The " Kjokken Moddinger" of Elginsh ire. 87 



were re-examined where " shelly deposits," " marine re- 

 mains," or an " oyster," " cockle," or " mussel-bed," have 

 been adduced as evidence of a raised sea margin, of the 

 newer Pliocene, or of a still more recent deposit. Some of 

 these may perchance now be detected and proved to be the 

 artificial but interesting matters we are here discussing — 

 the works of art, and not of nature. It is certain that some 

 of these heaps within the Province of Moray have been re- 

 garded as nothing else than the useless parts of his bait, 

 which have been thrown down, as we now see, beside some 

 fisherman's dwelling, where he and his family, at no very 

 distant age, may have pursued the same line of life as his 

 active descendants now follow in our thriving sea-side vil- 

 lages. But no such origin for these mounds of shells, as 

 these suppositions suggest, will now stand a closer examina- 

 tion than the partial, transient glance given to them by the 

 valetudinarian spending his holiday at Branderburgh, Cove- 

 sea, Burghead, or Findhorn. They are henceforth to be 

 looked upon as instructive objects for the archaeologist, 

 whether visitor or resident ; and indeed they must become 

 interesting to all who wish to know aught of the lives and 

 habits of the early inhabitants, it may be of the aborigines 

 of Moray. 



The singularly attractive discoveries which have been 

 lately made in Denmark, and the publicity which the 

 savans in that country have given to their discoveries, have 

 been the means of drawing the attention of British ob- 

 servers to this savoury subject ; while around the shores of 

 the Moray Firth there are enough of materials to give it a 

 local interest. But in thus associating Denmark with the 

 shores of the Moray Firth, the times of the growth of these 

 shell-heaps must not be assimilated with the invasions or 

 settlements of Northmen in Scotland. Some, at least, of the 

 Kjokken- Moddinger, now seen around the Moray Firth, 

 were things of antiquity long before the prows of the Yikingr 

 passed Kinnaird's Head, or ever Dane put ashore at Tordun, 

 and changed the name of that ancient British stronghold 

 into the Scandinavian one of Brough. There are proofs 

 in the flint arrowheads, flakes, and knives, and in the stone 



