SCOTLAND IN PAGAN TIMES.*
WE are strongly inclined to recommend this volume by way of tonic to any—and there must be many—who, as they contem- plate the wild dance of the passionate pilgrims of frivolity on the one hand, and of politics on the other, which seems on the surface to constitute three-fourths of our life, feel almost physically " weak and wounded, sick and sore." Dr. Anderson, its author, is no Dryasdnst, nor does he belong to the class of antiquaries whose enthusiasm renders them liable to be taken in by Aiken Drum's Lang Ladle. But be is an unpretentious and unemotional writer. Nevertheless, his subject—the Bronze and Stone Agas of Scotch history—makes him take this sober flight :— • Scotland in Pagan Times: the Bronse and Stone Ages. By Joseph Anderson, LL.D. Edinburgh : David Douglas. 1886. "As time rolls on and fashions change with the everlasting com- plexities of social organisation, the methods of expression may be altered and may be improved ; but will any one say that the moral feeling and sense of public duty which then found expression in the manner of the time were less moral and less dutiful than those which find expression now in the manner of our time ; or that the thing signified in the erection of a Stone Age cairn is not essentially the same as that which is signified in the erection of a statue or a modern monument ? In this man of the Stone Age, whose capacity, culture, and civilisation are thus made dimly visible to us by the relies of his life and the memorials of his dead,—this maker of finely formed and admirably finished implements of stone, this builder of great sepulchral monuments that are completely structural, we have reached the typical representative of primaeval man in Scotland. There is no evidence of the existence within our area of any repre- sentative type of man of higher integrity or of lower culture than this."
When one thinks of the most remarkable symbols of " culture " and " civilisation " in Scotland which Dr. Anderson has literally unearthed and reproduced, one is forced to come to the con- clusion that two thousand, and even three thousand years ago, there were campaigns as fierce as any ever fought in Midlothian, that there were cults as devoid of rationality as that of the Sun- flower, and that the Parnells and Churchills of the day pelted each other with even harder missiles than " welsher " and "rebel." "The ancient flint-workers," says Dr. Anderson, "went further than modern knowledge and modern skill can follow them. There are some of their processes which have not been discovered by modern science, with all its ingenuity of contrivance and all its resources of means and appliances." This is a small matter, and makes for national modesty. Yet consolation, although of the somewhat tragic sort, may be found in it also.
Dr. Anderson has in this volume completed the special enter- prise he undertook in 1879, when, as holder of one of the lecture- ships which are happily becoming numerous in Scotland, he engaged to deliver four courses, of six lectures each, on Scotch Archaeology. In previous volumes he has dealt with "The Remains and Relics of the Early Celtic Church," " Christian Celtic Monuments and Metal Work," not necessarily ecclesias- tical, and "The Remains and Relics of the Iron Age." The volume he has now issued is in some respects the most interesting of the series to which it belongs, because, as we have seen, it reveals the comparatively high stage of civilisation which was reached by what we may term the Brazen and the Stony Scotchmen. He in- vestigates with great fulness the subjects of "Bronze Age Burials," "Circles and Settings of Standing Stones," and "Weapons and other Implements ; " and as his letterpress is beautifully and profusely illustrated, it is easy to follow him n his researches and reasonings from them. From the latter we give some of the most striking :—
" The evidence that is before us, incomplete and imperfect as it is, is undoubtedly evidence, not of an extreme scarcity, but of an abundance of gold ornaments greatly in excess of what we might have anticipated. To the questions of how this supply of gold was obtained and whence it was derived, there is no direct answer obtainable by any method known to me. But of this we may be certain, that from whatever source the Bronze Age people of Scot- land obtained their supply of the precious metal, it could not have been obtained without its relative equivalent in labour or produce. Whether they procured it from its native sources within their own territory, and by their own industry and skill, or whether they im- ported it in exchange for other productions, the significance of its possession with regard to their conditions of life remains the same. In like manner, it does not affect the significance of their possession of bronze that they may not have procured the copper and tin of which it is composed from their own territories. If they imported these metals also, the fact that a traffic so complex and costly was maintained and provided for, implies the existence of conditions of culture and systems of social, commercial, and even political organisa- tion, which cannot be held to indicate a low state of civilisation. The weapons and tools of the bronze age have this characteristic in common, that they are always well made, substantial, and purpose- like. In addition to these serviceable qualities, they possess the high merit of being well designed, graceful in outline, and finely propor- tioned, exhibiting, even in the commonest articles, a play of fancy in the subtle variations of their distinctive forms that is specially
remarkable I venture to say that nothing finer than the workmanship of these bronze shields has ever been produced by the hammer. The people who supplied themselves with implements and weapons in this capable and cultured way, also used gold occasionally in the mounting of their weapons, and most lavishly in personal adornment. Although we know nothing whatever of their household arrangements, or the manners and customs of their domestic life, seeing that not a trace of a dwelling or site of a settlement of the Bronze Age has been discovered in Scotland, yet we are not without evidence of an indirect nature to indicate that they could not have been wholly destitute of the comforts and conveniences of life ; and not the least striking of all the characteristics of their culture is exemplified in the fact that we know them chiefly, not from the circumstances in which they maintained themselves in life, but from circumstances which are the direct result of their attitude of mind towards their dead. If life with them was a straggle for existence, we look in vain for its memorials ; but there is no wide district of country in which the memorials of their dead are not prominent, picturesque, and familiar features."
As we have already said, one of the most interesting chapters
in this volume is that whieh deals with what are popularly known as Standing Stones. Dr. Anderson dismisses—perhaps
a trifle too summarily—the idea that these are in any way con- nected with Druidism, or, indeed, that they can be assigned to any race or historic order of men. The only evidence they yield amounts, in his opinion, to this, that they are the funeral marks of the pagan predecessors of modern Scotchmen who lived and manifestly flourished in the Age of Bronze.
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