The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-14 00:00:00

The Ethnological Society.

At the yesterday evening's meeting of this society a very
interesting collection of human remains, atone implements,
and other articles was exhibited which have recently been
obtained by Mr S. Laing in some extensive excavations
which he has been carr3ing on in Caithness, and which are
believed to date from a very remote period in the history of
man. Mr Laing gave an account of his operations, and de-
eoribed the various articles which had been found, and a
lively discussion followed. Mr Laing said he had long been
of opinion that important evidence in respect to the anti-
quity of man might bo discovered in this country by searches
something resembling those which had been carried on in
Denmark, by opening what were called the " Kitchen-
middens" there, and last summer he had caused several
large mounds to be opened near Riess, in Caithness, about
eight miles north of Wick. On removing the green turf at
the top those mounds were discovered to consist chiefly of
large masses of periwinkle and limpet shells, mixed with
bones, flint splinters, and bone instruments of the rudest
kind. In two there were remains of ancient buildings, and
in one they came upon a building with solid massive walls,
and three separate pavements one over the other, show-
ing evidence of successive occupation either by successive
races or by the same rum at successive periods of time.
In the lowest strata stone implements of the rudest kind
had been discovered, but in the instruments found in the
upper strata a greater finish o/ workmanship was dis-
tinctly traceable. In one case a pair of shears with the
blades of bronze and handle of iron, and bone implements
of various descriptions had been found mixed up with a
mass of shells and bones of animals which had been used
for food. Among these bones, too, had been dis-
covered part of the jaw of a child, with the teeth attached
to it, broken across as if it were at the marrow, affording
ground for a presumption that cannibalism was prevalent,
or at least occasionally resorted to, among the race to which
the remains refer. The specimens of pottery varied ac •
cording to the strata in which they were found. In the
lower strata they were rude and of a very poor character;
in the upper they showed an improved manufacture and
had occasionally a blue glaze. None of the stone imple-
ments showed the: mark of a tool, nor did the stones of
which the buildings wore formed; but the sandstone of the
distikt, which was chiefly used—there being no flint in the
neighbourhood—split naturally so regularly that there was
little necessity for this. Among the animal remains which
had been identified were the bones of a small whale, which
had probably been driven ashore and eaten, dolphins, and
cod, the ox, horse, red deer in large quantities and of gigan-
tic size, wild boar, and goat. No sheep bones had been
discoveied, which was an indication of great antiquity, as
no sighs of the sheep had ever been discovered in the Swiss
lake dwellings. Remains of the dog and fox, both as arti-
cles of food, of the cormorant, the solan goose, and the great
awk (alca i,nprennis) had been found, but nine-tenths of
the food of these people was shellfish. They had no fishing
tackle, nor was 'there anything to indicate that they had
any notion of fishing or boating, though they lived on the
seashore. Their notions of art were of the rudest and most
primitive description, but their architecture was more re-
spectable, and a spinning wheel which had been dug out
seemed to show that they had some notion of manufac-
tures. Mr Laing also described the result of opening a long
burial mound by the seashore, which he found full of stone
coffins at regular intervals of 15 feet apart. The mode of
sepulture was an additional proof of tho extreme antiquity
of the people. The corpse was extended at full length on
the ground, the stone cist was, built up round

it with flat blocks of flagstone, and the whole
was covered with a light mound of stone and earth.
There were no traces of habitation about this mound ; it had
been used solely as a placa of sepulture. About the centre
of it was found the coffin of one who appeared by the care
bestowed on his burial to be the chief of the tribe, and close
by his hand were discovered 15 stone weapons of rude manu-
facture—a hatchet, sundry spearheads, and knives or
scrapers. Mr Laing concluded that these remains belonged
to the early stone period, and that the race to whom they
belonged were part of the primitive population of these
Wands, who in this remote corner of the country
had long preserved the simplicity and rudeness of their
modes of life. Professor Huxley then pointed out with
elaborate minuteness the peculiarities of the human bones,
from which ho concluded that they were the remains of two
separate and distinct races. The first was typifi :d by a
skull which, as the members would see for themselves, was
large, capacious, and well arched. In fact, there were few
of the ablest men present, the Professor said, who had a
better developed cranium, and it closely resembled that type
which was described in the Crania Britannica of Davis
and Thurnhara as the "ancient British skull. The pelvis
belonging to this skull was such as might be possessed by
any well-grown muscular Englishman of the present day.
The skull belonging to the second race was of .a mach
lower order—narrow, low-formed, sloping upwards towards
the vertex, and then downwards again, with a great occi-
pital protuberance, and a remarkably protruding upper lip.
The pelvis, too, of this race was moat peouliar, its proper.
tions being diametrically opposite to those of the present
European type, and the extraordinary development of the
muscular ridges showed a rude and wild character. These
skulls were comparable to what the Frofesior in a former