PREHISTORIC ARCH/EOLOGY IN ABERDEEN DISTRICT 69 
it has to be noted that they contain the earliest human skeletal remains 
that have yet been found in the district. ‘These are distributed irregu- 
larly, but sometimes they are in groups, as in the parishes of Dunnottar 
and Kinneff in Kincardineshire. In the majority of cases no mounds 
or monuments or external marks indicate their situations. In some 
instances, however, they have been found in mounds of earth or sandy 
gravel, or covered by cairns of stones, and in one case within a stone 
circle at Crichie, Aberdeenshire. 
In the Aberdeen University Anthropological Museum there is a collec- 
tion of the contents of cists, individually displayed. Besides these, there 
are three cists, one of which is placed in the Anatomical Department, 
mounted to show the manner in which they were constructed as well as 
their contents in their position as found. These may be taken as fair 
examples of the Bronze Age burials in the district. 
The cists in which the remains were found were roughly rectangular, 
the inside measurements being on an average about 3 ft. 8 in. long, 
2 ft. broad and 1 ft. 8 in. deep. They lay from 6 in. to 2 ft. below the 
surface of the ground, and the walls and roofs were formed of rough, 
flattened stones similar to those in the vicinity. The roofs consisted 
of one main flat stone, but occasionally there were several, as in a cist 
found in Kinneff in Kincardineshire and now in the Aberdeen University 
Anthropological Museum. ‘The roof of this cist is also of interest as it 
consists of many slabs arranged in three layers, the under surface of one 
of these stones bearing rude sculpturing and evidence of atmospheric 
weathering before the stone was used to form the roof of the cist. Another 
of these roofing stones shows an artificial perforation countersunk on 
both sides. 
The floors of the cists were formed either of the gravelly stratum upon 
which the cists stood, or were paved by small, water-worn stones or by 
a thin layer of clay into which pebbles had been inserted. 
As regards their orientation when recorded, the long axes were directed 
from west to east, from south-west to north-east or from south to north, 
and it is interesting to observe that the skeletons were found in a crouching 
position with the knees bent, the thighs directed towards the front of the 
trunk, and the head of the skeleton usually lying in the north or north-east 
end of the cist. 
From an examination of 48 skeletons, a few of which were from other 
parts of Scotland, 31 were male and 17 were female. ‘The average age 
of the males was about 50 years and that of the females about 40 years, 
and it is observable, therefore, that, for some reason or other, the lives 
of their owners had been comparatively short. The males were short 
in stature, on the average about 5 ft. 5 in., and the females about 5 ft. 1 in. 
As regards cranial capacity, the male skull showed an average of 1,438cc., 
the female 1,368 cc., and when compared with the average capacity of the 
skulls of modern Europeans (1,500 cc.), both were considerably less. 
The skulls of these people were broad, but not very much so. Their 
foreheads were full and the brow ridges not particularly raised. ‘Their 
faces were broad and short, the sockets for the eyeballs narrowed from 
above downwards, the noses wide, the jaws projecting no farther forward 
