790 REPORT— 1901. 



FlUDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. 



The following Papers and Eeports were read : — 



1. Notes on the Excavation of an ancient Kitchen Midden recently 

 discovered on the St. Ford Links, near Mie, Fife. By Robert 

 MuNRO, M.D.^ 



After narrating tlie circumstances which led to the discovery of the midden, 

 and describing the details of its subsequent excavation by the proprietor, 

 W. Baird, Esq., the author proceeds to give a description of the relics, pointing 

 out their analogy to other Scottish remains, and concludes by briefly stating some 

 of the conclusions suggested by the archfeological facts recorded. The points of 

 interest may be thus summarised : — 



(1) The midden was composed of a bed of dark earthy matter, about two feet 

 thick, containing ashes, charcoal, decayed bones and horns of various domestic and 

 wild animals, a few sea-shells, and some relics of human occupancy. It lay over 

 a bed of fine sand, within the twenty-five feet raised beach, and at a depth of from 

 two to five feet beneath a grassy mound (formerly a sand-dune). Its shape was 

 oblong, some sixteen paces in length (north to south) by eleven in breadth, and 

 its margins were precisely, sometimes abruptly, defined from the surrounding 

 blown sand. 



(2) The chief relics are two ornamental toilet combs (fragmentary), a bone 

 spindle-whorl turned on the lathe, a few bone pens and implements of deer-horn, a 

 curious vessel made from the leg bone of an ox, an eel-spear-head, and a chisel of 

 iron, a small portion of thin bronze, and two fragments of a flat dish of ' false 

 Samian ' ware, 



(3) From a comparison of these relics with some of those found on the Scottish 

 Crannogs the author dates the midden and its makers, approximately, to the 

 eighth century, and gives reasons for supposing that it was the site of a wooden 

 house. 



(4) The presence of an unusually large number of water-worn pebbles which 

 had been subjected to fire, together with the absence of culinary pottery, querns, 

 and hammer-stones, suggest that the occupants were not agriculturists, but 

 pastorals and hunters, who cooked their meat in wooden dishes, boiling water by 

 means of stones previously made red-hot in an open fire. 



(5) The osseous remains were very abundant, but greatly decayed. Among the 

 animals represented by them the following were identified by Dr. R. Traquair, 

 r.R.S., viz. — ox (two varieties, one being the longifrons), sheep, pig, horse, fox, 

 dog, red- and roe-deer, three portions of bones of some species of whale, one of 

 which showed the marks of a sharp axe. 



Report on the Excavations of the Roman City at Silchester. 

 See Reports, p. 425. 



3. Excavations at Ardoch. By J. H. Cunningham, Sec. S.A.Scot. 



This paper, after a brief description of the earthworks at the Roman station of 

 Ardoch, in Perthshire, gives an account of the excavations which were carried on 

 there in 1896-97 by the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. The following were the 

 chief results obtained in the course of the operations : (1) The structure of the 

 main rampart resembled that of the Antonine ' Wall.' (2) Fragments of charcoal 



' This paper will be published in the Proceedhigs of the Society of Antiquaries 

 for Scotland (1900-1901). 



