The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

by Sir Daniel Wilson

The title of this chapter, as of some others of those relating to British history prior to the first century of the Christian era, may perhaps appear to readers of indices as not a little presumptuous. These chapters deal exclusively with a period believed to have long preceded written history, and of which we possess no other records than those that have been garnered in the grave, wherein is "no knowledge," or chance-found amid the alluvium and peat-mosses, in which the geologist discerns many evidences of antiquity, but from which he has yet failed to deduce any defined measure that will help us to their age. Still we have found, in the ruder productions of the primitive period, that the simplest works of man bear some ineffaceable traces of his intelligence. The sagacious inductions of Cuvier have met with universal acceptation in their definition of the form, the size, the food, and the general haunts and habits of the Megalonyx, a gigantic antediluvian sloth, only a few disjointed bones of which are known to exist. We need not therefore despair of learning somewhat of the early Caledonian, of his habits, his thoughts, and even of his faith, when we are able to refer to so many specimens of his handiwork and inventive design, and retain some relics of his ruined temples, and abundant illustrations of his sepulchral rites. It is by simple induction, however, that the discovery of such truths is aimed at. Intentionally, at least, no rein is given here to fanciful speculation, nor are any theories advanced but such as are believed to be based on the suggestive aspects of ascertained truths.

We have no reason to assume that the aboriginal Caledonian of the Bronze Period ever carried civilisation so far as materially to affect the social character of the community. The patriarchal system of tribes or clans, we may presume, continued nearly as we know them to have existed at the first dawn of written history, or, at most, were only modified by the union of a greater or less number of petty tribes under some general chief. Many improvements on the accommodation and conveniencies of the native hut and its furnishings would necessarily result from the possession of metallic tools. With these only could the art of the carpenter be developed, and the implements of husbandry and the chase, as well as the weapons of war, be moulded into useful and convenient forms. The clothing also, we have seen, was aided by the ingenuity and skill of feminine arts. The skins of the deer or the wild bull, as well as of the fox, the hare, and the smaller fur-clad animals, would thus be superseded in part, and fashioned, where they were retained, with such improved taste as made them correspond to the beautiful ornaments of the period. Of very much of this all evidence has disappeared, but enough remains to prove that the Caledonian of the Bronze Period was no naked painted savage. Whether the ingenious knitters of the garments, the precious fragments of which have occasionally been rescued from the tumuli, had learned to adorn them with any interwoven parti-colours may be doubted; but the learned Scottish antiquary, Dr. Jamieson, has already suggested the Gaelic breac, signifying parti-coloured, and breacan, a tartan plaid, as perhaps the true source of derivation of the name Gallia Braccata, which would thus refer to the colour rather than to the fashion of the Celtic dress. We know certainly, from the sculptures on Trajan's column, that the Bracæ were not so unfamiliar to the Romans as to be adopted as the peculiar characteristic of a single race. It is to be borne in remembrance, however, that in so far as this archæological period is strictly defined to include only the era of Archaic art, and the working in gold, copper, and bronze, prior to the knowledge or economic use of iron, it must be assigned to an epoch which had drawn to a close before the Britons were known to the Romans, unless by vague traditions indirectly acquired through Carthage or Spain, or by the imperfect notices of the Cassiterides to be found in the pages of early Greek writers.

An interesting inquiry suggests itself in relation to this as to all unknown states of society—What was the social position of woman? To this the answer we can at present give is very uncertain. But the traces already noted are not such as to discourage all hope of attaining to greater definiteness and certainty. The frequent occurrence of what appear to be female personal ornaments among the contents of the Scottish tumuli, seems to afford satisfactory indications that woman possessed, at that early era, somewhat of the equality of social position which still peculiarly characterizes the races of Northern Europe. Further investigations can hardly fail to add more certainty to our deductions, while they may also greatly enlarge the evidence on which they are based. For the rest, we infer with more certainty that the dog was the chosen companion of man in these old days, as he is still; for the bones of the buried favourite have been frequently found laid beside his master's urn. Doubtless his value in the chase was well known, and his fidelity fully recognised at the hearth. Whether the horse had also become, thus early, man's useful companion and servant, appears still open to further inquiry. Probably not till the succeeding era had fairly brought its civilizing influences into full operation, did the Briton establish his dominion over the noble and intelligent quadruped which assumed so important a place in the symbolism and mythology of his latest Pagan creed; though the investigations of the geologist leave no room to question its presence prior to, if not contemporarily with the earliest colonists of the British Isles. From diverse points, and by various means, we thus seek to catch a glimpse of those old historic eras. But, with all such aids, our view must be owned to be sufficiently slight, and our outline to stand in need of much filling in, before we can picture as we would wish to do, the intelligent Briton of that old time when he was still, perhaps, a barbarian, but had ceased to be a savage, and is therefore the just object of our earnest sympathy as the originator of much the beneficent results of which we even now inherit.

This first era of civilisation, which succeeded the introduction of metals and is known as the Bronze or Archaic Period, manifestly differs, in many essential points, from that primeval period previously considered. It is the birth-time of native arts wherein we discern the possibility of still better things. There pertains to it an interest altogether peculiar. Its acquired knowledge probably long exceeded its means. Copper and bronze could at no time be so plentifully supplied as to admit of the facilities to which the abundance and cheapness of iron have for so many centuries accustomed us. With a thorough knowledge of the superiority of metals, the ingenious artificer was compelled, throughout the whole Bronze Period, to manufacture nearly all his bulkier implements of stone. Still he was being educated, so that when the greater facilities did come within his reach, he was able to avail himself of them. We must look, indeed, upon this whole period, as upon the early years of an intelligent child—rich with the freshness, the originality, and the unconscious simplicity of youth. Its efforts are extremely unequal, blending the most Archaic works with occasional productions rivalling the ingenuity and taste of the polished eras which have succeeded. We detect, moreover, the evidences of a social state wherein the value of combined operations had still to be learned, and where isolation led to abundant manifestations of ingenuity and skill, without producing any immediate results beyond the little sphere of the native hut, or hamlet, or patriarchal clanship. We discover, indeed, nothing inconsistent with such a social and political state as we know to have pertained among the most civilized British tribes in the century immediately preceding the Christian era, when, for the first time, we are able to look upon them with the aid of definite, though somewhat prejudiced and disparaging narratives of classic historians. I would only add, that there appears no shadow of evidence thus far discoverable, on which to found a single doubt as to the indigenous character of British relics of the Primeval and Archaic Periods. As to the favourite idea of their Danish origin, it is altogether absurd and irreconcilable with known facts. Nothing is more certainly established in the history of these northern races, and, indeed, involved in the nature of things, than that, long before the Scandinavian races emerged from the viks and fiords of the north, the Archaic Periods both of Scandinavian and British arts had been superseded by others more compatible with the social status which such aggressive movements very manifestly indicate.

The term Archaic has been adopted as a definition of this era, because, in the sense which is now most generally attached to it, it peculiarly applies to the artistic productions of the period. The ornamentation is almost without exception only improvements on the accidents of manufacture. The incised decorations of the pottery appear, in many cases, to have been produced simply by passing twisted cords round the soft clay. More complicated designs, most frequently consisting of chevron, saltire, or herring-bone patterns, where they are not merely the primary results of a combination of such lines, have been suggested, as I conceive, by the few and half-accidental patterns of the industrious female knitter. In no single case is any attempt made at the imitation of a leaf or flower, of animals, or any other simple natural objects. It is curious, indeed, and noteworthy, to find how entirely every trace of imitative art is absent in the British Archaic relics, for it is by no means an invariable characteristic of the primitive arts of Allophylian nations. The objects recovered from the sepulchral mounds of the Great Valley of the Mississippi, as well as in the regions of Mexico and Yucatan, display, along with the weapons and implements of stone, silex, and obsidian, numerous indications of imitative design. Among the relics of the aboriginal mound-builders of the Great Valley especially, pipe-heads, tubes, masks, and a great variety of nondescript articles, are often characterized by evidences of very considerable ingenuity and imitative skill. Even the pottery is occasionally moulded into the forms of animals, and when only decorated with lines these are very frequently arranged in such definite or flowing patterns as suggest their derivation from flowers and other objects in nature.[398] The natives of the Polynesian Islands display a similar though perhaps inferior taste in their clubs, paddles, and mallets, the prows of their boats, and numerous other objects, carving them into grotesque imitations of human and other animal forms.

The indefinite and Archaic character which marks the ornamentation of the early British pottery, characterizes the most elaborate and costly ornaments of gold. Though the peculiar form of one class of gold ornaments found in the British Isles has suggested a name for it derived from the calix of a flower, which the cups of its rings seem in some degree to resemble, yet no example has been found bearing the slightest traces of ornament suggestive of such similarity having been detected by the old British goldsmith. Where incised lines are superinduced upon the flower-like forms, they are the old chevron and saltire patterns of the rude clay pottery, though executed with considerable delicacy and taste. It is obvious that ideas of comparison, which enter so largely into the spirit of modern artistic design, and also form so considerable an element in the more artificial poetic compositions of modern bards, were altogether undeveloped in these old times. Art was, in fact, the child of necessity, and continued to receive the adjuncts of adornment from the same sources from whence it had first derived its convenient but arbitrary forms.

Gold Rod. Circle of Leys.

The gold "sceptre head" found at Cairnmure in Peeblesshire, and engraved on a former page, is one of the very few examples of defined forms of ornamentation found along with objects some of which at least may admit of being classed with those belonging to this period. They are still arbitrary, and, strictly speaking, not imitative, though they approach towards forms directly imitative, or at least designed to be representative, with which we shall become familiar in the succeeding era. Little doubt, however, can be entertained that the sceptre head belongs to the succeeding era. The funicular torc was undoubtedly in use in the latest Pagan period, and the whole Cairnmure hoard may very consistently be assigned to it. The large ornaments on the sceptre head, though very partially defined, resemble in some degree the "snake-pattern," which forms one of the commonest decorations of the last Pagan era. The woodcut exhibits a much more characteristic primitive symbol of office. It is the gold lituus dug up in the year 1824, within the monolithic circle of Leys, Inverness-shire. The parts united together form a rod nearly eighteen inches long, the rude workmanship of which strikingly contrasts with the delicate though imperfectly defined ornamentation of the Cairnmure sceptre head.[399] This entire absence of imitation in the primitive British arts is an important fact in its bearing on our present inquiries, seeing that it is not a universal or even a very general characteristic of Allophylian nations. The relics, as we have seen, recovered from the sepulchral mounds of the Great Valley of the Mississippi, as well as in the regions of Mexico and Yucatan, display numerous indications of imitative skill. The same is observable in the arts of various tribes of Africa, Polynesia, and of other modern races in an equally primitive state. What is to be specially noted in connexion with this is, that both in the ancient and modern examples, the imitative arts accompany the existence of idols, and the abundant evidences of an idolatrous worship. So far as we yet know the converse holds true in relation to the primitive British races, and as a marked importance is justly attached to the contrasting creeds and modes of worship and polity of the Allophylian and Arian nations, I venture to throw out this suggestion as not unworthy of further consideration.[400] Yet we are not entirely dependent on negative evidence in relation to the primitive creed. We are led to the conclusion that the ancient Briton lived in the belief of a future state, and of some doctrine of probation and of final retribution, from the constant deposition beside the dead, not only of weapons, implements, and personal ornaments, but also of vessels which may be presumed to have contained food and drink. That his ideas of a future state bore little resemblance to "the life and immortality brought to light by the Gospel," is abundantly manifest from the same evidence. Somewhat, however, is added to our knowledge of his religion, if the inference be admitted to be a legitimate one which deduces from the absence of all imitation of natural objects in his ornamental designs, the conclusion that idolatry has pertained under no form to the worship of the native Briton. Whether his religion was a fetish-worship, with spells and strange magical rites; or that he brought from his far eastern birthland the Chaldean star-worship or the Persian fire-worship; or knelt to Sylvanus and the Campestres Æterni Britanniæ,—the supposed haunters of his native fields and forests, to whom the Roman legions afterwards reared altars and poured out libations,—it seems consistent with all analogy to conclude that no visible forms were worshipped within the Caledonian groves or monolithic temples. Julius Cæsar, in his oft-quoted account of the Druids, describes the Gauls as much addicted to religious observances, and names Mars, Apollo, Jupiter, Minerva, and Mercury, as objects of their worship. Of Mercury especially, he adds, they have many images, and they esteem him as the inventor of the arts. This, however, might be true enough of the continental Gauls of that late period, who had then long been partially brought into contact with the Romans, and yet be totally inapplicable to the Caledonians, who had no direct knowledge of them for fully a century after the date of Cæsar's first landing on the white cliffs of England. As to the theories relating to Celtic Druidism, concerning which so much has been written, an opinion has already been expressed. It is one of the many branches of primitive history, in which, after having perused all the ponderous tomes which have been devoted to its elucidation, the archæologist returns with renewed satisfaction to the trustworthy though imperfect and scanty records which he finds in the relics of primitive invention and archaic design. The truths contained in these ample dissertations are mostly too few and uncertain to be worth the labour of sifting them from the heap in which they may be buried, at the rate of about a grain of truth to a bushel of fancy. Still, from the authentic allusions of classic writers, we may safely conclude thus far, that a native priesthood exercised a most important influence over the later Celtic and Teutonic races of Britain, as appears to have been the case among most of the nations of the Indo-European family.