334 Mr. R. Walker on Ancient Shell 



belonging to the same or a different race may not be easy to 

 determine ; at any rate it indicates that in habits and customs 

 they had much in common. Still, irrespective of other matters, 

 competent judges tell us that there are not remains of domesti- 

 cated animals found in the Danish middens; we are therefore 

 bound to consider them the oldest deposits of the kind yet 

 discovered. During the earliest of the lake-dwellings, how- 

 ever, several animals are said to have been domesticated, such as 

 the Ox, Pig, Sheep, Dog, &c. These are the animals, it will be 

 observed, whose bones were found in the greatest number here ; 

 not only so, but the small Ox (Bos longifrons) appears to have 

 been as common during the period of the oldest of these lake 

 settlements as it was at St. Andrews. Lubbock says of the 

 oxen*, " the third or longifrons race is by far the most common 

 of the three. It occurs in all the Pileworks, and at Moossee- 

 dorf and Wangen (that is to say, in the settlements which are 

 supposed to be the oldest), almost to the exclusion of the primi- 

 genius race." To these lake-dwellings, it appears to me, the 

 St. Andrews mound makes a near approach in point of antiquity. 

 Of course before a like antiquity can be satisfactorily established, 

 other and more extensive investigations will require to be made 

 in our Scottish mounds on other parts of the coast. And 

 perhaps all that can be safely said on the present evidence is, 

 that, if the deposits are not contemporaneous, that of St. Andrews 

 is certainly the refuse of a race at all events not further, if so 

 far advanced in civilization as the lake-people of Switzerland. 

 Shell-mounds were discovered some time ago at two or three 

 other places on the eastern coast of Scotland, although, as yet, 

 they are not numerous, and some of them not very productive ; 

 but as attention is now directed to the subject, we may by-and- 

 by expect to hear of others. Meantime those of the Moray 

 Firth are described by Sir J. Lubbockf. They consist of a 

 mass of shells and pieces of bones intermixed; the shells, like 

 those of St. Andrews mound, were chiefly littoral species. The 

 animals determined were the Ox, Sheep, and Pig; what species, 

 or whether they appeared to be domesticated or not, is not 

 stated. Lubbock says, " We did not find any implements or pot- 

 tery, although we searched for several hours; but a labourer in 

 carting it away for manure had previously found some fragments 

 of rude pottery and a bronze pin." The pin is supposed, from 

 its workmanship, to be of the eighth or ninth century : if 

 this is taken as an indication of the age of the deposit, it would 

 make the latter more recent than we should consider that of 

 St. Andrews to be. The shell-mounds of Caithness are described 



* Prehistoric Times. 



t Natural Historv Review, 1863. 



