THE CRANIOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND. 217 



interval of time and change of temperature. In the Oban caves and the Oronsay 

 refuse-heap there is no corresponding modification in the fauna, the species of which 

 correspond with the neolithic period, and are also characteristic of the present time. 

 No painted or coloured stones were found in- either of the Scotch localities such as 

 have been described by M. Piette* in the Azilian layer in the cavern of that 

 name, which is regarded as immediately preceding the neolithic age. 



Iron Age. Table VII. 



In the course of centuries the bronze-age people ceased to be the dominant race 

 in Britain, and were succeeded by successive invasions from the Continent of other 

 races, Celts, Norsemen, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, whilst for a period of about four 

 centuries the Romans had occupied South Britain and for less than a century the 

 more southern part of North Britain. The use of bronze in the manufacture 

 of implements, weapons and personal ornaments gradually disappeared and was 

 replaced by iron. The Celts, the immediate successors of the bronze-age people, 

 occupied doubtless the country along with them, and the use of bronze and iron 

 for a time overlapped. It is generally admitted that the extraction of iron from 

 its ores and its economic applications were known on the Continent before the 

 first invasion of Britain by Celtic tribes took place, and that it was through them 

 that this metal was introduced and gradually displaced the use of bronze. 



Celts. — It has been shown that the neolithic and bronze-age inhabitants can be 

 recognised by the character of their interments, by the grave goods and the skeletons 

 found in their tombs. The question therefore naturally arises if the prehistoric Celts 

 in Scotland had a distinctive mode of burial, and if their skeletons could be relied on 

 as possessing definite ethnographical features. Dr Joseph Anderson has shown in 

 his classical Rhind Lectures that abundant specimens of the artistic work of the Celts 

 have been preserved from both Pagan and Christian times. The Celtic art of the 

 pagan period in bronze, iron and even in gold displays originality in design and skill 

 in execution, whilst evidence of constructional architectural ability is shown in the 

 ancient brochs which must undoubtedly be assigned to the Celtic and not to the Norse 

 period of occupancy of Scotland. But in regard to a distinctive type of interment 

 he is emphatic in stating that he knows of no characteristics as distinguishing the 

 burials of the pagan Celts in the iron age in Scotland, so that, through the burning 

 of the bodies of the dead, our archaeology is absolutely destitute of recorded data for 

 this purpose. 



Since the publication of his lectures discoveries have been made which seem to 

 throw some light upon the former obscurity. In 1903 1 a grave was opened at 

 Moredun near Edinburgh and was described by Mr F. R. Coles. A cist was 



* V 'Antkropologie, vol. vii, p. 385, 1896. 

 t Proc. boc. Antiq. Scot., vol. xxxviii, 1904. 



