The misty glamour of an unknown past surrounds its origin. Centuries before the advent of Christianity, and before the Pictish nation emerged from the darkness of the past, the rude races who wandered o'er the hills or sheltered in the dense forests found in this natural stronghold beside the Tay a safe and suitable place for the performance of religious ceremonials or sepulchral rites. Records of this are graven on stone, mysterious and as yet not fully understood, though affording glimpses of bygone customs, from which modern research is gradually building up a knowledge of a prehistoric age. Long before the Picts are surmised to have come from the Continent to Britain, it is supposed that the land was inhabited by the Neolithic race, a people of small stature, copper skins, and dark hair. The stone circles and cup-marked stones are generally attributed to them, and may either have been places of worship or of burial.
Signs point to both.
Of these, the Dunkeld valley has its share. In the park near Polney Loch, one mile from Dunkeld, is a Standing Stone, quite noticeable from the Highland road. This monolith is one of those styled sepulchral, and is a rough oblong slab of schist, its basal girth being 10 feet 7 inches, and its height 4 feet 9 inches. It is not far from the ancient stronghold on King's Seat. The same writer also mentions that two other stones of this nature were marked on the Ordnance Survey Map nearer the Cathedral, but he professed himself, after prolonged search, unable to find them.