84 A GALLOWAY STONE-AGE VILLAGE. 
to put all these suggestions out of court. Flint nodules, more- 
over, do not occur in this particular formation, but are to be 
found not far distant, and in various other parts of Western 
Wigtownshire, but only in the stratified gravels, at points from 
30 to 200 feet above sea-level. 
If the sites have been wells, why should there be more than 
one, and why hearths? If they have been pitfalls to entrap 
wild animals, or shelters for huntsmen, or if they have merely 
been stores or crematories, how account for the presence of 
workshop utensils ? 
More probably they have served as workshops of some kind, 
and certainly for some grinding and polishing operations and the 
manufacture of flint implements. They may have been cooking 
places also. 
While probably stores, workshops, and cooking places, 
these curious sites, bearing traces of human activity and distinct 
domestic associations, may, nevertheless, have been dwellings, or 
cellars beneath dwellings. 
The theory, then, of dwellings is by far the most plausible. 
From the dimensions of the places it may be that they were more 
in the nature of shelters or sleeping places than dwellings in the 
modern sense. 
FLOORING. 
At each end of Site No. 3 traces of what was supposed to be 
flooring were noticed. It was at these points only that the 
fragments of pottery were obtained. No doubt any pottery on 
other and central portions of the floor would be carried down to: 
the lower and very much wetter layer on the collapse of the floor, 
and the ware, being soft and non-glazed, would soon resolve 
itself into its original clay and pounded pebbles. At the south 
end a portion of a layer of charcoal about 2 inches thick was 
associated with the fragments of pottery. 
Mr Richard M‘Kay has kindly examined some pieces of the 
charcoal microscopically, and reports that it is of coniferous 
wood, probably pine. 
The heavier stone utensils were found at all the sites lying 
far down between the piles. They had perhaps once rested on 
the floor, and as the floor decayed they had fallen through it into 
the lower zone. 
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