THE CRANIOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND. 



179 



The roof was formed of massive flags, superjacent to which three so-called cists 

 1£ to 2 feet in breadth and length were found, constructed of undressed flat stones. 

 Each contained numerous pieces of broken pottery, which had doubtless been ciner- 

 ary urns, and quantities of calcined bones recognised as human, some of which 

 were imbedded in hard vitrified slag. The cists therefore were cremation cists, 



Fig. 7. — Plan of chambered cairn with passage, Rousay. 



secondary in time to the cremation remains found in the passage leading to the 

 central compartment. 



The bones in the chamber, in the passage and in the cremation cists were too 

 fragmentary to allow of reconstruction, and the form of the skull was not ascer- 

 tained. The cairn without doubt was of the neolithic period. 



The excavations conducted by Professor T. H. Bryce on megalithic inter- 

 ments in the island of Arran have enabled him to describe their structure, their 

 grave goods, and the remains of the skeletons which they contained.* They formed 

 a class of sepulchral cairns constructed of great slabs of stone divided by partitions 

 into three or four separate compartments, none of which opened into a passage 



* "Cairns of Arran," Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., part i, 1902, part ii, 1903, part iii, 1909, vols, xxxvi, xxxvii, xliii ; 

 The Book of Arran, Sepulchral Remains, 1910. 



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