466 Report of Meetings. By the President. 



side by side, in long series, thefeetof tlie corpse being commonly- 

 turned towards tbe east. Each, skeleton is usually buried in a 

 sarcophagus formed of rough slabs of stone, or in a coffin con- 

 sisting of a split trunk of a tree, the two halves of which have 

 been hollowed out with axes, and so converted into a sort of 

 rude box for the body. The dates of these burying-places 

 appear to range, on the one hand, not earlier than the period 

 of the Eoman rule in these parts, and, on the other hand, as 

 late as the eighth century. The ' grave-rows ' are more modern 

 than the ' grave-mounds,' and good reasons are given for as- 

 cribing them to the Franks and Alemanni of the Merovingian 

 period, between the fifth and sixth centuries a.d. The associated 

 weapons are, in the main, of iron." (Prof. Huxley in Laing's 

 "Pre-historic Eemains of Caithness," p. 106). The crania are 

 a variety of the dolichocephalic. Prof. Huxley goes on to shew 

 that the " grave-row " skulls of south-west Germany are identi- 

 cal with the Hohberg forms in Switzerland of Eiitimeyer and 

 His, and Prof. Ecker demonstrates that it is a type of skull 

 predominant among the present Swedes, and what is called 

 Scandinavian. " Further m-ore," adds Prof, Huxley, 1. c. p. 129, 

 (as was to be expected from the known relations of the people) 

 there seems to be no character by which the crania of the Anglo- 

 Saxons can be distinguished from those of the Scandinavians." 

 This reference furnishes not only an example of burial in rows, 

 but likewise reveals a possible people who may have practised 

 it here. 



In the charters of the property as granted to the Douglases, 

 lairds of Whittingham, these "Kirk lands," which have given 

 rise to this digression, are connected with the glebe, they having 

 the rectory and vicarage, as well as the advowson. Originally 

 Whittingham church — the historical church — was the chapel of 

 the lord of the manor. When Dunbar was erected into a col- 

 legiate church in 1342, by Patrick, 9th Earl of Dunbar, the dean 

 at the head of the establishment received as his prebend all the 

 tithes and offerings of the parish of Whittingham, where he was 

 to have a vicar. The dean had a right to the kirk lands. On 

 the 17th of August, 1560, William Douglas, laird of Whitting- 

 ham, obtained a charter of the ecclesiastical lands of Whittingham 

 from Claud Hamilton, then dean of Dunbar, with the consent of 

 the Duke of Chastelherault, his father. 



yhe Whittingham policies were now entered. These are 



