and satisfied by the annual harvests of golden grain. The ploughshare and the pruning-hook divided attention with the sword and the spear, which they could not supplant; and the ingenious agriculturist devised his oaken querne, his stone rubber, or corn-crusher, and at length his simple yet effective hand-mill, which resisted, during many centuries of change and progress, all attempts to supersede it by more complicated machinery. Dr. Pettigrew, in communicating the results of a series of observations on the bones found in various English barrows, remarks," The state of the teeth in all of them indicated that the people had lived chiefly on grain and roots." The dry, hard oaten cake of the Scottish peasant, which may have been in use almost from the first attempt at cultivation of the favourite national grain, if used as the principal food, would probably prove as effective as any of the presumed vegetable foods for producing such results. At any rate, we need no evidence to satisfy us that the luxuries which have rendered the services of the dentist so indispensable to the modern Briton were altogether excluded from the regimen of his rude forefathers. 991 Sir Richard Colt Hoare commences the great work which has secured for him so distinguished a place among British archæologists, with the motto-" We speak from facts, not theory." While seeking to render the facts of Scottish archæology fully available, it has been my earnest desire to follow in the footsteps of a leader so proved. The inferences attempted to be deduced from such facts as have been accumulated here, with a view to discover some elementary principles for the guidance of Scottish archæologists, are such as appear naturally and logically to follow from them. Still they are stated apart from the premises, and those who Archaeol. Jour. vol. i. p. 272. have followed thus far ungrudgingly in exploring the primeval sepulchres, will find no difficulty in pausing ere they commit themselves to the same guidance in seeking also some glimpses of the native hearth and pastoral enclosures, and of the evidences of that inventive skill which succeeded to such simple arts. We would fain reanimate the ashes in those long-buried urns, and interrogate the rude patriarch regarding a state of being which for centuries-perhaps for many ages,-pertained on these very spots where now our churches, palaces, and our homeliest dwellings are reared; but which seems almost as inconceivable to us as that other state of being, to which we know the old Briton, with all the seed of Adam, has passed. PART II. THE ARCHAIC OR BRONZE PERIOD. "In those old days, one summer noon, an arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION OF METALS. THE evidence adduced in the previous section furnishes the basis of the argument from whence we arrive at the conclusion, that Scotland and the whole British Isles were occupied by a human population many ages prior to the earliest authentic historical notices. Of the character and habits of the barbarian of the primeval period we have also been able to arrive at some knowledge. His dwellings, the remains of which have lain unheeded around the haunts of so many generations, show his domestic accommodation to have been of the simplest and most humble description. His imperfect tools and weapons furnish no less satisfactory evidence of his scanty knowledge, his privations, and his skill. Searching amid the records of that debatable land to which the geologist and the antiquary lay equal claim, we learn that vast tracts of country were covered at that remote era with the primitive forest; that oaks of giant height abounded where now the barren heath and peatbog cumber the land; and that even, at a comparatively recent period, the fierce Caledonian bull, the wolf, and the wild boar asserted their right to the old forest-glades. The primitive Caledonian was, in fact, an untutored savage. The population was thinly scattered along the skirts of the continuous range of forest, occupying the coasts and river valleys, and retreating only to the heights or the dark recesses of the forest when the fortunes of war compelled it to give way before some more numerous or warlike neighbouring tribe. The vast forests which then occupied so large a portion of the soil, while they confined the primitive inhabitants to the open country along the coasts and estuaries, supplied them with more valuable fruits than the unoccupied grounds could have afforded to their scanty numbers and untutored skill. Besides the wolf, the wild boar, and others of the fiercer natives of the forest, we are familiar with the remains of the whale and the seal,-the bones of both of which occur among the debris of ancient hearths; and with the fossil ox, the Bos.primigenius, the Bos longifrons, the elk, the rein-deer, the roebuck, the red and fallow deer, and the goat, as well as smaller beasts and birds of chase with all of which we have abundant evidence that the primitive Caledonian waged successful war. By arrow, sling, and lance, and also, no doubt, with help of gins and traps, the largest and fiercest of them fell a prey to the wild hunter. The horns especially of the deer supplied him with weapons, implements, ornaments, and sepulchral memorials. His wants were few, his tastes simple and barbarous, his religion probably as unspiritual as the most base of savage creeds. In the long wanderings of his nomade fathers across the continents of Asia and Europe, they had greatly deteriorated from the primal dignity of the race; they had forgotten all the heaven taught knowledge of Eden, and had utterly lost the antediluvian metallurgic arts. It may perhaps be asked if the annals of so mean a race are worthy of the labour required in dragging them to light from their long-forgotten repositories? The answer is, they are our ancestry, even though we may question our lineal descent; our precursors, if not our progenitors. From them we derive our inheritance and birthright ; nor, amid all the later mingling of races, can we assume that no drop of their blood mingles in our veins. To the remote antiquity to which the oldest of this aboriginal race must be assigned, science hesitates in the attempt to apply a chronology measured even by thousands of years. But there can be no question that the race continued to occupy its island home, with slow and very slight progression, for many centuries. The disclosures of the latest alluvial deposits have furnished evidence of the appearance which the face of the country presented within the historic era, and leave no room to doubt that vast forests covered so large a portion of the soil even in comparatively recent ages as to afford no great area for the occupation of its aboriginal colonists. Taking into account with this the abundance of the rude. weapons and implements from whence we give that era the name of the Stone Period, and the general uniformity of the circumstances under which they are discovered, we are furnished with satisfactory evidence of a thinlypeopled country, occupied by the same tribes with nearly unchanging habits for many ages. The elements, however, of a great revolution were at length introduced, and, as usual in the history of progressive civilisation, they appear to have come from without. The change by which we detect the close of the long era of barbarism, and the introduction of a new and more advanced period, is the discovery of the art of smelting ores, and the consequent substitution of metallic weapons and implements for those of stone. The former |