single-handed, to contend
against the Angles on the east, and the Picts and Scots on
the south. It is not likely that these provincials ... would
become the assailants of such fierce and lawless enemies....
Hence their military tactics and operations would assume
more the character of defence than of aggression, and
in order to defeat the object of the frequent and sudden
inroads of the northern tribes, which was to plunder the
inhabitants rather than to conquer the country, experience
taught them the necessity of being prepared for emergencies,
by having certain places of more than ordinary security,
where they could deposit their wealth, or to which they
could retire as a last resource when hard pressed. These
retreats might be caves, fortified camps, or inaccessible
islands; but in localities where no such natural strongholds
exists, the military genius of the Celtic inhabitants,
prompted perhaps by inherited notions, led them to construct
these wooden islands. Since the final departure of the
Romans till the conquest of the Kingdom of Strathclyde by
the Northumbrian Angles, a period of several centuries,
this unfortunate people had few intervals of peace, and
with their subjugation, ended the special function of the
lake-dwellings as a national system of protection.”――_Ancient
Scottish Lake-dwellings_, pages 283‒284.
² _Ibid._, page 287.
The area of the Crannogs and artificial islands embrace the whole of
modern Scotland, excepting its two northmost counties, and one or two
on its south-eastern extremity, and even in these such structures may
yet be discovered. The question then is, what were the causes of their
origin? We need not travel beyond the natural and known circumstances
of the country and its inhabitants, and the motives of human action and
effort. All Crannogs have in view one common end,――defence, protection,
and security. They were probably often used as places of refuge, though
no doubt they were often in many instances occupied continuously.
“There is often a fort on the top of some neighbouring hill, to which
the lake-dwellers may have gone when the lochs were frozen and the
Crannogs open to invasion.”¹
¹ _Ibid._, page 187.
In the later part of the bronze period the people of Scotland were
organised and formed into strong tribes, which were separate and
independent, and each tribe living under the rule of its own head. No
doubt these tribes sometimes waged war with one another. But before
this time, there was a strong and constant pressure from the south
on the tribes to the north of the Tweed and the Cheviot Hills, which
arose from fresh migrations from the Continent to the southern shores
of the Island. So there was a continuous onward and outward movement
of the tribes from the south of the Island toward the north, which
naturally caused the tribes to construct defensive works for their
self-preservation, protection, and security. Such then were the causes
of the origin of the Hill Forts and the Crannogs of Scotland. As to
which of those two classes of structures was the earliest, I will not
undertake to determine; but that both were in use many centuries before
the Roman invasion, I have no doubt whatever. Thus we have a real
historic explanation of the origin of the Crannogs and the Hill Forts;
they were the effects of the state of the inhabitants of the whole
Island, and the historic conditions which had arisen.
Crannogs would continue to be used so long as the circumstances of
the people rendered them necessary, or till they were superseded by
structures more in harmony with the conditions of society. Thus many
of them may have been occasionally occupied long after the departure
of the Romans, and even after the kingdom of Strathclyde was annexed
to Scotland.
In many instances natural islands in lochs were selected as suitable
sites on which to erect defensive works and secure dwellings. Advantage
also was often taken of the natural ridges and the shallows in the
bottom of the lochs, on which to construct abodes with stones or wood,
and then connect them with the shore by a causeway.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume VI., pages 114‒117; Volume X., pages 31‒34, 741.
But the class of structures most frequently found in lochs in
Scotland, is usually constructed wholly or principally of wood, and
on that account are called Crannogs. They are pretty numerous, and
a considerable number of them have been systematically explored by
Dr. Munro; and he gives the following account of the method of their
construction:――“This is how they worked: 1, Immediately over the
chosen site a circular raft of trunks of trees laid above branches and
brushwood was formed, and above it additional layers of logs, together
with stones, gravel, etc., were heaped up till the whole was grounded.
2, As this process went on, upright piles, made of oak and of the
requisite length, were inserted into prepared holes in the structure,
and probably also a few were inserted into the bed of the lake. 3, The
rough logs forming horizontal layers were made of various kinds of wood,
generally birch, it being the most abundant. These were occasionally
pinned together by thick oak pegs, and here and there at intervals
oak beams mortised into one another stretched across the substance
of the island, and fixed the surrounding piles. 4, When a sufficient
height above the water-line was attained, a prepared pavement of oak
beams was constructed, and mortised beams were laid over the tops
of the encircling piles, which bound them firmly together as already
described. The margin of the island was also slantingly shaped by
an intricate arrangement of beams and stones, constituting in some
cases a well-formed breakwater. 5, When the skeleton of the island was
thus finished, probably turf would be laid over its margin, where the
pointed piles protruded, and a superficial barrier of hurdles, or some
such fence, erected close to the edge of the water. 6, Frequently a
wooden gangway, probably submerged, stretched to the shore, by means of
which secret access to the Crannog could be obtained without the use of
a canoe.
“Bearing in mind that all these structures were solidly put together
without nails or bolts, and that the gangways, which have remained
permanently fixed to the present time, had neither joint nor mortise,
we may fearlessly challenge modern science to produce better results
under these, or indeed under any circumstances. Not only do these
wooden islands evince much mechanical and technical skill on the part
of their producers, but what is still more singular, their area of
distribution appears to have been co-extensive with the districts
formerly occupied by Celtic tribes. Hence we have here another proof of
the extraordinary vigour, intense individuality, and plastic character
of early Celtic civilisation, in thus developing, from its own inherent
resources, an unique form of stronghold, simple in its structure, but
admirably adapted to the unsettled conditions of life and military
requirements of the period.”¹
¹ _Ancient Lake Dwellings of Scotland_, pages 262‒264.
The dimensions of the Crannogs vary considerably, some of them
are twenty-three feet in diameter, while others are much less. The
character of the relics and implements found in association with them
are pretty various, embracing culinary articles, tools, weapons, and
ornaments, such as cauldrons, stone-hammers, spindle-whorls, objects
in bronze, bone pins, needles, and borers, and deer horn implements,
and many ornaments. Altogether the collection of articles discovered
in the Scottish Crannogs, indicates that some of them were frequented
and occasionally occupied after the Christian era.¹ But this in no
way proves that they were not originated and constructed, and many of
them occupied at a much earlier period; indeed the very nature of the
construction of these Crannogs, without nails or bolts of any kind,
points to an early and prehistoric origin, and it was already observed
that the primitive canoes have been often found associated with the
Crannogs.
¹ _Ibid._, page 277; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland_, Volume VI., pages 121, 132, 148; Volume IX.,
pages 389, 391; Volume XX., iii. page 148.
The Hill Forts may be divided into three classes:――1, Those formed of
earth; 2, Those formed partly or wholly of stones; and 3, Those formed
of stones and partly vitrified. Seeing that they are all prehistoric,
there seems no necessity for placing them after the Roman invasion.
Although it may be quite true, that we cannot with certainty assign any
of them to the Bronze Age, still I have sufficiently shown, on probably
historic grounds, that the movements of the population in the island,
and the tribal organisation of society, would have naturally and
politically led to the construction of such defensive works; and that
at least some of these works were constructed several centuries before
the Christian era. The movement of the tribes from the southern parts
of the Island, inwards and outwards, issued in the first creation of
historic conditions in Britain; and the consequent necessity of efforts
for self-preservation and defence. It is therefore of comparatively
little importance whether the defensive works in question be assigned
to the Bronze Age or the Iron Age, provided that the causes of their
origin and their consecutive development can be shown, in association
with the advance of the people.
The first class of hill-forts, which were probably the earliest,
consists of a number of low mounds of earth drawn round the brow, or
summits of natural heights. They are mostly circular or oval in form,
as this was often modified by the nature of the sites selected, and
the number of the enclosing mounds of earth vary for similar reasons,
sometimes there are two, three, four or more, which enclose a central
space. They differ from most of the other early constructions, inasmuch
as they are adaptations of naturally elevated sites for purposes of
defence. They are numerous and extend over the whole area of Scotland;
and, as noticed in a preceding page, they were probably sometimes
used in connection with the crannogs. A characteristic example occurs
on a height on the estate of Borthwick Hall, in Mid Lothian, which
has recently been examined. It consists of four mounds of earth which
enclose a space of 410 feet in length from east to west, and 284 feet
in breadth from north to south. The mounds are only a few feet in
height; and there are three entrances to the central enclosure. This
class of earthworks in general, simply consist of a series of earthen
walls enclosing the highest part of a hill of moderate elevation.¹
¹ Chalmers’ _Caledonia_, Volume I., pages 87‒98; _Proceedings
of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume XVI.,
page 254, _et seq._
The second class of hill-forts formed of stones, in some instances have
only a single wall round the brow of a hill, which encloses ♦the area
of its summit; while others have two, three, or more walls drawn round
the ribs of a conical hill, at short distances apart. In Argyleshire
there are a number of prehistoric forts with only one line of walls:
in all, there are fifty-nine forts in this ancient district: of these
thirty-seven are simply enclosed by a single wall, some of which are
circular or oval in form, and others whose figure follow the contour
of the site, and others again on sites partly protected from attack by
nature――steep crags and rocks are only partially defended by walls on
the accessible sides. The greater part of the Argyle forts have had
only one entrance. Out of fifty-four of these forts, sixteen are under
50 feet in length inside the walls, and four of them had outworks;
twenty-four were between 50 and 100 feet inside, and seven had outworks;
eight were between 100 and 200 feet in length inside, and three
had outworks; and four were between 200 and 300 feet in length, but
comparatively narrow. Evidence of wells of water within these Argyle
forts is rare.¹
♦ duplicate word “the” removed
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume XXIII., pages 368‒431. In the same volume of the
_Proceedings of the Society_, Mr. Alexander Hutcheson,
architect, gives an interesting description of several
hill-forts in Aberfeldy, Perthshire. One of these is on
the eastern spur of Drummond Hill, and occupies the summit
of a projecting rock, a site admirably chosen for defence.
“The walls of the fort have followed the contour of the
hill, twisting out and in to suit the exigencies of the
site. The area within the walls is thus of very irregular
outline, measuring in greatest longitude from north-west
to south-east about 100 yards, and at right angles to this
about 70 yards.... The walls are much broken down ... but
there are many parts where the inside and outside faces of
the walls can still be traced. In one part from 16 to 20
feet in length by about 6 feet in height of the original
wall may still be seen. This fragment shows that the walls
had been erected of rough and massive unhewed blocks without
any mortar or cementing material. The wall here is some 9
feet in thickness at the base, and is almost perpendicular
externally, but in the inside it is considerably sloped.
There are at some parts evidences that the ground had been
raised or filled in at the back of the walls, probably
to give those inside the fort an advantage in scaling the
walls for defence. This feature I have observed elsewhere
in similar structures.” Pages 359‒361.
The largest hill-fort in Scotland crowns the summit of a conical hill,
called the White Caterthun, in the parish of Menmuir, Forfarshire.
It is on a well-chosen and commanding position, overlooking the great
plain of Strathmore. The central area enclosed is a long oval of about
450 by 200 feet, and this inner space represents the citadel. The
inmost inclosing wall, now in ruins, was of enormous size and strength.
At 150 feet from it down the slope of the hill there is a second wall,
and below it the remains of a third wall; and beyond this the outer
wall, enclosing an oblong area, which is supposed to have been used
for a cattle-fold. As similar out-enclosures have been observed in
connection with these forts, it is reasonably assumed that they were
used in cases of emergency, such as war or invasion, for the protection
of the live stock, on which the people mainly depended for their food
and clothing.¹ On another hill in the neighbourhood there is a smaller
fort of the same class.
¹ Roy’s _Military Antiquities_, page 47, plates 47‒48. The vast
and massive structure of this fort, and the immense labour
which its construction must have involved, will be best
understood by an examination of the plans and sections in
Roy’s great work.
Farther northward, on the Barmekyn Hill, in the Echt district,
Aberdeenshire, there is a remarkable hill-fort. It consists of five
concentric ramparts, which enclose the summit of the hill, and about
the beginning of this century it was in a perfect state of preservation,
so far as regarded the lines of fortification, though otherwise partly
crumbled into ruins, and much of it removed to supply materials for
the fences in the neighbourhood. The walls were about five feet in
thickness, of dry masonry, and appear to have been of considerable
height, but the inner rampart was twelve feet thick at the base, and
several feet of its height then remained entire. The outer ditches were
nine feet in breadth, and the inner one over thirty feet. The interior
enclosure was reduced to a level, nearly circular, three hundred feet
in diameter, and included about one acre of ground. Traces of a similar
class of hill-forts may still be observed all over the country.¹
¹ _Archæologia Scotica_, Volume II., pages 322‒326. 1822.
The third class of hill-forts are those which show vitrification in
their walls. They have attracted much attention, and yet very little
decisive result as to the cause or the extent of the vitrification
of their walls has been obtained. For all that has been written about
these curious forts, very few of them have as yet been thoroughly
excavated and explored. So far as known, there is no specimen in
Scotland of a fort with its walls vitrified throughout. In every
case where careful examination has been made, “vitrified portions of
walling were found overlying portions built in the ordinary manner
and unvitrified.” This was the result which Dr. Angus Smith obtained
from his investigation of a vitrified fort at Loch Etive. And recently
Mr. Macdonald examined the remains on the Hill of Noath, in the
parish of Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, and found a similar result. He made
wide cuts through the wall in two places down to the natural soil,
and found that it consisted of a mass of loose stones in one of the
sections without any vitrification whatever, and in the other section
it was only vitrified at the top. This is a valuable contribution,
as it touches the precise points which must be determined before
satisfactory conclusions can be formed, as to whether the vitrification
is structural or incidental; or, in other words, a result of design or
the effect of a long series of incidental agencies and circumstances.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume IX., page 396, _et seq._, Volume X. page 70; Volume
XI., page 298; Volume XII., page 13; Volume XXIII., pages
371‒373. Mr. Macdonald, of “The Farm,” Huntly, conducted
his investigations on the remains of the fort on the hill of
Noath at the instance of the Huntly Field Club; and it may
be said, with truth, that these local clubs fill a useful
place, and sometimes make important additions to prehistoric
facts and natural science collections. Mr. Macdonald’s
paper, giving an interesting account of his examination of
the walls of the fort on the Hill of Noath, has just been
published in a volume, along with other local historic
matter of great value.
Examples of partially vitrified forts occur on Craig Phadrig, a
conical hill near Inverness; one at Dunnideer, in the parish of Insch,
Aberdeenshire; another at Finhaven, near Aberlemno, in Forfarshire;
one on the Hill of Barry, Perthshire; several in Galloway, and in other
quarters of the country. But they are not peculiar to Scotland, though
this has sometimes been asserted. A considerable number have been
observed in France, and also in Bohemia.¹
¹ _Ibid._, Volume III., pages 451‒453; Volume VII., page 301;
Volume VIII., pages 145‒155; Volume IX., pages 397, 398;
_Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 451, 453;
_Mémoires de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France_,
Volume XXXIII., page 83, _et seq._
The Hill Fort of Dunsimane caps a conical hill, 800 feet in height, and
it presents some peculiarities which have not been found in connection
with any other of this class of structures. The hill on which it lies
is detached from the surrounding hills by valleys, and it commands a
wide prospect of the country on the south, the Sidlaw Hills, the Carse
of Gowrie, the estuary of the Tay, St. Andrews, and the hills of Fife;
and to the north the plain of Strathmore is seen stretching out, till
terminated by the range of the Grampians. This fort had several walls
originally, but the remaining rampart is mostly composed of earth,
intermingled with large stones, and some parts of it is twenty feet
wide at the base, and from six to eight feet in height. Some fragments
of the rampart are vitrified. The enclosed space measures 150 yards in
length by 70 in width. In its south-east side, two underground chambers
were discovered, twenty feet in length, and from six to eight feet
in width, and about six feet in height. These chambers communicated
with each other, near their ends, by two narrow passages, and the
floors were paved with undressed slabs. The walls of the chambers were
built of undressed stones, which at the height of three feet began
to converge until the roof was closed by flagstones. The floors were
covered with ashes and refuse, consisting mostly of the bones of horses,
and cattle, and deer horns. A quern was found in one of the passages;
and in another, portions of three human skeletons.¹ So far as known,
this is the only Scottish hill-fort associated with underground
chambers――a peculiarity which seems to indicate that it may belong to
the Stone Age.
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume II., pages 95‒97; Volume IX., pages 378‒380;
Anderson’s _The Iron Age_, page 281.
Having noticed the defensive works which the prehistoric people deemed
it necessary to construct for their self-preservation and protection;
and, although we have no direct evidence touching the character of
their common dwellings, we know that they possessed herds of cattle,
and that they made provision for the safety of their flocks in times
of danger and of war. In their every-day life in times of peace, we may
imagine them tending their flocks in the valleys and on the hill sides;
and making in summer what preparation they could to provide a store of
food for their cattle in winter. In all probability life with them was
not nearly such a severe struggle as it is even with most of us at the
present day; and if at times they had to endure privation, they had
also times of real enjoyment and rejoicing. Let us again turn attention
to the disposal of the dead, and the phenomena associated with it in
the Bronze Age.
Interments in the Bronze Age are found under various external
circumstances, and present many differences in their underground
phenomena. Bronze Age burials have been discovered in cairns, in
circular areas fenced off by standing stones, in natural knolls and
gravelly hillocks; and urns and cists have often been found in places
where no external signs of them appeared to the eye. A few examples of
these several modes of burial, with their overground and underground
appearances and associations, will now be presented.
At Collessie in Fife, a cairn consisting of a mass of stones and
boulders, covering a space of one hundred and twenty feet in diameter,
and rising in its centre to a height of fourteen feet, was excavated in
♦1876‒77. In its centre a cist formed of slabs was found on the natural
surface of the ground. The inside of the cist was four feet six inches
long, and three feet wide in the centre; and among the gravel in the
bottom of it some portions of the unburnt bones of a human skeleton
were found in a condition of extreme decay. In one of the ends of
the cist, a clay urn was lying on its side. The urn was high and well
formed of a fine paste which had been baked at an open fire; and though
made without the aid of the wheel, it was nearly regular in its outline;
and its ornamentation consisted of groups of parallel lines alternating
with bands of zigzag and short lines. On a further examination of the
subsoil underneath the cairn, two spots were discovered which indicated
previous disturbance. These turned out to be deep pits; and after the
loose gravel was thrown out, in the bottom of the pit fragments of
an urn was found amongst ashes and charcoal. In the other pit at the
depth of four feet there was a layer of burnt bones, about an inch in
thickness, and spread over a space of from three to four square feet;
and portions of a human skull and the vertebral column were recognised
among the bones. A thin dagger blade of bronze, measuring six inches
in length, was found in this pit; and thin dagger blades are a usual
feature of Bronze Age interments.¹
♦ “1076‒77” replaced with “1876‒77”
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 3‒8.
The above may be taken as an example of a Bronze Age cairn burial;
and I will proceed to other modes of interment. Although many casual
discoveries of single urns have occurred, still it would require an
exhaustive examination of each separate site to warrant the conclusion
that the casually found urn interment is not one of a group. Where
such investigations have been made, it has generally been found that
the site of the casually discovered interment was a cemetery; thus
indicating the use of the site as a family or tribal burying-ground
over a long period.¹
¹ _Ibid._ page 28.
Such cemeteries have been discovered in many places throughout the
kingdom. Recently at Lawpark, near St. Andrews, a cremation cemetery
was discovered, in which twenty urns of a cinerary type were found,
varying in size from ten to sixteen inches in height, and from eight
to eleven inches in diameter; and two small bronze blades were found
amongst the burnt bones. In 1845, when workmen were engaged trenching
a rocky knoll in the parish of Creich, Fifeshire, they discovered
twenty-one urns, of which fourteen were placed singly in a straight
line about three feet apart. About six years ago, a cemetery was
found in a gravelly knoll at Shanwell, in Kinross-shire, and among
the burnt bones a fine specimen of a thin oval bronze blade was found.
At Magdalen Bridge, between Musselburgh and Joppa, a cemetery was
discovered in excavating a sandpit, which contained nine urns, and
one thin bronze blade associated with them. In 1849, at Lesmurdie,
Banffshire, in a sandy height five cists associated with small urns and
chips of flint were found; these were unburnt interments. At Genock,
in the parish of Straiton, Ayrshire, a cremation cemetery was found,
and removed in levelling the ground for the foundation of a dwelling
house; and about a dozen urns were there destroyed. In 1878, in making
a branch railway, a group of interments were discovered at Dalmore, in
Ross-shire, which consisted of ten interments in cists of flat stones
set in gravel; and two of them contained bronze implements. Nine of
these were burnt burials, but only one urn was found, a few beads, a
flint knife, and other objects of stone and bone.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume I., pages 205‒211; Volume VI., pages 217, 218,
276‒278, 388‒391, 394‒418; Volume VII., pages 24, 198,
401‒407, 475; Volume VIII., pages 166, 466; Volume IX.,
pages 158‒160, 268‒270; Volume X., pages 43, 739; Anderson’s
_Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 28‒51.
Stone circles were once exceedingly numerous in every quarter of
Scotland, and though cultivation and other agencies have effaced
many of them, still considerable numbers remain. Merely considered
externally, these circles present a fine variety of forms and figures,
and various degrees of constructive elaboration. Some of them have one
ring of stones, others two or three; and while some groups are oval
in form, others aim at the perfect circle. The stones which form these
circles in all their variations are rough and undressed; excepting
that on some of the stones traces of cup and ring cuttings have been
observed. A large number of the smaller stone circles, as already
indicated, have been supposed to be the foundations on which the huts
of the early inhabitants were erected. But many of the areas within
stone circles and standing stones, were the cities of the dead in the
Bronze Age, and perhaps even later: as a series of careful excavations
and recent investigation have shown that many of the stone circles were
places of burial.
Many stone circles and single standing-stones still exist in the Island
of Arran, though many have been removed to make way for agricultural
improvements, and others have disappeared through various agencies.
The late Dr. James Bryce, having obtained the permission of the Duke
of Hamilton, made a series of careful excavations of a number of areas
within stone circles in the Island of Arran. In 1860 he investigated
six stone circles on Mauchrie Moor, in the townland of Tormore; and
stone cists and interments were discovered in five of them, two urns,
flint chips, twelve flint arrow-heads, a bronze pin, a skull, and
other human remains. The urns were wide-mouthed, one seven-and-a-half
inches high, and the other six-and-a-half inches, and their surface was
ornamented in bands of oblique lines and impressed markings. This group
of Arran interments is of much value as evidence of the purpose of the
standing-stone circles.¹
¹ _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
Volume IV., pages 499‒524.
Many years ago a series of very careful investigations were made by Mr.
Charles E. Dalrymple, which have yielded invaluable materials for the
elucidation of the original purpose of the standing-stone circles. A
group of seven interments, within a circle of six upright pillar-stones,
was disclosed by Mr. Dalrymple at Tuack, near Kintore, in Aberdeenshire.
These were cremation burials, and associated with large urns of the
bronze period type. At Crichie, in the same district, another group
of interments was found within a circular area, marked off by a trench
twenty feet wide; and within this trench there had been a circle of
six standing-stones, and a seventh one in the centre, five of which had
been removed for building purposes. In the centre of the circle, under
the apparent surface of the ground, a cairn of stones was disclosed,
fifteen feet in diameter; and a cist was found underneath the cairn
which contained the remains of an unburnt human skeleton. Near one of
the stones of the circle an urn was discovered, containing a cremation
interment; and at the foot of another stone a deposit of incinerated
bones was found, and near it another of a similar character. At the
same spot a finely-made stone hammer-head was found. Several other
interments were found in different parts of the area, one of which was
in a small cist, and another in a well-formed urn. At Fullarton, also
in the Kintore district, seven interments of incinerated human bones,
associated with fragments of urns, and one unburnt interment, were
found in a circle of twenty-eight feet in diameter; only three of the
stones of the circle remained, two of which were fallen and broken.
In other districts of Aberdeenshire deposits of human remains have
been found in the areas of many stone circles, the most of which were
cremation interments.¹
¹ The results of these investigations were briefly but ably
stated in Dr. Stuart’s two volumes of the _Sculptured Stones
of Scotland_, see Volume I., pages 19‒25, _et seq._; Volume
II., Appendix to Prefix, pages 22‒24; Leslie’s _Early Races
of Scotland_, Volume I., page 209.
In other quarters of the country similar results have been obtained
in the areas of the stone circles, wherever thorough investigation has
been made. And it appears, so far, that the same conclusion may be
deduced with reference to another class of monumental stone-settings,
consisting of groups of upright stones which are not arranged in a
circular form. These are not nearly so common as the circular classes,
and, so far as yet ascertained, their occurrence in Scotland is limited
to the counties of Caithness and Sutherland; but there seems reason to
believe that they also occur in Wales. The evidence, so far as it has
yet gone, is distinct in indicating their sepulchral association.¹
¹ Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 125‒126. “From
these facts it appears that, while a certain uniformity in
the phenomena of the burials exists in smaller areas, there
is a wide diversity exhibited in more extended areas. As our
knowledge of the facts increases in its range and speciality,
as the nature of these variations is gradually ascertained,
and their limits defined with precision, the time will come
when their significance, with relation to the areas in which
they are manifested, may be determined. At present we are
unable to define, with any degree of accuracy, the limits
of the area over which stone circles are found, and equally
unable to say within what limits they are found to contain
burials assignable to the Ages of Bronze or Iron. But this
we are in a position to say, from existing evidence, that,
so far as they have yet been investigated in Scotland,
their nature and purpose has been clearly determined to be
sepulchral.” _Ibid._
Thus, by the recognition of the result of careful investigation, the
stone circles of Scotland have been divested of much of their mystery,
and the mass of quasi-historical relations which had so long shrouded
them in a haze of misty notions.
It seems necessary to supplement the two preceding sections by a brief
expository statement, and a summary of the results of our information
about the people to the opening of the Christian Era. As to the length
of the stone period in Scotland there is no very definite data, still
we are not altogether in the dark concerning its probable duration:――1,
Considering the length of time which it must have taken the people of
the Stone Age to spread over Scotland after they had crossed the Tweed
and the Cheviot Hills. 2, Then the evidence of a lengthened occupation
implied in the great structural monuments which they erected in honour
of the dead; and also the earth-houses which they built for their
self-preservation and protection from the storm and frost of a northern
climate. Further, it may be reasonably presumed that for a considerable
length of time after they had spread over the country, they would have
been fully engaged in providing the necessary means to preserve and
sustain their own lives, and consequently could not have had leisure to
construct elaborate monuments to the departed; for it is not when men
are striving and struggling to the utmost to preserve their existence
that they betake themselves to raise monuments to the dead. So it
may be fairly assumed that the chambered cairns of Caithness, Argyle,
Inverness-shire, and Orkney, were not erected until the people had
attained a certain measure of comfort, organisation, and leisure. All
this must have required a long period for its realisation, making due
allowance for the natural conditions and the circumstances under which
the people lived. 3, It has been indicated that probably the floor
of a single chambered cairn served as the burial-ground of a family or
tribe for several generations before the chamber was covered and the
structure completed. Thus, when two or three chambered cairns occur
near to each other, which is frequently the case, they may represent
in that locality the successive interments of several centuries. 4,
The evidence deducible from the traces of other remains――stone weapons
and tools and the sites of their manufacture, and primitive boats
discovered in positions which indicate that they were deposited in
such spots at a far distant period. 5, The analogy of other Northern
countries, such as Jutland and the Danish Islands, in which it has been
shown on reasonable grounds that the Stone Age commenced 3000 years
before the Christian era.
Taking into account these considerations and indications, it will
appear highly probable that Scotland was inhabited at least 2,800 years
before the Christian era, and that the southern parts of the island
were inhabited several centuries earlier. Indeed, it is doubtful if
this limited period will be sufficient to meet all the conditions and
circumstances of the case, and it must be distinctly understood that
I have advanced this statement as approximate only, and subject to
revision on the attainment of more reliable data.
Touching the probable date of the introduction of the use of bronze
weapons and implements into Scotland, it is impossible to speak with
any approach to certainty. As already pointed out, there was no rapid
introduction of metal weapons and tools; on the contrary, the change
from the use of stone tools to those of bronze was a slow transitorial
process, and in some districts of the country longer or shorter than in
others. From such available indications as we have, it seems probable
that bronze weapons and implements began to be introduced in the
southern and south-western districts of Scotland between 1200 and
1000 B.C., and that at first they came from the south of the island,
and from Ireland, and at a later stage they were manufactured within
the country. The introduction of bronze in the southern region of the
island has been placed at some 1200 or 1400 years B.C., and in Denmark
about 1000 years B.C.¹ My view would give a duration of the bronze
period in Scotland of eight or nine centuries, which at least is not
too long when the distinctive and characteristic development of many of
the bronze weapons and implements produced within the country is taken
into account.
¹ Evans’ _Ancient Bronze Implements, etc., of Britain_, pages
473, 479; J. J. A. Worsaae’s _Pre-history of the North_,
page 205, _et seq._, 1886. Greenwell calculates that a
period of 700 years may be allowed during which bronze was
the metal used for making cutting tools and implements in
Britain.――_British Barrows._
It is probable that iron was known and used in the south of the island
in the third or fourth century B.C., and in Scotland about the second
or third century B.C. But no rapid change took place from the use
of bronze to that of iron in the manufacture of weapons and tools,
the transition was extremely slow and gradual. Indeed, comparatively
little iron was produced in Britain till quite recent times. In all
probability the first manufactured iron articles used in Scotland were
imported, still there are some indications that the process of smelting
iron was known in the country at a pretty early period.
Having thus briefly indicated the probable length of the period since
Scotland has been continuously inhabited, and the stages which the
people have passed through in prehistoric times, I will next attempt to
indicate concisely the social state of the people and their religion,
but this effort must be incomplete from the lack of available
information and evidence.
It has already been incidentally mentioned that the Stone Age people,
while alone in possession of the country, had attained a certain degree
of social organisation. As they were of one race it is unlikely that
there was much war amongst them. That they lived in families or tribes
composed of a large number of individuals may be deduced from the
monuments erected over their dead; and that the heads of tribes could
command the service of a number of men to execute work is obvious.
Whether they were polygamists or monogamists seems uncertain, but
some writers have supposed that polyandry was practised amongst them.
Whatever form of family relations prevailed among them, there can be
no doubt that they were organised in pretty large communities. Besides
possessing cattle and horses, it seems probable that they knew the
use of some of the cereals, and had begun to sow small patches on
the elevated grounds. The earliest indications of agriculture in this
country occurs on some of the hilly ridges.
There seems to have been a strong element of animal worship associated
with their religion. From the constant occurrence of animal remains
in large quantities in the chambered cairns both in England and in
Scotland, this appears to be a reasonable inference; as the slaughter
of the animals at the funeral feasts merely for the purposes of eating
and ceremonial does not sufficiently account for the way in which the
animal remains are mingled with the human remains. It may be that some
notions of a relationship between the spirits of animals and those
of men existed in the minds of these people; if so, they may have
reasoned thus:――Seeing that animals were exceedingly useful to man, and
believing that animals had spirits or souls as well as men, the spirits
of these animals might be assumed to be useful and agreeable companions
for the spirits of the dead. These people simply looked at the death
of an individual as the passing out of his spirit from the body, which
spirit might wander about and return to the body or hover around its
remains. Thus it appears that their religion would practically consist
of a worship of ancestors associated with the spirits of animals. The
occurrence of the remains of dogs in the chambered cairns seems to lend
support to this view. That this religion, when it came into contact
with that of the Celts, would leave some traces of such contact on the
Celtic tribes of Scotland is more than probable.
Concerning the social state of the Bronze Age people, during which
the Aryan Celts had completed their dominion over the earlier race, we
have rather more reliable evidence. The Celtic tribes were monogamists
in their family relations and domestic arrangements; but the sexual
relations, the family customs, and organisations of the earlier race,
seem to have influenced the social relations of the Celtic tribes in
Scotland, more or less, for a long period. In the Bronze Period the
people were living in a well organised condition, under the tribal
forms of government. Owing to causes already indicated, historic
conditions had arisen which had the effect of consolidating a number
of the smaller units of families into one strong tribe, under a common
head; and in this way the tribes had attained a considerable degree of
social and political organisation. Thus within each large tribe there
was a sort of federation which embraced a considerable number of the
smaller tribal divisions, and such a tribe could act with decision and
effect. But when it became necessary for a number of these large tribes
to unite and act in concert for their mutual defence against a common
enemy, they appear politically not to have been sufficiently advanced
to take the full advantage of this means of united action when the day
of peril and of battle came. Hence the Romans explicitly state that if
the British tribes had been thoroughly united amongst themselves, the
task of conquering them would have been much more difficult, if not
impossible. As it was, it took the Romans, with all their combined
resources and disciplined legions, forty years to fight their way from
the Thames to the Firth of Forth.