able to judge in the matter, the age of stone ought to be separated from that of the flint weapons and stand between it and the bronze where we always find it. Those weapons, the use of which was so very prevalent just before the age of bronze, and to which the name of celts is given, were polished and made with much more skill than the rude flint implements. "The age of stone in Denmark coincided with the period of the first vegetation, or that of the scotch fir, and in part, at least, with the second vegetation, or that of the oak." How long it lasted we cannot say. Future investigations may clear up the point or give us a clue to something like a certain conclusion; but at present we only know that it was of vast duration. The shell mounds correspond in date with the earliest part of the age of stone. When it passed away, the scotch fir vanished with it and was succeeded by the oak, and when the age of bronze came there were either no such trees or at most but a few stragglers. A considerable portion of the oak epoch coincided with the age of bronze, for swords and shields of that metal, now in the museum of Copenhagen, have been taken out of peat in which oaks abound. The age of iron corresponded more nearly with that of the beech tree. The kitchen-middens of the Danes have been found in Scotland, principally, I believe, as yet, about the Moray Firth and the north-east of Scotland. In one is a sort of promontory formed of those raised shingle beaches. "This mound, or rather these two mounds (for there is an intervening portion of the ground that has no shells), must have been of considerable extent. A rough measurement gives eighty by thirty yards for the larger, and twenty-six by thirty for the smaller portion. The most abundant shell is the periwinkle. .. Next in order as to frequency is the oyster, which, as well as those who had it as a large item in their bill of fare, has passed away from our coasts. Save in some of the nooks of our firth, as at Cromarty, Altirlie, and Avoch, we know not where a small dish of them could be procured. As third in order in this mound is the mussel, and then the cockle. Each of these species, however, bears but a small proportion to either of the former two. Similar refuse heaps, found all round the shores of the Moray Firth, are being gradually carted away by the farmers to serve as manure. It is hoped that the scotch antiquaries will promptly examine those which remain." These mounds have been visited by Mr. John Lubbock, F.R.S., who records his experience in the Natural History Review. The remains explored by him are in Elgin, and he derived much assistance from the Rev. George Gordon, of Birnie, who drew attention to the subject in April last. The first shell-mound examined was at Bannat Hill, near Burghead, near the railway. It was a small, nearly circular heap, about six yards in diameter, resting on a nucleus of sand. Periwinkles are most abundant. It also contained limpets, mussels, fragments of crabs' claws, and numerous pieces of bones, only those of oxen, sheep, and pigs being determined. There were numerous traces of fire. No pottery or stone implements were found; but three small bone implements were discovered: an engraving of one resembling an awl is given. At a large shell-mound between Burghead and Findhorn, Mr. Lubbock picked up a small fragment of a bronze ring. He also gives an engraving of a bronze pin found by a labourer while carting away for manure some of the shell-mound at Brigzes. It is four and a half inches in length, and rather thick in proportion. From its similarity to pins found in irish crannoges, it has been considered by a competent judge (Mr. Franks) to have been in use probably about 800 or 900 a.d. "If this pin really belonged to the shell-mound,” says Mr. Lubbock, "we get an approximate date for the accumulation; and the presence of bronze establishes a great distinction between this mound and the much more ancient kjökkenmöddings of Denmark.” That these shell-mounds (actually called "shellymeddings" by the fishermen in the Moray Firth, as Mr. Lubbock states) were not unknown to Hugh Miller, is proved by an extract from the "Sketchbook of Popular Geology" of that accurate observer. For many other interesting details we must refer our readers to Mr. Lubbock's paper. Admiral Fitzroy tells us that there are now just such heaps in Tierra del Fuego. In his letter on the subject he observes that in "1830 four of those aborigines were brought to England. In 1833, three of them were restored to their native places (one having died). They had then acquired enough of our language to talk about common things. From their information and our own sight are the following facts :-The natives of Tierra del Fuego use stone tools, flint knives, arrow and spear heads of flint or volcanic glass, for cutting bark for canoes, flesh, blubber, sinews, and spears, knocking shellfish off rocks, breaking large shells, killing guanacoes (in time of deep snow), and for weapons. In every sheltered cove where wigwams are placed, heaps of refuseshells and stones, offal and bones-are invariably found. Often they appear very old, being covered deeply with wind-driven sand, or water-washed soil, on which there is a growth of vegetation. These are like the kitchen middens' of the so-called 'stone age' in Scandinavia. "No human bones would be found in them (unless dogs had dragged some there), because the dead bodies are sunk in deep water with large stones, or burnt. These heaps are from six to ten feet high, and from ten or twenty to more than fifty yards in length." A most interesting account is given by M. Lartet of the burying-ground of an ancient race found at Aurignac, in the south of France, and who were probably in a more advanced state of civilization than the men of the flint age. The discovery was made in a most singular way by a workman, who observing that the rabbits took to a hole when pursued, put in his hand and pulled out, to his astonishment, a large human bone. The mayor, who was a "médecin," ordered the bones to be taken up and transferred to the parish burying-ground. He counted seventeen skeletons, and "remarked that the size of the adults was such as to imply a race of small stature. Unfortunately the skulls were injured in the transfer, and what is worse, after the lapse of eight years, when M. Lartet visited Aurignac, the village sexton was unable to tell him in what exact place the trench was dug." M. Lartet having examined the vault, found that it was very low in the interior which had been cut off from the outer world by a large stone. So low was it, as to lead the explorer to conclude that the bodies. were placed in a squatting or sitting posture, so much used in primitive interments. Quite inside, below where the remains had been found, bones of the cavelion and wild boar, and in some "made ground" were found human remains, works of art, bones of animals; and in a substratum in the interior the tusk of a young cave-bear, which has been carved probably to imitate the head of a bird. Outside were found bones of the cave-bear, hyæna, woolly rhinoceros, gigantic Irish deer,* aurochs,† &c. "If," says Lyell, in that grand and simple style which so peculiarly marks his writings, "the fossil memorials have been correctly interpreted; if we have here before us at the northern base of the Pyrenees a sepulchral vault with skeletons of human beings, consigned by friends and relatives to their last resting-place; if we have also at the portal of the tomb the relics of funeral feasts, and within it indications of viands destined for the use of the departed on their way to a land of spirits; while among the funeral gifts are weapons wherewith in other fields to chase the gigantic deer, the cave-lion, the cave-bear, and woolly rhinoceros, we have at last succeeded in tracing back the sacred rites of burial, and, more interesting still, a belief in a future state, to times long anterior to those of history and tradition. Rude and superstitious as may have been the savage of that remote era, he still deserved, by cherishing hopes of a hereafter, the epithet of 'noble,' which Dryden gave to what he seems to have pictured to himself as the primitive condition of our race: * Megaceros hibernicus. K †Bison europæus. |