PREHISTORIC SCOTLAND.*

THERE is no question as to the great value, from the Euro- pean no less than from the Scottish point of view, of this work, which comes from the pen of one of the most accom- plished arebmologists in the North and of our time. And it is written in that spirit of sane and not ungentle scepticism which appears better than any other to befit the modern investi- gator into prehistoric events. Dr. Mnnro has, for example, to deal with a very popular delusion by indicating the slender grounds on which the term " Celtic" is applied to sections • Prehistoric Scotland and its Place in European Civilisation : being a General Introduction to the "County Histories of 'Scotland." By Robert Munro, M.A., N.D. Loudon : W. Blackwood and Sons. Lis. GI]

of the population of these islands. He points out that no greater contrast between existing races is to be found than between the present inhabitants of the Aran Isles in Galway Bay and those of County Kerry in Ireland. They are prob- ably the purest breeds of the Xanthocroi and Melanochroi to be found in Western Europe. Yet they are both within the "Celtic Fringe." Bnt it is thus pleasantly that Dr.

Munro moralises :—

" The truth is that between language and race there is no permanent alliance. Many of the most sentimental and patriotic Scotsmen of the present day are Teutons by blood, while still more have pre-Celtic blood coursing in their veins; and the same may be said of Irishmen. And what a picture of mistaken identity do so many Englishmen present, when with the physical qualities of low stature, long heads, and dark eyes, they beast of their Teutonic origin! To console readers who may not find them- selves labelled by nature among any of the original types which' enter into our common nationality—neither dark nor fair, long nor short, dolichocephalic nor brachycephalic—but among the larger category of well-developed mongrels, let me assure them that no special combination of racial characters has ever yet been proved to have a monopoly of intellectuality and virtue."

It will thus be seen that although Dr. Munro is a good Scots- man and a good patriot, he does not allow himself in his

character of scientific archwologist to be bound by any preju- dice or bias. His main object is, as he says himself, to examine "the antiquarian debris of a bygone civilisation, and the source from which its culture elements were derived." In carrying out this examination he has no hesitation whatever in making excursions into the extra-Scottish field of general British archaeology.

Dr. Munro's book is intended in the first place as an introduc- tion to the excellent series of " County Histories of Scotland " which is being published by Messrs. Blackwood. But it is a great

deal more. Summing up the work done in recent years by a large army of investigators, of whom Dr. Joseph Anderson may be regarded as the type, it deals with the entire dark period between Scottish geology in the scientific and Scottish history in the litera scripta sense. Dr. Munro might have gratified his own imagination and

pleased the ultra-patriotic section of his countrymen had be drawn a brilliant picture of the prehistoric or Palmolithic

Scotsman. But his sane and sceptical caution prevents him from doing anything of the kind. Thanks, perhaps, to the Ice Age, no remains of Palwolithic man are to be found

iu Scotland. As regards Neolithic man, all that Dr. Munro will allow himself to say is that we have no means of dating his first appearance in Britain. "It is, however, a significant

fact that the remains of his handiwork have been found in the submerged forests of the South of England, and in the raised beaches of Scotland ; but although it was probably the

same oscillation which depressed the one and elevated the other, we cannot at present identify this earth movement with

any archaeological phenomena which have been dated." The first Neolithic men to arrive on the scene were of short

stature, strong muscular frames, and dolichocephalic heads ; they were succeeded by a brachycephalic and taller race, and they in turn by the Celts—or what are popularly known as such—with their yellow hair, blue eyes, and large limbs. Dr.

Munro displays very great skill in identifying these different races with different weapons, metals, and religious rites. His chapter on "Abodes and Memorials of Dead " deals with dolmens, cairns, cinerary urns, and the like.

So great—we had almost said profound—is Dr. Munro's caution that he will allow very few of " the archaeological re- mains hitherto discovered on Scottish soil" to be assigned to a period before the Roman occupation. He takes even this view of those massive tower-like buildings known as " broths," the great majority of which, such as the broch of Mouse, in Shetland, are to be found in a state more or less of decay all over the Highland counties of Scotland, and which are to be found nowhere but in Scotland. He comes, in regard to these facts, to much the same conclusions as Dr. Joseph Anderson, and holds that they are allied by their structural character- istics, the chief of which is a vaulted chamber, to the Celtic, and not to the Norwegian, group of stone monuments, and that the general facies of the group of relics found in these towers agrees completely with that of the post - Roman period of Celtic Scotland.

Dr. Munro is nowhere more interesting, as well as more cautions, than in those portions of his book in which he deals

with the fauna of prehistoric Scotland, and with the " cran- nogg," or lake or river dwellings, the first of which to be dis- covered in Scotland—about a generation ago—was that in the Lach of Dowalton, in Wigtownshire. In regard to the fauna, Dr. Munro contents himself with giving a digest of the very thorough investigations made by the late Dr. John Alexander Smith, and published in the Proceedings of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. The reindeer, the elk—of whose horns as actually discovered in bogs some admirable illustra- tions are given—the beaver, the brown bear, the wolf, the wild boar, and the great auk are the chief of these fauna. In dealing with " crannogs " Dr. Munro is altogether at home, for his monograph on lake-dwellings is emphatically the authority on the subject. Here again his scepticism is exhibited. The latest discovery of a so-called " crannog " was made last year at Dumbuck, in the estuary of the Clyde, and on account of the character of relics found both in it and at the adjoining hill-fort of Dunbaie, led to an animated newspaper con- troversy, in which Dr. Munro, Mr. Andrew Lang, and other authorities on prehistoric man took part. Dr. Munro still adheres to the opinion he expressed that the " strange-look- ing objects" found at Dumbuck and Dunbuie "do not belong to any known phase of Scottish civilisation, and most certainly not to the Neolithic period." He says that "among the genuine relics found at Dumbuck may be mentioned portions of deer-horn sawn across, a quern, some pointed implements of bone, and a few polishers of stone, all of which unmistakably indicate the medimval character of this curious structure." We have said enough to indicate the character and value of what is probably the most comprehensive and most judicious book that has ever been published on the twilight of Scottish history.