[From Contributions .., 1909]
(A.) Plate III gives the type of the two sandstone implements from Pooilvaish. A comparison with Cumming's "rude wood Cutting tools," may prove that the Pooilvaish ones are not the first that have been found. The type I find is common enough as regards the bevel and cutting edge, but with a hole, generally, through the broad side. The originals are in the care of the Isle of Man Nat. Hist. and Antiquarian Soc.
(B.) The Meayll Circle. My remarks upon the singularity of urns or interments below the cist floors were justified. Dr. Herdman and Mr. Kermode have put on record that " in fact nearly all the pieces of pottery, and the flints, were found beneath the floor stones. How far this position is due to the cists having been disturbed before, it is impossible to say." (" The Excavation of the Neolithic Stone Circle on the Meayll Hills " etc., by W. A. Herdman. D. Sc. F. R. S. and P. M. C. Kermode, F. S. A. Scot. 1894 [fpc:reprinted in Manx Antiquities 1904]) In this pamphlet they distinctly claim a Neolithic origin for this circle, the cists of which, according to them, contained only cremated remains. "Our examination of these remains shows that the people who inhabited the ancient village on the Meayll, and who erected and used the stone circle were in the Neolithic stage." But Mr. Kermode later on changed his views, and gave a Bronze Age origin to the cists, while still holding on to the " rifling." " The floor stones rested on the undisturbed surface of mountain soil, yet strangely enough, nearly all the pieces of potter', and flints, were found between this surface and the pavement. The speaker (Mr. Kermode) thought this sufficiently accounted for by the known fact that the cists lead been previously; rifled ; but Dr. Herdman looked upon it as proof that the burials had, in the first instance, been beneath the floors." (" The Meayll Circle." by P. M. C. Kermode, Vol. II. p. 120. Journal, Isle of Man Nat. Hist. and Antiquarian Soc. 1901.)
These two gentlemen were, apparently, not aware that Canon Greenwell, in his examinations of British tumuli, which have thrown so much light on the superstitions which attended prehistoric burials, frequently found broken pottery, human bones, charcoal, etc. beneath the floors of barrows, often in holes dug beneath the cist-floors, though the holes sometimes contained only mould. (Clodd.) " The probability is that these cup-like hollows were receptacles for food and drink for the use of the dead." (Ibid.) The human bones in such places probably belonged to captives or slaves, slain that the dead should not be unattended in the spirit world. (Ibid.) There is great reason for believing that things intended for the use of the dead in the spirit world, were sometimes broken before burial. Speaking of round barrows of the early Celtic (Neolithic) period, Clodd says,-"These round barrows are modelled on the but circles or pit dwellings, and the objects found in them are similar in character to those yielded by the dwellings. Celts, flakes, arrow heads and pottery lie jumbled together, many of the articles having been purposely broken so that their spirits might be freed to join the dead owner, and serve him as the thing's themselves had done during life." (" Story ofPrimitive Man.") See also Prof. H. Steuding's remarks on the Cult of the Grave in his " Greek and Roman Mythology." From the secondary cist in the tumulus at Port St Mary there came a broken flint arrow-head and a broken bone spear point. (ante "The Early Neolithic Tumulus and Refuse Heap at Port St Mary.") These were probably broken on account of the same superstition. It is noteworthy that just such a hole as those found by Canon Greenwell, was found beneath one of the Meayll casts by Dr. Herdman and Mr. Kermode. It was described and figured in their pamphlet,-they say " though neither urn nor bones were in it they had probably been previously removed, and it was now filled with fine dark mould, which had filtered through the covering stones."
These sub-floor remains appear to me to have been neither due to " rifling " nor to " first instance " burials. Most probably they were remains of provision for the dead, broken food-vessels, etc., lying undisturbed as when first put there before the erection of the cists. The cists themselves were found to have been almost entirely rifled, and most probably, in some cases at least, they originally contained unburnt bodies, more especially as the arrow heads found are of decided Neolithic Character, and the rude scrapers and the round white stones indicate, if anything, Neolithic burials. Some time previously I had pointed our that rifling was in progress, but nothing, until too late, was done to forestall the curious "tripper."
Mr. Kermode, after finally adopting a Bronze Age origin for the cists, has, unintentionally, advanced evidence which appears to shew that the circle is, if anything, an early Neolithic one. For he contends that each triptaph, or set of three cists that form roughly the letter T with each other, is " a model of a passage grave, or long barrow"'-the circle, according to this, being a group of miniature long barrows,and in regard to this idea he goes on to make the following statement. " The arrangement of cists might belong to Neolithic times, but the passage grave points to a later period, and a different people." The italics are mine. Here Mr. Kermode ascribes long barrows or passage graves to the Bronze Age. (" The Meayll Circle," etc. already cited. p. 120.)
This, unfortunately for Mr. Kermode's argument, is a negation of the established facts of prehistoric archaeology, and of the archaeological maxim, " Long barrows, long skulls; round barrows, round skulls." Whether or not stone circles might belong to Neolithic times, and as being supposed to be copies of early Celtic houses, or but Circles, they probably do, there is no doubt as to what period passage graves belong.
" The long tumuli of Great Britain, resemble in some respects the Scandinavian " Ganggraben," and like them contain megalithic chambers, in which the dead were buried, not burnt." " Passage graves and long barrows seem always to belong to the Stone Age." (Lubbock. " Prehistoric Times," 1869.) " The primary internments in the long barrows are of the long-headed Iberians exclusively, the bodies being buried either at full length, or in a contracted position " (Clodd, " Story of Primitive Man" 1901.) "The round or oval barrows are the burial places of the broad-headed Celts exclusively." (Ibid.) Hence this circle- %vould be late Neolithic (early Celtic) judging by its form, but Mr. Kermode's model passage graves would seem to skew that it belongs to the early (Iberian) Neolithic period, when cremation not being practiced, urns were unknown ! Isubmit that taking everything into consideration, and as we can as little reconcile Mr. Kermode's Bronze Age circle to its model long barrows, as his Neolithic circle to exclusively urn interments, and round barrows being Celtic, the probability is that the circle is a late Neolithic one, with perhaps a few secondary Bronze Age urn interments.
But there is other unrecognised evidence pointing to unburnt bodies having occupied the Meayll cists. This is the " black oily substance " found below the cists. Dr. Herdman and Mr. Kerrnode, having cremation in their minds, ascribed it to " burnt animal matter mixed with earth." With cremated bodies the flesh is reduced to ashes, and such bones as remain are dry, white, and porous. This I can attest from actual observation in a country where cremation by identical means as obtained in the Bronze Age in Europe, is still common. This tarry substance seems to be consequent upon the decay of buried, not burnt, animal matter. It is extraordinarily enduring. Hugh Miller found it in the rocks of Orkney and Stromness, and beneath a fossil of Asterolepis of the Red Sandstone, "like thick tar." It reminded him of the appearance of the remains of a poor suicide, whose grave had been laid bare in a sandy cliff, and for a full yard beneath the white dry sand had been "consolidated into a dark coloured pitchy mass by the altered animal matter which had escaped from it, percolating downwards in the process of decay." (" Footprints of the Creator.") The " black oily substance " is to me conclusive proof that, some at least, of the Meayll cists originally contained unburnt bodies.
(C.) Fairies. " At a meeting of the British Association, Oxford, 1894, the Swiss Anthropologist, Dr. J. Kollmann, read a paper on " Pygmies in Europe," in connection with some human remains recently exhumed from the neolithic stratum of a pre-historic station, near Scaffhausen. Side by side with skeletons of the normal size, were found four or five averaging not more than 1424, m m, say, 4 feet, 8 inches. Reference was also made in the same paper to the small people about 5 feet high still surviving in Sicily and Sardinia,...who were regarded by Dr. Kollmann, not as degenerate Europeans, but as representatives of a distinct variety of mankind, which occurs in several types dispersed over, the globe, and which he believes to have been the precursors of the taller races of mankind. Some support is lent to this view by the folklore of many northern peoples, and perhaps even by more substantial evidence, such as the remains of little people said to have been found in the Hebrides by Dean Munro in 1549, and by the traveller Marten in about 1703, and in an island of Hudson Bay in 1631 by Foxe, who tells us that the longest corpses were not above four feet long," (1° Ethnology," by A. H. Keane. . F. R. G. S. 1896.) It is curious that among the African pigmies of to-day, the Wochua among others, their hair, according to Junker, is " of a dark, rusty brown hue." Others describe it as " tending to russet." De Ouatrefages thinks " the precursor of man was red-haired." (Keane.)
(D.) Hut circles. My remarks are fully borne out by what is known of Irish hamlets in the middle ages. They were generally groups of wicker Cabins, and some still more primitive, near the duns of chiefs. Stone houses were very rare. "When St. Malachy, 12th, cent. thought of building a stone oratory at Bangor, it was deemed a. novelty by the people." (Ency Brit.) " The round houses were made by making two basket-like cylinders one within the other, and separated by an annular space of about a foot, by inserting upright posts in the ground and interweaving hazel wattles between, the annular space being filled with clay. upon the cylinder was placed a conical cap thatched with reeds or straw. The kreel houses of many Highland gentlemen in the last (18th.) century were made in this way excepting that they were not round." (Ibid.) It is obvious that such houses decaying and falling to ruin, would make " circles.' The early Celts used such houses, as did the Neolithic people of the Swiss lakes.
The use of flint in the 11th cent. In a mound called Cronk Ball a queeney, near Port St. Mary, in 1874, were found some cists containing Anglo-Saxon coins of the 10th. cent. apparently associated with a flint implement, and a stone axe. (Moore's " Manx Place-names.") I do not know if it can be proved that the coins came out of the same cist as the stone axe and flint implement. The stone implements may have came out of the one prehistoric grave the mound contained.
It is a pity that so much valuable historical evidence has been wasted in the Isle of Man for want of expert examination and expert appreciation. I extend this remark to rude stone implements, which, I fear, are not thought worthy of attention if they are not fashioned in such a manner that their character is palpable to the casual examiner.
1. Large cist. primary interment.
2. Small cist containing remains of three individuals, two below covering slab, one above.
3. Black earth containing stones, etc.
4. Yellow loam containing worked flints, fragments of pottery, and animal remains. It was probably the ancient surface before the mound (3) was heaped over the large grave.
5 Gravel and clay,-no flints,
Types of hollow scrapers from Port St. Mary and Glen Wyllin.
A, Hollow scrapers, Port St. Mary.
B, Small scrapers, Port St. Mary, Pooilvaish, and Chunar, drawn too large.
C, Hollow scrapers, Glen Wyllin.
D, Broken hollow scrapers, Glen Wyllin.
E, Double hollow scrapers, atN., m.,tr„
FIRE HOLE AT GLEN WYLIN. Drawn from memory to illustrate position, &c.
1. Modern accumulation of soil.
2. Flint earth or original surface.
3. Stratum of mould passing into
4. Sand and gravel.
5. Fire hole.
Sketch giving general type of two ground sandstone adzes, from a Neolithic site, at Pooilvaish, Isle of Man. Found by F. Swynnerton, 1907.
A. Broad side.
B Edge.
C. Shewing cutting ends in relation to handle.
D. Probable position when mounted on handle,-i.e., in a cleft stick.
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Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor |
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