THE CRANIOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND. 211 



Samian ware. Mr John Smith excavated* a rock shelter near the Ardrossan 

 railway station in which shell-heaps rested on sand and gravel. Remains of land 

 animals were found, along with human bones from apparently two individuals. 



The bay of Oban is a part of the coast of Scotland which has furnished several 

 examples of caves in which human remains have been found. In the ancient cliff 

 which bounds the 25-30 feet raised beach four caves have been explored. In 1869 

 Mr John Mackay, whilst quarrying the rock at the north end of the bay, opened 

 into a cave filled with earth in which many bones were found. I visited it in the 

 following year and obtained from Mr Mackay, whose name I associated with the 

 cave, bones of deer, dog, fox, hare, the larger of which had been split for the 

 extraction of the marrow. Birds' bones, shell-fish, flint chips and implements were 

 also present. But further, portions of two human skeletons were obtained, one that 

 of an adult male, the other that of a youth about eight or nine years old. f 



In 1877 I received specimens from a cave in proximity to the Oban Gasworks,! 

 which consisted of bones and teeth of pig, goat, ox and red deer, some of which had 

 been split ; also sea-shells, a flint chip and fragments of pottery, which Dr Joseph 

 Anderson regarded as resembling the cinerary urns of the late neolithic and bronze 

 age. Fragments of human bones were also sent, but too much injured to be restored. 



In 1890 a cave was exposed in the cliff behind the Oban Distillery, situated about 

 40 feet above the present sea-level. In clearing out the soil and debris cart-loads of 

 sea-shells were removed. Flint and bone implements were also present. A small 

 number of bones of mammals, birds and fish were also obtained, including as many as 

 eight human lower jaws of adults and children, with other bones of the skeleton, 

 though too much injured to be restored. 



The most noteworthy discovery was that of the MacArthur Cave, explored and 

 carefully described by Dr Joseph Anderson in March 1895. § This cave was about 

 30 feet higher in the cliff than the level of the present beach, and 100 yards distant 

 from it. A bed of gravel or small water-rolled pebbles, about 6 feet in its greatest 

 thickness, extended over the floor of the cave. Intercalated in the upper part of the 

 gravel, but thinning out towards the sides and entrance, was a deposit of sea-shells, 

 the lower shell-bed, which varied in thickness from 5 to 26 inches. On the top of 

 the gravel was an accumulated refuse-heap from 27 to 36 inches thick of the shells 

 of edible molluscs, interspersed amongst which were patches of ashes, wood charcoal, 

 bones of deer, ox, pig, dog, badger, the larger of which, as well as horns of deer, were 

 splintered for the manufacture of implements, many of which were scattered through 

 the shell refuse and the gravel ; bones of birds, fish and claws of crabs were also 



* Ayr and Gal. Arch. Assoc, vol. vii, pp. 62 et seq., quoted by Dr Robert Munro. 



t Described in Reports of Edinburgh Meeting of British Association, p. 160, 1871 ; the femora, in my " Challenger " 

 Report, part xlvii, p. 97, 1886 ; the bones, more fully in my account of the Caves at Oban, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., 

 vol. xxix, May 1895. 



{ The Gaswork, Distillery and MacArthur Caves are described in my memoir on the Caves at Oban, cited above. 



§ Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. xxix, p. 211, 1895 ; also my memoir on the Caves at Oban in the same volume. 



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