140 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



period have been brought to light, in connection with build- 

 ing operations, which implies that then, as now, this part of 

 the country was settled and had a considerable population. 



Two very distinct types of interment prevailed, viz. 

 Cremation, with, or without cinerary urns ; and Inhumation, 

 the unburnt body being enclosed in a stone cist or coffin. 

 From an analysis of 144 localities in Scotland of burials 

 which may be associated with the Bronze Age, 1 and which 

 included about 400 distinct interments, it would appear that 

 in fifty-one of these localities the bodies had all been 

 cremated ; in sixty they had been buried in stone cists ; in 

 fifteen the same mound or cemetery furnished examples of 

 both kinds of sepulchre, and in the rest the kind of interment 

 was not precisely recorded. These diversities did not express 

 tribal differences, but seemed to have prevailed generally 

 throughout Scotland. Both cremation and inhumation are 

 found in counties so remote from each other as Sutherland 

 in the north, and Wigtown in the south, in Fife and the 

 Lothians on the east, and in Argyle and the distant Hebrides 

 in the west, as well as in the intermediate districts. 



The cremation had been affected by wood fires, for in 

 many localities charcoal has been found in considerable 

 quantity at the place of interment. The heat generated 

 was sufficient to reduce the body to ashes, and to burn 

 the organic matter out of the bones, which fell into 

 grayish-white fragments, often curiously cracked and con- 

 torted, which were not very friable. They were then col- 

 lected and usually placed in an urn of a form and size 

 which we now call " cinerary." When a bank of sand or 

 gravel was convenient, a hole three or four feet 'deep was 

 made and the urn lodged in it. Sometimes the urn stood 

 erect and a flat stone was placed across the mouth before 

 the hole was filled in with sand and earth ; at others a 

 bed of compacted earth, or of small stones, or of a flat 

 stone, was made at the bottom of the hole, and the urn, 

 with its contents, was inverted. In some cases the urn 

 was protected by loose stones arranged around it. In 



1 Most of these are recorded in the " Archreologica Scotica," the " Proceed- 

 ings of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries," and Dr. Joseph Anderson's "Scotland 

 in Pagan Times " ; whilst others, in the Author's note books, have not yet been 

 published. 





