LUBBOCK ON THE ANCIENT SHELL-MOUNDS OE SCOTLAND. 421 
The bronze pin, Fig. II., to which I have just alluded, was found by 
a labourer, who was employed in carting away some of the shell-mound 
to serve as manure for the neighbouring farm. It is four inches and 
a-half in length, and rather thick in proportion. The head is small 
and rounded, but with flat sides, which are marked by two irregular 
grooves, at right angles to one another, so as to form a kind of rude 
cross. Immediately below the head is a second small enlargement. 
Below this again are four equidistant row's of five small notches, one 
row on each side of the pin. 
I do not know of any bronze pin exactly like this one from 
Brigzes; those from the Swiss Lake-habitations, though often flattened, 
are generally compressed vertically, and not laterally. Without, how¬ 
ever, exactly agreeing with any one which I have seen, it bears a 
close general resemblance to some of those found in Irish crannoges, 
and street-cuttings in Dublin. These are generally considered to be 
about a thousand years old, and on submitting the Brigzes specimen 
to Mr. Franks, he has favoured me with the opinion that it certainly 
belongs to our era, and was in use probably about a.d. 800 or 900. 
If, therefore, it really belong to the shell-mound, and there seems 
no reason to doubt the statement of the man who found it, we shall 
in this way, by the character of the pin on the one hand, and the 
study of the old maps on the other, get an approximate date for the 
accumulation of the mound. 
It is of course evident that the presence of bronze establishes a 
great distinction between this shell-mound and the much more 
ancient kjokkenmoddings of Denmark. 
There are three other small shell-mounds in the wood of Brigzes, 
but time did not permit us to examine these with care. 
I also visited a shell-heap near the Ferry at Nigg, opposite Cro¬ 
marty. It is several feet above the sea, and from it the ground 
slopes steeply upwards. The shells are covered by from two to four 
feet of sand and stones, which have no doubt found their way down 
from the hill above. Periwinkles at this spot formed nine-tenths of 
the mass, and oysters were next in point of numbers. I noticed also 
Buccinum, Patella, Purpura, Cardium, Mytilus, Tapes, and Solen, 
besides a few fragments of bone, and the tooth of an ox. Dr. (Gor¬ 
don also found on a previous occasion a small bone comb. In Dr. 
Wilde’s excellent Catalogue of the Museum belonging to the Boyal 
Irish Academy at Dublin, the combs are “ divided into three varieties 
—the long rack-comb, the single fine tooth-comb, and the double fine 
tooth-comb.” Dr. Grordon’s is a double fine tooth-comb, or rather, 
it is the end of one. It is entirely free from ornament, and has lost 
part of its animal matter, so that it adheres slightly to the tongue. 
No other implements or works of art of any kind have as yet been 
found at this spot. 
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