ANCIENT REMAINS IN ARRAN. 21 / 



seen in one group in their Museum at the Royal Society 

 House, on the Mound, Edinburgh.* The principal objects are 

 given on our two plates. The nature of the human remains 

 was felt to be of great importance in the inquiry of what 

 race or type of head, of what sex and age, of what bodily 

 proportions, those of a warrior chief, or a tender female, was 

 the individual to whom they belonged ? The determination 

 of these questions must have an important bearing on the 

 purpose for which these huge works were erected. Anxious 

 to have the opinion of the highest authority upon these 

 questions, I submitted the entire of the remains for inspec- 

 tion to Dr. Allen Thomson, Professor of Anatomy and 

 Physiology in the University of Glasgow, who kindly 

 furnished a full report upon them, which is given at length 

 in the paper already referred to. The remains were also 

 examined by Professor Goodsir, Dr. Struthers, and Mr. 

 Turner, of Edinburgh. The skull is of the old British type, 

 and, so far, the evidence is in favour of a high antiquity for 

 these works ; it seems to be that of a young female or slender 

 male, just arrived at maturity; perhaps " the daughter of the 

 tribe," or the future chief, who it was hoped would one day 

 lead in the field of battle and in the chase. The teeth form a 

 nearly complete set; in most of them the enamel, though 

 brittle, was entire, but the bony part crumbled into powder 

 under a very slight pressure; this part was also of a dark 

 brown colour, as if partially charred; the wisdom teeth had 

 either just passed through the gum or were about to do so. 

 Some of the bones were human rib-bones, others shaft- 

 portions of human thigh bones; there were long bones, 

 portions of deer's horns; and also portions of an animal's 

 under jaw, most probably a dog or seal, but very difficult to 

 determine from the state of decay. 



* By desire of his Grace likewise, a memoir on the subject, of 

 which the account here given is an abstract, was drawn up for the 

 Antiquarian Society, read May 1862, and published in their transac- 

 tions for 1863. 



