398 Sir William Turner [March 26, 



Swords, spears, bucklers, bracelets, rings, fish hooks, axes, chisels, 

 sickles and other implements made of this metal have been found in con- 

 siderable numbers. These objects occur sometimes singly, at others 

 in collections or hoards in peat mosses, or even at the bottom of lochs 

 and rivers, or buried in the soil as if they had been placed there with 

 a view to concealment, and then, through the death or removal of 

 their owners, had been lost sight of. In many instances these weapons 

 and implements are elegant in design, show great mechanical ability 

 in their construction, and are ornamented with much taste and skill. 

 Instances also are not uncommon in which objects of bronze are found 

 in the sepulchres of the period. 



In the study of the Bronze Age in Scotland a want is experienced 

 similar to that felt in a review of the Neolithic period. There are no 

 buildings which can be distinctly regarded as dwelling-places for the 

 men of this time. With them, however, as in the polished Stone Age, 

 there is evidence of the mode in which they disposed of their dead 

 friends and relatives. Interments which there are good grounds for 

 associating with these people, have been exposed in the formation of 

 roads and railways, and in agricultural operations. Where the sur- 

 face of the ground has not been cultivated or otherwise disturbed, 

 in almost every county tumuli, mounds, hillocks and cairns occur, 

 the exploration of which has in many cases yielded interesting results. 

 In no instance, however, have chambered cairns, divided into compart- 

 ments, and possessing an entrance passage, been found associated with 

 articles made of bronze. The sepulchral arrangements of the period 

 possessed a greater simplicity than is shown in the chambered 

 cairu. 



The interments in the Bronze Age were sometimes that of a single 

 individual in a knoll or mound, or under a cairn artificially con- 

 structed, and now overgrown with grass, heather and whin bushes, or, 

 as is not uncommon, in the collection of sand or gravel near the sea 

 shore, or on a river bank, or in the moraine of some long-vanished 

 glacier. At other times, in similar localities, two to six interments 

 had been made as if in a family burying ground. At others the inter- 

 ments were much more numerous, and represented doubtless the 

 cemetery of a tribe or clan ; one of the best known of these was 

 observed some years ago at Law Park, near St. Andrews, in which 

 about twenty interments were recognised. In another at Alloa, 

 twenty-two separate interments were exj^osed. Quite recently, im- 

 mediately to the east of Edinburgh, in the districts now known as 

 Inveresk and Musselburgh, not less than fifty interments of this 

 period have been brought to light, in connection with building 

 operations, which implies that theu, 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 \\hich may be associated with the 



