440 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 
in all countries round the North Sea points to an increase in stature amounting 
to 3 or 4 inches since neolithic times—showing that evolution as well as 
admixture had been at work. 
If we suppose that the northward drift of the ‘harpoon’ people took place 
at the beginning of the neolithic period—some 6000 or 7000 8.c.—we have to 
leave about 4,000 or 5,000 years as a blank in the history of the Scottish people, 
for it is not until the beginning of the second millennium s.c. that we have 
reliable facts to guide us. At the beginning of this period we find Scotland in 
free communication with Europe by two portals. Through her eastern coasts 
she was open to the opposite shorelands of the North Sea and to Central Europe. 
From John o’ Groats to Berwick we find graves of this period containing the 
remains of a peculiar and round-headed people. Lord Abercromby has traced the 
designs of their pottery to the upper reaches of the Rhine. In late neolithic 
times this same race of round-heads was invading the coast lands of Sweden, 
Norway, Denmark, and England. To this day the effects of the round-head 
invasion can be traced in the population of the eastern counties of Scotland 
and of the coast lands of Norway and Sweden. 
There seems only one possible explanation of the westward spread of round- 
heads during the fourth, third, and second millenia s.c. These people must 
have had not only superior means of offence and defence, but must also have 
been in possession of an art which gave them an immense superiority over their 
neighbours. The only art which could give such a power is agriculture—the 
knowledge of how to make a piece of land carry a score of families which, by 
its natural produce, could not support a single soul. It is not necessary to 
say where or when agriculture first came to be practised as an art. If we suppose 
that, at the time when the harpoon people were drifting northwards, the round- 
headed natives in lands lying to the east and south of the Caspian Sea had 
already learned the art of the crofter, then we can explain the western expansion 
of the round-heads and the distribution of kindred tongues from India to 
Treland. It is quite feasible that the Celtic and Teutonic tongues may be 
modifications of the speech which reached western Europe in the mouths of the 
round-head neolithic invaders. 
Having thus seen the kind of visitors which Scotland was receiving through 
her eastern or front door in the earlier part of the second millennium B.c., we 
turn to see what was taking place at her western or back door. At this time, 
as Prof. T. H. Bryce has shown, the pulse of south-western Europe—of the 
Mediterranean—was beating on Scotland, along what may be called the Celtic 
sea-passage—St. George’s Channel, the Irish Sea, the western shores, to Orkney 
and to Norway. Along the shores of this route can be traced at least three 
consecutive fashions in stone graves of a southern prototype; by this route 
Ireland and Wales received new settlers from south-western countries of Europe ; 
but did they reach Scotland? Prof. Bryce is of opinion that the people buried 
in the western megalithic tombs of Scotland represent invaders of the Mediter- 
ranean type. They may equally well be considered as the native Nordic people 
of Scotland ; indeed, in such skulls as retain the face there are certain features 
which suggest a northern origin. 
There is no definite evidence of any great invasion of Scotland from the 
second millennium to the arrival of the Romans. The remains found near 
Gullane by Dr. Edward Ewart, and probably of the late Celtic period, are of 
the Nordic type. ‘The Roman invasion left no appreciable mark on the Scottish 
people. But in the fifth century, when the Romans were gone, both eastern and 
western doorways became again open and busy with visitors. The Dalriad — 
Scots from the North of Ireland entered by the western portal; they may have 
brought a tongue which was new to Scotland, but they brought no new physical 
type, for we have every right to presume that Ireland was originally peopled by 
the same race as settled in Scotland. From the fifth century onwards, for a 
period of 500 years, Scotland received at her eastern doorway settlers from the 
coast lands on the opposite side of the North Sea. They came from lands which, 
like Scotland, were first settled by the ‘harpoon’ people. They brought 
Teutonic dialects to Scotland, other manners, traditions. and arts, but no physical 
type of manhood which was new to Scotland. The difference between Celt and 
Saxon is a difference produced in the same race by separation in time and space ; 
the distinction between them is a political, not an anatomical, one. 
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