Eeport of Meetings. By the President. 465 



them laid with stones in the bottom, others not. It appears that the 

 stones have been brought from the adjoining sea-shore. [This was also 

 the case with an old cemetery of a similar character in a field at Spring- 

 field near Oldhamstocks— Club's Proc. vol. vin. p. 409]. What were 

 uncovered, were found full of sea-sand — [this has likewise occurred in a 

 small group of empty slab graves in a field at the head of the Old Pease, 

 parish of Cockburnspath], — which being carefully removed, a human 

 skeleton was discovered, lying entire from head to foot. The bones, 

 excepting the skulls, on being taken out, crumbled to dust, but the teeth 

 were in complete preservation, not one wanting, and appeared to have 

 belonged to persons dying in the prime of life. The coffins appear to 

 have been formed exactly to the length of the different bodies ; the 

 longest measured 6 ft. 9 ins., the shortest 5 ft. 3 ins. ["4 ft. 4 ins. 

 to more than 6 ft." — Miller]. The thigh bones are of a great length 

 and thickness, and one jaw-bone was discovered of a prodigious size. It 

 seems certain from the regular positions of the coffins, and the skeletons 

 having the appearance of adults, that they have been deposited in the earth 

 at one time, and after having fallen in battle. In the neighbourhood many 

 single stone-coffins have been found, and sometimes two or three together ; 

 several long stones have also been erected, as it is thought, to the memory 

 of some fallen chiefs ; which renders it probable that the vicinity has 

 been the scene of sanguinary battles, that are of so ancient a date, as to 

 be either unrecorded in the page of history, or form the dubious tale of 

 tradition." (" Berwick Advertiser," October, 23, 1813). Mr Miller adds 

 that " in a park, about half a mile distant, on the farm of Kirkland hill, 

 is one of those rudely sculptured " (query, was it sculptured at all ? ) " per- 

 pendicular stones, which are commonly supposed to mark the scene of 

 contention of an early period." 



I have not hrought together here all the known facts about 

 the long East Lothian Slab-graves, which are worthy of greater 

 attention being paid to them. Crania taken from one of them 

 near Dunglass, which contained several skeletons, were pro- 

 nounced by Professor Eolleston to have belonged to a Teutonic 

 people. 



Writers of the date of this discovery had no other theory than 

 that groups of graves beyond the precincts of modern cemeteries 

 were indicative of a battle. But that the Knowes graves were 

 the burial place of a race with peculiar burial customs may be 

 suggested from the occurrence in the ancient burying places of 

 south-west Germany of a similar system of burying the dead in 

 rows, at full length with their heads to the west and their feet 

 to the east, and in slab graves. The German archaeologists 

 distinguish in that district, "two kinds of ancient burying- 

 places, one called Hiigel-grdber, 'grave mounds;' and one termed 

 Reiken-graber, ' grave rows,' in which last the graves are arranged, 



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