for the presence of what are technically styled apports,—things introduced by an agency of supra-normal character, vulgarly called a “spirit.”
Undeterred by an event which might have struck fear in constantem virum, Mr. Bruce, in the summer of 1901, was so reckless as to discover a fresh “submarine wooden structure” at Langbank, on the left, or south bank of the Clyde Estuary opposite Dumbarton Castle. The dangerous object was cautiously excavated under the superintendence of Mr. Bruce, and a committee of the Glasgow Archaeological Society. To be brief, the larger features were akin to those of Dumbuck, without the central “well,” or hole, supposed by Dr. Munro to have held the pole of a beacon-cairn. The wooden piles, as at Dumbuck, had been fashioned by “sharp metal tools.” [37] This is Mr. Bruce’s own opinion. This evidence of the use of metal tools is a great point of Dr. Munro, against such speculative minds as deem Dumbuck and Langbank “neolithic,” that is, of a date long before the Christian era. They urged that stone tools could have fashioned the piles, but I know not that partisans of either opinion have made experiments in hewing trees with stone-headed axes, like the ingenious Monsieur
Hippolyte Müller in France. [38a] I am, at present, of opinion that all the sites are of an age in which iron was well known to the natives, and bronze was certainly known.
The relics at Langbank were (1) of a familiar, and (2) of an unfamiliar kind. There was (1) a small bone comb with a “Late Celtic” (200 b.c.-? a.d.) design of circles and segments of circles; there was a very small penannular brooch of brass or bronze; there were a few cut fragments of deer horn, pointed bones, stone polishers, and so forth, all familiar to science and acceptable. [38b]
On the other hand, the Curse fell on Mr. Bruce in the shape of two perforated shale objects: on one was cut a grotesque face, on the other two incomplete concentric circles, “a stem line with little nicks,” and two vague incised marks, which may, or may not, represent “fragments of deer horn.” [38c]
We learn from Mr. Bruce that he first observed the Langbank circle of stones from the window of a passing train, and that he made a few slight excavations, apparently at the end of September, 1901. More formal research was made in October; and again, under the superintendence of members of the Glasgow Archaeological Society,
in September, October, 1902. No members of the Glasgow Committee were present when either the undisputed Late Celtic comb, or the inscribed, perforated, and disputed pieces of cannel coal were discovered. Illustrations of these objects and of the bronze penannular ring are here given, (figures 1, 2, 3, 4), (two shale objects are omitted,) by the kindness of the Glasgow Archaeological Society (Transactions, vol. v. p. 1).
The brooch (allowed to be genuine) “might date from Romano-British times, say 100-400 a.d. to any date up to late mediaeval times.” [39] Good evidence to date, in a wide sense, would be the “osseous remains,” the bones left in the refuse at Langbank and Dumbuck. Of the bones, I only gather as peculiarly interesting, that Dr. Bryce has found those of Bos Longifrons. Of Bos Longifrons as a proof of date, I know little. Mr. Ridgeway, Disney Professor of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge, is not “a merely literary man.” In his work The Early Age of Greece, vol. i., pp. 334, 335 (Cambridge University Press, 1901), Mr. Ridgeway speaks of Bos as the Celtic ox, co-eval with the Swiss Lake Dwellings, and known as Bos brachyceros—“short horn”—so styled by Rutimeyer. If he is “Celtic” I
cannot say how early Bos may have existed among the Celts of Britain, but the Romans are thought by some persons to have brought the Celtic ox to the Celts of our island. If this be so, the Clyde sites are not earlier (or Bos in these sites is not earlier) than the Roman invasion. He lasted into the seventh or eighth centuries a.d. at least, and is found on a site discovered by Dr. Munro at Elie. [40a] Meanwhile archaeology is so lazy, that, after seven years, Dr. Bryce’s “reports on the osseous remains” of Langbank and Dumbuck is but lately published. [40b]
