THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
31 
No doubt, like the barrows, with which these remains are in part 
contemporary, the erection of these primitive structures did con- 
tinue into the dawn of historic times; but they too, like the 
barrows, stretch back into a grey antiquity, the dimness of which 
we cannot penetrate. 
If we consider first the origin of these remains we shall be better 
able to discuss their purpose. The intention of the hut rings and 
the pounds which enclose or are associated therewith hardly 
admits of controversy. We have here dwellings and fortified or 
protected villages, but with little to date them by. Hovels as 
rude may be seen on the Moor now. I have watched in the wilds 
of Cornwall the building of shelters of stone and turf indis- 
tinguishable in form and general character from the most ancient 
type. Dr. A. Mitchell has shown 1 that the Stone Age has yet a 
very real existence in parts of the Scottish Highlands, and the 
islands adjacent; that pottery of primitive type is still made in 
the Shetlands ; that beehive huts were recently inhabited in the 
Hebrides; that there are cave dwellers at Wick almost to be described 
in the same words as " the Bushmen of Australia or the savages of 
the Andaman Islands ; " 2 in short, that there is now in the North 
of Scotland a condition of civilization hardly removed — exterior 
influences apart — from that of the period we are considering. 
The one characteristic of importance in our simpler huts is their 
circular form, originating doubtless in the wattled tent-like 
dwellings of a more wooded and less rocky country ; and a good 
indication with us of comparative antiquity. By itself, however, 
this fact does not help inquiry much, and it is from the associations 
of those old villages that we derive our chief enlightenment. 
When we find hut rings and enclosures connected, as at Merivale, 
1 The Past in the Present, a singularly interesting and valuable book, 
though I do not draw the conclusions the author seems to infer from the con- 
tinuance of this archaic culture. His facts are no argument against the 
antiquity of such modes of life ; but they are a cogent caution against the 
assumption that whatever looks old is so. Of all the stages of man's pro- 
gressive history that of incipient civilization has the widest range, and 
greatest continuity. 
2 Op. cit. p. 78. It is worth noticing that Sir J. Lubbock remarks of the 
status of the older barrow-builders : "On the whole the burial customs of 
the Esquimaux are curiously like those of which we find evidence in the 
ancient tumuli of Northern and Western Europe." — Pre-Historic Times, 
p. 512. 
