One observation must be made on Dr. Munros logical method, as announced by himself. My role, on the present occasion, is to advocate the correctness of my own views on purely archaeological grounds, without any special effort to refute those of my opponents. 12 As my view is that the methods of Dr. Munro are perhaps, and I say it with due deference, and with doubt, capable of modification, I shall defend my opinions as best I may. Moreover, my views, in the course of seven long years (1898-1905) have necessarily undergone some change, partly in deference to the arguments of Dr. Munro, partly because much new information has come to my knowledge since 1898-99. Moreover, on one occasion, I misstated my own view, and, though I later made my real opinion perfectly dear, some confusion was generated.
III THE CLYDE CONTROVERSY
It is necessary, after these prefatory remarks, to give an account of the rise of the Clyde controversy, and I may be pardoned for following the example of Dr. Munro, who adds, and cannot but add, a pretty copious narrative of his own share in the discussion. In 1896, the hill fort of Dunbuie, about a mile-and-a-half to the east of Dumbarton Castle, and three miles to the west of the Roman Wall, 13 was discovered by Mr. W. A. Donnelly: that is to say, Mr. Donnelly suggested that the turf might conceal something worth excavating, and the work was undertaken, under his auspices, by the Helensburgh Antiquarian Society.
As Mr. Donnellys name constantly occurs in the discussion, it may be as well to state that, by profession, he is an artist, a painter and designer in black and white, and that, while keenly interested in the pre-historic or proto-historic relics of Clydesdale, he makes no claim to be regarded as a trained archaeologist, or widely-read student. Thus, after Mr. Donnelly found a submarine structure at Dumbuck in the estuary of the Clyde, Dr. Munro writes: I sent Mr. Donnelly some literature on crannogs. 14 So Mr. Donnelly, it appears, had little book lore as to crannogs. He is, in fact, a field worker in archaeology, rather than an archaeologist of the study and of books. He is a member of a local archaeological Society at Helensburgh on the Clyde, and, before he found the hill fort of Dunbuie, he had discovered an interesting set of cup and ring marked rocks at Auchentorlie, only a short distance from Dunbuie. 15
Mr. Donnellys position, then, as regards archaeological research, was, in 1896-1898, very like that of Dr. Schliemann when he explored Troy. Like Dr. Schliemann he was no erudite savant, but an enthusiast with an eye for likely sites. Like Dr. Schliemann he discovered certain objects hitherto unknown to Science, (at least to Scottish science,) and, like Dr. Schliemann, he has had to take the consequences of being found in such a situation.
It must be added that, again like Dr. Schliemann he was not an excavator of trained experience. I gather that he kept no minute and hourly-dated log-book of his explorations, with full details as to the precise positions of the objects discovered, while, again like Dr. Schliemann, he had theories of his own, with some of which I do not concur.
Dr. Munro justly insists on the absolute necessity of correctly recording the facts and relics brought to light by excavations. 16 An excavator should be an engineer, or be accompanied by a specialist who can assign exact measurements for the position of every object discovered. Thus Dr. Munro mentions the case of a man who, while digging a drain in his garden in Scotland, found an adze of jade and a pre-historic urn. Dr. Munro declares, with another expert, that the jade adze is a modern Australian implement, which is the more amazing as I am not aware that the Australians possess any jade. The point is that the modern Australian adze was not, as falsely reported, in the pre-historic urn. 17
Here I cannot but remark that while Dr. Munro justly regrets the absence of record as to precise place of certain finds, he is not more hospitable to other finds of which the precise locality is indicated. Things are found by Mr. Bruce as he clears out the interior of a canoe, or imbedded in the dock on the removal of the canoe, 18 or in the kitchen midden the refuse heap but Dr. Munro does not esteem the objects more highly because we have a distinct record as to the precise place of their finding.
IV DUNBUIE
To return to the site first found, the hill fort of Dunbuie, excavated in 1896. Dr. Munro writes:
There is no peculiarity about the position or structure of this fort which differentiates it from many other forts in North Britain. Before excavation there were few indications that structural remains lay beneath the débris, but when this was accomplished there were exposed to view the foundations of a circular wall, 13½ feet thick, enclosing a space 30 to 32 feet in diameter. Through this wall there was one entrance passage on a level with its base, 3 feet 2 inches in width, protected by two guard chambers, one on each side, analogous to those so frequently met with in the Brochs. The height of the remaining part of the wall varied from 18 inches to 3 feet 6 inches. The interior contained no dividing walls nor any indications of secondary occupation.
Thus writes Dr. Munro (pp. 130, 131), repeating his remarks on p. 181 with this addition,
Had any remains of intra-mural chambers or of a stone stair been detected it would unhesitatingly be pronounced a broch; nor, in the absence of such evidence, can it be definitely dissociated from that peculiar class of Scottish buildings, because the portion of wall then remaining was not sufficiently high to exclude the possibility of these broch characteristics having been present at a higher level a structural deviation which has occasionally been met with.
All the brochs, Dr. Munro goes on, hitherto investigated have shown more or less precise evidence of a post-Roman civilisation, their range, according to Dr. Joseph Anderson, being not earlier than the fifth and not later than the ninth century. 19 Although from more recent discoveries, as, for example, the broch of Torwodlee, Selkirkshire, there is good reason to believe that their range might legitimately be brought nearer to Roman times, it makes no difference in the correctness of the statement that they all belong to the Iron Age.
So far the broch, or hill fort, was not unlike other hill forts and brochs, of which there are hundreds in Scotland. But many of the relics alleged to have been found in the soil of Dunbuie were unfamiliar in character in these islands. There was not a shard of pottery, there was not a trace of metal, but absence of such things is no proof that they were unknown to the inhabitants of the fort. I may go further, and say that if any person were capable of interpolating false antiquities, they were equally capable of concealing such real antiquities in metal or pottery as they might find; to support their theories, or to serve other private and obscure ends.
Thus, at Langbank, were found a bronze brooch, and a Late Celtic (200 b. c.? a. d.) comb. These, of course, upset the theory held by some inquirers, that the site was Neolithic, that is, was very much earlier than the Christian era. If the excavators held that theory, and were unscrupulous, was it not as easy for them to conceal the objects which disproved the hypothesis, as to insert the disputed objects which do not prove it?
Of course Dr. Munro nowhere suggests that any excavator is the guilty faker.
I now quote Dr. Munros account of the unfamiliar objects alleged to have been found in Dunbuie. He begins by citing the late Mr. Adam Millar, F.S.A.Scot., who described Dunbuie in the Proceedings S. A. Scot. (vol. xxx. pp. 291-308.)
The fort, writes Mr. Millar, has been examined very thoroughly by picking out the stones in the interior one by one, and riddling the fine soil and small stones. The same treatment has been applied to the refuse heap which was found on the outside, and the result of the search is a very remarkable collection of weapons, implements, ornaments, and figured stones. There is no description of the precise position of any of these relics in the ruins, with the exception of two upper stones of querns and a limpet shell having on its inner surface the presentation of a human face, which are stated to have been found in the interior of the fort. No objects of metal or fragments of pottery were discovered in course of the excavations, and of bone there were only two small pointed objects and an awl having a perforation at one end. The majority of the following worked objects of stone, bone, and shell are so remarkable and archaic in character that their presence in a fort, which cannot be placed earlier than the Broch period, and probably long after the departure of the Romans from North Britain, has led some archaeologists to question their genuineness as relics of any phase of Scottish civilisation.
Objects of Stone. Nine spear-heads, like arrow-points, of slate, six of which have linear patterns scratched on them. Some are perforated with round holes, and all were made by grinding and polishing. One object of slate, shaped like a knife, was made by chipping. This knife, says Mr. Millar, has a feature common to all these slate weapons they seem to have been saturated with oil or fat, as water does not adhere to them, but runs off as from a greasy surface. Another highly ornamental piece of cannel coal is in the form of a short spear-head with a thickish stem. The stem is adorned with a series of hollows and ridges running across it; radiating lines running from the stem to the margin. Another group of these remarkable objects shows markings of the cup-and-ring order, circles, linear incisions, and perforations. Some of these ornamentations are deeply cut on the naturally rough surfaces of flat pieces of sandstone, whilst others are on smooth stones artificially prepared for the purpose. A small piece of flint was supposed to have been inserted into a partially burnt handle. There are several examples of hammer-stones of the ordinary crannog type, rubbing-stones, whetstones, as well as a large number of water-worn stones which might have been used as hand-missiles or sling-stones. These latter were not native to the hill, and must have been transported from burns in the neighbourhood. There are also two upper quern stones.
Miscellaneous Objects. A number of splintered pieces of bone, without showing any other evidence of workmanship, have linear incisions, like those on some of the stones, which suggest some kind of cryptic writing like ogams. There are also a few water-worn shells, like those seen on a sandy beach, having round holes bored through them and sharply-cut scratches on their pearly inner surface. But on the whole the edible molluscs are but feebly represented, as only five oyster, one cockle, three limpet, and two mussel shells were found, nearly all of which bore marks of some kind of ornamentation. But perhaps the most grotesque object in the whole collection is the limpet shell with a human face sculptured on its inner surface.
The eyes, writes Mr. Millar, are represented by two holes, the nose by sharply-cut lines, and the mouth by a well-drawn waved line, the curves which we call Cupids bow being faithfully followed. There is nothing at all of an archaic character, however, in this example of shell-carving. We found it in the interior of the fort; it was one of the early finds nothing like it has been found since; at the same time we have no reason for assuming that this shell was placed in the fort on purpose that we might find it. The fact that it was taken out of the fort is all that we say about it.
Mr. Millars opinion of these novel handicraft remains was that they were the products of a pre-Celtic civilisation. The articles found, he writes, are strongly indicative of a much earlier period than post-Roman; they point to an occupation of a tribe in their Stone Age.
We have no knowledge of the precise position in which the queer things of Dunbuie were found, with the exception of the limpet shell showing the carved human face which, according to a recent statement in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association, September, 1901, was excavated from a crevice in the living rock, over which tons of debris had rested. When taken out, the incrustations of dirt prevented any carving from being seen; it was only after being dried and cleaned that the face appeared, as well as the suspension holes on each side.
So, this unique piece of art was in the fort before it became a ruin and otherwise presented evidence of great antiquity; but yet it is stated in Mr. Millars report that there was nothing at all of an archaic character in this example of shell-carving. 20
I have nothing to do with statements made in The Journal of the British Archaeological Association about a carved oyster shell. I stick to the limpet shell of Mr. Millar, which, to my eyes looks anything but archaic.
V HOW I CAME INTO THE CONTROVERSY
Thus far, I was so much to be sympathised with as never to have heard of the names of Dunbuie and of Mr. Donnelly. In this ignorance I remained till late in October or early in November 1898. On an afternoon of that date I was reading the proof sheets, kindly lent to me by Messrs. Macmillan, of The Native Tribes of Central Australia by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, a work, now justly celebrated, which was published early in 1899. I was much interested on finding, in this book, that certain tribes of Central Australia, the Arunta nation and the Kaitish, paint on sacred and other rocks the very same sorts of archaic designs as Mr. Donnelly found incised at Auchentorlie (of which I had not then heard). These designs are familiar in many other parts of Scotland and of the world. They play a great part in the initiations and magic of Central Australia. Designs of the same class are incised, by the same Australian tribes, on stones of various shapes and sizes, usually portable, and variously shaped which are styled churinga nanja. (Churinga merely means anything sacred, that is, with a superstitious sense attached to it). They also occur on wooden slats, (churinga irula,) commonly styled Bull roarers by Europeans. The tribes are now in a siderolithic stage, using steel when they can get it, stone when they cannot. If ever they come to abandon stone implements, while retaining their magic or religion, they will keep on using their stone churinga nanja.
While I was studying these novel Australian facts, in the autumn of 1898, a friend, a distinguished member of Clan Diarmaid, passing by my window, in London, saw me, and came in. He at once began to tell me that, in the estuary of the Clyde, and at Dunbuie, some one had found small stones, marked with the same archaic kinds of patterns, cup-and-ring, half circles, and so forth, as exist on our inscribed rocks, cists, and other large objects. I then showed him the illustrations of portable stones in Australia, with archaic patterns, not then published, but figured in the proof sheets of Messrs. Spencer and Gillens work. My friend told me, later, that he had seen small stone incised with concentric circles, found in the excavation of a hill fort near Tarbert, in Kintyre. He made a sketch of this object, from memory: if found in Central Australia it would have been reckoned a churinga nanja.