180 COMPARATIVE ARCHAZOLOGY. 
1907 I thus described this object :—" In the same dwelling 
there was also an oval stone with angular knobs, but it was 
perforated for a handle, thus reminding one of the well-known 
bronze maceheads so frequently found in this and other 
European countries, and which are regarded as products of a 
period later than that of the Bronze Age, as they have been 
occasionally found associated with Roman and even medizval 
remains.”’ 
According to Professor Dawkins, the Scottish balls ‘‘ are 
probably the heads of life-preservers, or of maces, attached to 
a more or less flexible handle with thongs, or with a covering 
of leather, cut so as to show the stone inside.’’ He claims 
that the Skaill dwelling ‘‘ was frequented after the introduc- 
tion of Christianity into the Orkneys by the missionaries of St. 
Columba in the last quarter of the sixth century.’’ 
Thus, the opinions of every writer who has hitherto 
attempted to explain the use and purpose of these Scottish 
balls are sufficiently divergent to harbour more than a doubt 
that the problem has not yet been satisfactorily solved. {In 
my opinion, there are just two lines of research which promise 
to throw any light on the subject. First, their geographical 
distribution ; and second, the evidence to be derived from the 
circumstances in which they were found, especially when asso- 
ciated with other works of man. 
(1) Their geographical distribution seems to me to have 
an ethnological significance that cannot be ignored, as it coin- 
cides in a striking degree with the little we know of the Scot- 
tish area occupied by the Picts or Caledonians—a topic which 
might be more fully and profitably discussed here did space 
permit. 
(2) With regard to the second line of research, let me 
remind you that hundreds of isolated relics, made of stone or 
metal, have been found in or on the surface, without a history ; 
but yet they fall to be correctly classified from the evidence of 
a few which had been associated with objects whose chrono- 
logical range had already been fixed. I have, therefore, jotted 
in tabular form the few instances I can find on record, which 
furnish any clue to the solution of the mystery in which they 
