60 [Proc. B.N.F.C, 



ignores the historical certainty of invasions and displacements 

 by stronger and better armed races, which have taken place in 

 hundreds of instances all over the world, and which are amply 

 confirmed in Ireland by the remains of the different races to be 

 found and the local distribution of their descendants at the 

 present day. 



The most scientific view of the matter is that taken by Boyd 

 Dawkins, in his work on " Early Man in Britain," who traces 

 the various waves of population pressing westward over Europe; 

 from their remains in prehistoric times ; and later, from the 

 accounts given by Strabo, Caesar, and others, the stronger still 

 encroaching on the weaker. First, the cave-dweller, who was, 

 as depicted by himself, a naked savage, the contemporary of 

 the mammoth in these countries, who hunted the urus and the 

 elk for his subsistence, and contended with the cave bear and 

 the hyaena for his rock shelter. Then the Iberian, swarthy and 

 small of stature, and not of Aryan stock, who used Neolithic 

 weapons, kept domestic animals, and in many ways seems to 

 have been the pioneer of civilisation. One, perhaps both, of 

 these ancient races (if indeed they were not one race) had 

 found their way to Britain before it became separated from the 

 continent. Being afterwards isolated, for probably an immense 

 time, from the struggle for existence, they would fall an easy 

 prey to the advance guard of the stronger and better armed 

 Aryan Celt, when he had advanced so far as to navigate the 

 channel, on those periodic swarming times of that enterprising 

 race. Unable to retain possession of the fertile river valleys, 

 the weaker race was forced to retreat to the forest-covered 

 hills and morasses, and to make a precarious existence off 

 the poorer soil that offered no inducement to its conquerors. 



These raths or lisses, which were used as dwellings, are 

 easily distinguishable from the great burial tumuli, such as 

 those composing the Brugh na Boinne, or " city of the dead," 

 in Co. Meath, those near Cong, and elsewhere in Ireland, 

 which are usually either conical or rounded in their elevation, 

 and are not surrounded by a trench ; while the rath proper 



