486 ME. S. GEIETE ON EEMAtN'S OF THE GREAT ATTK. 



time at whicli the upper deposibs at the mound were formed and 

 the earliest deposits of the cave is about the same. Moreover, 

 as the Deer-remains in the cave are not found very frequent, it 

 is quite possible it was only occupied after the mound had ceased 

 to be a place of human residence. If our conclusions upon this 

 point be correct, the mound must have been occupied at a very 

 early period in the history of the isles, as we find in the upper 

 deposits of the cave-floor, and above the strata in which we have 

 found the Deer-bones, other remains which point to these having 

 been formed during the Danish or Norwegian occupation of 

 Colonsay and Oronsay. 



Another evidence of the antiquity of the mound is in the absence 

 of Ox-remains, which are met with in the upper deposits of the 

 cave under stalagmite. The remains described as those of the 

 Pig may possibly belong, not to the domestic Hog, but to the 

 "Wild Boar. As Sir John Lubbock remarks*. Professor Steen- 

 strup does not believe that the domestic Hog is represented by 

 its remains in the Danish shell-mounds ; and, besides, one of the 

 rib-bones in our possession bears evidence of having been broken 

 and afterwards having united, and such an injury, it seems to us, 

 would most likely be received in the chase. 



One remarkable feature of the deposits at Caisteal-nan-Gillean 

 is the immense number of Limpet-shells, very many with small 

 holes in them, caused, we believe, by the stroke of the rough 

 stones used as hammers to knock them off the rocks. Almost 

 all the stone-implements are just suitably-shaped stones taken 

 from the beach ; but nearly all those found in the neighbourhood 

 of the hearths bear marks of having been rubbed at the one 

 end, and, with two exceptions, are all small, varying from 2 to 

 3 inches in length ; while many of the stones we call limpet- 

 hammers are quite a foot in length, and, vidth the exception of 

 being sometimes fractured at the ends, bear no evidence of having 

 been used. Nearly all these are found lying among the thinner 

 deposits of shells away from the centre of the mound, as if they 

 had been thrown there to be out of the way from the hearths. 

 Our reason for calling them limpet-hammers is as follows : — 

 "We had been making inquiries ajnong the islanders for those 

 implements, but without success, as we understood they were 

 carefully fashioned or selected stones that were handed down by 

 the fishermen from father to son ; and we found that most of 

 * ' Natural History Eeview/ 1861, p. 497. 



