We now approach the disputed and very puzzling objects found in the three
Clyde sites. My object is, not to demonstrate that they were actually
fashioned in, say, 410-550 A.D., or that they were relics of an age far
more remote, but merely to re-state the argument of Dr. Joseph Anderson,
Keeper of the Scottish National Museum, and of Sir Arthur Mitchell, both
of them most widely experienced and sagacious archaeologists. They play
the waiting game, and it may be said that they "sit upon the fence"; I am
proud to occupy a railing in their company. Dr. Anderson spoke at a
meeting of the Scots Society of Antiquaries, May 14, 1900, when Mr. Bruce
read a paper on Dumbuck, and exhibited the finds. "With regard to the
relics, he said that there was nothing exceptional in the chronological
horizon of a portion of them from both sites (Dumbuck and Dunbuie), but
as regards another portion, he could find no place for it in any
archaeological series, as it had 'no recognisable affinity with any
objects found anywhere else.'"
"For my part," said Dr. Anderson, (and he has not altered his mind,) "I
do not consider it possible or necessary in the meantime that there
should be a final pronouncement on these questions. In the absence of
decisive evidence, which time may supply, I prefer to suspend my
judgment--merely placing the suspected objects (as they place themselves)
in the list of things that must wait for further evidence, because they
contradict present experience. It has often happened that new varieties
of things have been regarded with suspicion on account of their lack of
correspondence with things previously known, and that the lapse of time
has brought corroboration of their genuineness through fresh discoveries.
If time brings no such corroboration, they still remain in their proper
classification as things whose special character has not been confirmed
by archaeological experience."
Sir Arthur Mitchell spoke in the same sense, advising suspension of
judgment, and that we should await the results of fresh explorations both
at Dumbuck and elsewhere. {61} Dr. Murray said that the disputed finds
"are puzzling, but we need not condemn them because we do not understand
them." Dr. Munro will not suspend _his_ judgment: the objects, he
declares, are spurious.