35B Field Meetings. 



" finds " of burials are by no means a certainty. Mr George 

 Tate, F.S.A., reporting to the Berwickshire Naturahsts' Club 

 on " the old Celtic Town at Greaves Ash," near Linhope, 

 Northumberland, states that in many of these tumuli, scat- 

 tered over the lower hills of Northumberland, burned wood 

 was found, but " no traces of human inhumation, nor even 

 any bones;" and he conjectures that the ashes have dis- 

 appeared in the course of ages. 



These upland burial places point to a considerable popu- 

 lation of hill-dwellers in the stone age, prior to the Christian 

 era and the advent of the Romans. Few traces of the dwell- 

 ings of that primitive race have as yet been reported in our 

 own district, but well directed observation might probably be 

 fruitful in results. In many parts of Great Britain, and also 

 on the Continent, there exist foundation remains of hut-circle 

 villages, which there is reason to think are of an age contem- 

 porary with the burial cairns. A large collection of such 

 circular huts exists at Glenderby, in Kirkmichael district of 

 Perthshire. " Greaves Ash," in Northumberland, to which 

 we have just referred — and which was explored at the cost of 

 the Duke of Northumberland, under direction of the Berwick- 

 shire Naturalists' Club — consists of a collection of huts, forti- 

 fied by enclosing walls, both dwellings and walls being built of 

 dry stone. Mr Tate, from whom we have quoted, says : — 

 " The walls, it is conjectured, would rise to a height of five or 

 six feet. On these strong walls the conical roof would rest, 

 made of wood and wattles, and covered with reeds, straw, or 

 sods. Some of the small chambers might be roofed with 

 stones." A still more primitive form of habitation was (in 

 the words of Sir Richard Colt Hoare) " pits or slight excava- 

 tions in the ground, co^•ered and protected from the inclemency 

 of the weather by boughs of trees and sods and turf." An 

 effort to recover what scraps of evidence are still to be found 

 on the hills and valleys of our own district regarding the race 

 and habits of its earliest inhabitants would be a profitable field 

 of effort for the Antiquarian Society. They had been largely 

 hill-men, a chief reason for that no doubt being that great part 

 of the low ground would be covered by swamp or forest ; but 

 there were also dwellers in the valleys, as we know from the 



