The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

by Sir Daniel Wilson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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