A GALLOWAY STONE-AGE VILLAGE. 91 
fine hammer stones, anvil stones, rubbing stones, pounders, and 
pestles. 
CHRONOLOGY. 
Estimates of the age of the settlement may be based on the 
shape of the hut, and on the character of the relics recovered. 
The long or oval hut would scarcely have been in extensive 
use in the same region and at the same period as the round hut. 
In any case, in the Scottish area one type probably originated 
before the other. Was then the oval hut anterior to the round 
hut? It is natural to consider the oval hut the more primitive, as. 
it was more easily constructed. The round hut, when it reached 
a diameter of 20 or more feet, seems to have had the roof 
centrally supported, as in the Glastonbury examples. There are 
good grounds for believing two theories often propounded—that 
the construction of the early grave-chambers was in imitation of 
the architecture of dwellings, and that the long barrow of Britain 
belonged to the Age of Stone, and the round barrow to the Age 
of Bronze. It may be taken, therefore, as probable that the 
long or oval type of dwelling is the earlier. 
The presence of pottery is, of course, of great value in any 
effort to fix the chronological horizon of the sites. It is, unfor- 
tunately, impossible to tell whether the bases of the vessels were 
rounded or flat. However, the colouring of the fragments, and 
the ornamentation on the ware, and the shape of the rims, are 
characteristic of the Stone Age in Scotland. 
While the pottery and utensils are all archaic, yet the 
absence of relics characteristic of Medizval times or of the early 
Iron Age, such as objects of glass and vitreous paste or of any 
of the metals, does not allow us positively to assign the remains 
to a time earlier than these periods, though at present the 
evidence is strongly in favour of the sites having been anterior to 
the brochs, earth-houses, and the usual type of crannogs in 
Scotland. The character of the axe-marks points to the same 
conclusion. No vestiges of horn or lignite were noticed. Early 
wrought objects in horn are extremely rare in Wigtownshire, but 
not so relics of lignite, which have very frequently been found in 
Wigtownshire on sites of the Bronze Age, and of later times. 
While the type of oval hut in Stoneykirk has yielded no relics: 
definitely characteristic of the Bronze Period or of any later age, 
