Chapter XIX: Section III: Historic Interpretation――Ethnological Problem

I. Whether man was originally descended from some species of extinct or still surviving apes,¹ does not come within the scope of my subject. But to render my principle of historic interpretation clear, it is necessary to make a brief statement. Man from the beginning of his career upon the earth has been in possession of his physical organism, his external senses, and his psychical faculties. Although in the early stages his mental powers were undeveloped, still he had the use of his external senses and the capacity of thinking, however limited his views might have been. For in the order of human development thought necessarily preceded language, and always has preceded it. In spite of the opinion of an eminent writer, who has asserted and reiterated that thought and language is absolutely identical, a notion well calculated to introduce confusion into the subject.² In nature and reality, if thought had not preceded language, the rational origin of language itself would be inconceivable. Is there not evidence recorded of individuals, who have thought much without using articulate language? I have observed an infant of three months old manifest distinct evidence of memory in relation to inanimate objects. I have also observed infants of eighteen months, who had a clear idea of the relation of cause and effect, and showed a wonderful power of reasoning and a spirit of inquiry. It is the internal psychical capacity of the mind-thinking power, which renders language itself possible. In the early stages of the human race it is certain that man did think hard and long too――thousands of years before he had even a very limited vocabulary of articulate speech; and we know that alphabets and written languages were only of comparatively recent origin. Instead of language being absolutely identical with thought, it is merely an instrument for the expression and communication of thought, and an instrument to some extent fortuitously formed, as is shown by the multitude of different languages; and even the most highly developed ones are inadequate to express the infinite combinations and relations of thought.

¹ “My own theory of the matter, however, is slightly different
from this. For, while accepting all that goes to constitute
the substance of Mr. Darwin’s suggestion, I think it almost
certain that the faculty of articulate sign-making was a
product of a much later evolution, so that the creature
who first presented this faculty must have already been
more human than ape like. This Homo alius stands before the
mind’s eye as an almost brutal object, indeed, yet still
erect in attitude, shaping his flints to serve as tools and
weapons, living in tribes or societies, and able in no small
degree to communicate the logic of his recepts by means of
gesture-signs, facial expressions, and vocal tones. From
such an origin the subsequent evolution of sign-making
faculty in the direction of articulate sounds would be
an even more easy matter to imagine than it was under the
previous hypothesis. Having traced the probable course of
this evolution, as inferred by sundry analogies; and having
dwelt upon the remarkable significance in this connection
of the inarticulate sounds which still survive as so-called
‘clicks’ in the lowly formed language of Africa; I went
on to detail sundry considerations which seemed to render
probable the prolonged existence of the imaginary being in
question――traced the presumable phases of his subsequent
evolution, and met the objection which might be raised on
the score of Homo alius being Homo postulatus.” _Mental
Evolution of Man_, by G. J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., page
429, 1888. This volume is part of an attempt to strengthen
the theory of evolution, by showing how the psychological
barrier between man and the brute may be overcome. The
effort is carried on with vigour and considerable ingenuity.

² _Gifford Lectures_, pages 24, 356, 406, by Max Müller, 1888.

From the historic standpoint, languages may be called the products of social organisation. Thus different tribes, communities, and nations originate and develop languages in harmony with their special circumstances, social state, and stages of civilisation. The evolution of language everywhere is partly a natural and partly an artificial process, springing out of the growth of the varied organisations, states of society, and human culture; and hence the multiplicity and diversity of languages throughout the world.

But the laws of thought are not dependent on language, or necessarily identical with any form of speech. Thought can create mere arbitrary signs, such as the formula and symbols used in science, which in themselves have no meaning until the mind and the laws of thought assign to them ideas, powers, and so on, which represent quantity and quality and explain the infinite relations of the universe. But, excepting Max Müller, did any one ever assert that the symbols themselves were identical with the ideas, thoughts, and reasonings involved in mathematics, astronomy, and chemistry?

In the earliest stage of society man’s thinking faculty appears to have been comparatively narrow, owing to his limited experience. Still it is an ♦indispensable requisite of a historic principle of interpretation to take account of the inner psychical faculties of man as a factor in the origin of the first stage of society, in the subsequent creation of historical conditions, and throughout the entire development of civilisation. The psychical characteristics of tribes are more important than their physical peculiarities, and when both sides of these characteristics are strongly marked, they tend to make new historical conditions, to produce relative changes, and thus advance civilisation. There is little progress in human society until a series of intersective relations arise and begin to operate and affect the positions and circumstances of tribes, and then onward and progressive movements gradually proceed.

♦ “indispensible” replaced with “indispensable”

In the interpretation of the prehistoric ages and early culture the first requisite is a just conception of human nature, to recognise the natural rights of all communities, and human rights, wherever there is evidence of their existence. For it must be remembered that there has been an almost perpetual tendency among the more powerful peoples to cruelly oppress the weaker and less fortunate communities.

Touching the investigation of the remains, relics, and the phenomena of a people in a given area, the first question is, what are the facts? The relation of such facts as can be ascertained, and their meaning, have to be explained. Following the natural course of development in Scotland, we find a people using stone and taking the materials within their reach, adapting them to suit the ends and circumstances of their daily life. Associated with this people and their stage of culture we find a series of remarkable structural remains which demands the greatest care and discrimination to interpret, owing to the remoteness of the period and the very imperfect knowledge of these people now obtainable. Explanations of unfamiliar phenomena are often apt to be wrong, unless when carefully made, and only relevant points admitted as evidence.

Proceeding down the stream of time we find a people using bronze, and manufacturing their weapons and implements in this material. They developed a culture which is specially connected with the products of this industry, and they occasionally adorned their persons with fine ornaments of jet and gold. This people erected stone circles in which they placed the remains of the dead, and they also erected unchambered cairns over the remains of the dead. But there is an overlapping of the bronze and iron periods, which causes difficulty in the sequent arrangement of certain classes of remains, and in such cases I have endeavoured to make the best use of circumstantial evidence. In Scotland there is a remarkable overlapping of all the three stages of stone, bronze, and iron; and, therefore, though bronze and iron implements may be found associated with the earth houses and the crannogs, it does not follow that their origin and period of occupation should be assigned to the iron age.

The discrimination and estimation of historical evidence, and prehistoric evidence in particular, is a difficult and arduous task. In estimating prehistoric evidence great care and caution is requisite, since owing to the imperfect character of the materials on which to form a direct conclusion, recourse to inference is tried: and many of the inferences which have been drawn in this department rests on no sufficient evidence; the merest shadow of analogy, far fetched instances from some other quarter of the globe――utterly inapplicable to the point in hand, some allusion or conjecture found in Greek and Roman literature, have been often adduced as evidence, which it is heresy to question.

Even written materials, and national documents, when viewed as matter of historical evidence, must be discriminated, and their value estimated according to circumstances and the characteristics of the times to which they belong. Thus, surrounding circumstances is always an element of more or less value in estimating every description of historical evidence.

Strange as it seems, the intelligence of mankind has often been in advance of their means. This appears to have been the case in the earlier stages of human progress. Even now intellect is in advance of the means of attainment amongst the highest civilised nations. This is the case in physical science generally; and when we look at ethical and social science, it is plain that intellect is far ahead of the means of attainment. For instance, it is well known that unequal and defective laws produce disastrous results. So the difficulty in this lies not in the want of knowledge, but about the most efficient remedies, and the most effective means of applying them to remove the evils. On these points men hold different opinions, and so the evils continue. Such has been more or less the experience of mankind from the dawn of consciousness to the present hour. Man knew about many things long before he could command the requisite means to accomplish them; and therefore the mere wrecks and fragments of the handiwork of prehistoric peoples are not a complete index of their intelligence and powers. This has to be taken into account in our interpretation, and in our final estimate of the culture of such peoples. We can easily realise that similar difficulties, and much greater ones, beset our early ancestors, than those which still beset many of our own efforts.

But the description of prehistoric objects would have little interest, unless we knew about the people who produced and used these things in their daily life, something touching the race then inhabiting the country, and whence they came. To this question I will now turn.

II. For long it was the fashion to fix the cradle of the human race somewhere in the centre of Asia. It was said, that all the early movements of mankind were always from the East to the West: that all the migrations of the tribes which had peopled Europe, came at intervals in successive hordes from the East. It was also said, that the progress of civilisation had followed the sun from the East to the West. In the first edition of this volume (1877) I ventured to make the following statement:――“Touching the idea so generally embraced, that the early invasions of Europe have always been from the East to the West, I confess that I cannot see the necessity for this assumption. Its wide prevalence is probably largely due to long fixed habits of thought. Why should the central region of Asia be deemed the cradle of the human race? This does not relieve the problem of any of its difficulties. It is just as easy to conceive man originating in one place as in another; in the heart of Africa, America, or Europe, as in Asia, especially as the race had spread over all these quarters of the earth long before we have any records. What can all our science tell us about the spot where man first came into existence? Imaginary theories are swiftly formed on a point of which nothing is known. There is little or no philosophic ground for this Eastern origin of the race; and it is vain to cover our ignorance in the garb of knowledge.” The only semblance of a reason for imagining that the centre of Asia was the cradle of the race, is the assumption that it was warm in this region, and therefore primitive man could easily have lived and multiplied there; but of course we cannot know whether it was warm or not at the period of man’s first appearance on the earth.

Recently vigorous attempts have been made to shift the cradle of the great Aryan race from the centre of Asia to Europe. In the early part of this century comparative philology gave currency to the relationship of the far-spread family of Aryan languages. Then shortly after a theory was formed to the effect that these allied languages had all originally sprung from a clan somewhere located in Asia, in Bactria, or the banks of the Oxus. But it is now strongly contended that Europe was the centre in which the ancestors of the Aryan race first saw the light, and that there is no Aryan race in the same sense that there is an Aryan language, and that the question touching the origin of the Aryans can only refer to the ethnic affinities of those various races which have acquired Aryan speech. The real problem is among which of these races did Aryan language arise, and where was the cradle of that race?¹ This is not likely to be soon solved.

¹ _The Origin of the Aryans_, by Isaac Taylor, LL.D., page 7,
1890. J. G. Rhode first advanced the theory that central
Asia was the cradle of the Indo-European race, and based
his arguments mainly on geographical indications. Pott’s
argument is founded on the notion that “the path of the sun
must be the path of culture.” _Ibid._, pages 9, 10. Hegel
also strongly maintained that the spirit of humanity, in its
historic manifestation, followed the course of the sun from
the east to the west, and at last culminated in the German
nation, which being interpreted meant in himself――in his own
system of philosophy.

In 1848 Jacob Grimm ennunciated the theory that――“Few will
be found to question that all the nations of Europe migrated
anciently from Asia,” and so on. In 1859 Max Müller adopted
Grimm’s theory, and superimposed on it a fine flowing poetic
strain, which captivated multitudes of people. The same
year Pictet published the first volume of his _Origines
Indo-Européennes_, in which he presented an elaborate theory
of the successive Aryan migrations from Central Asia. He
brought the Celts south of the Caspian and through the
Caucasus to the north of the Black Sea, and then up the
Danube to the extreme west of Europe; and the Greeks and
Italians by a route, south of the Caspian, through Asia
Minor to Greece and Italy; while the Slavs and Teutons
marched north of the Caspian through the Russian steppes.
Taylor’s _Origin of the Aryans_, pages 11‒12.

Amongst the causes which tended to discredit the Asiatic origin of the Aryans may be mentioned the evidence of the antiquity of man presented by geology, prehistoric investigation, anthropological study, and craniology. From the results obtained in these branches of inquiry, it became apparent that man in Europe was the contemporary of the mammoth, the reindeer, the musk-sheep, lion, elephant, bear, and other animals, which are either locally or wholly extinct. It further appeared that man had inhabited France and the south of Britain at the close of the quaternary period.¹ When this was at last recognised, views of man and traditional notions which had long prevailed began to recede into the region of delusion. It was then asked whether there was any real evidence of these great successive migrations from Central Asia? “Is there any reason for supposing that the present inhabitants of Europe are not in the main the descendants of the neolithic races whose rude implements fill our museums? If not, what has become of these primitive peoples?”² After it had been shown that the skulls of the primitive inhabitants of central France were of the same type as those of the present inhabitants, and that the skulls of the Spanish Basques belonged to another neolithic type, and similar results obtained in Denmark, Britain, and Eastern Europe, the logical conclusion from such facts seemed clear.³

¹ _Prehistoric Europe_, by J. Geikie, LL.D., pages 19‒23,
74, 89, 92, _et seq._, 114, 360, 378, 544‒556; _The Ancient
Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain_,
by J. Evans, pages 430‒462, 578‒621.

² Taylor’s _Origin of the Aryans_, page 19.

³ _The Human Species_, by A. De ♦Quatrefages, 1879. This
authority says:――“In the quaternary period there is more
precise information about man than of several of the
existing races. The caves which he inhabited, those in which
he buried his dead, and the alluvial deposits formed by
rivers which have borne away his corpse, have preserved
numerous bones for our study. As many as forty different
places in all, especially in the western portion of Europe,
have supplied our museums with as many as forty skulls, more
or less intact, and numbers of fragments of the cranium and
face, as well as a great number of the bones of the trunk
and limbs, and even some entire skeletons,” page 287.

“In fossil, as well as in modern skulls, we find between
races and individuals oscillations of a more or less
striking character. Although these are often of less extent
in known fossil races than those observed in existing
populations.” _Ibid._, page 293.

“In all fossil races we find the essentially human character
of the predominance of the cranium over the face. With them,
as with us, the bony framework which contains the brain
becomes longer, narrower, or shorter, at the same time
increasing in size; it rises or is flattened, but always
possesses a capacity comparable to that of the present day.”
_Ibid._, page 295.

“We admit, then, two dolichocephalic races――those of
♦Canstadt and of ♦Cro-Magnon. The more or less brachycephalic
races are four in number. Under the name of Furfooz races we
have included two races discovered in that famous locality,
(the valley of the Lesse, in Belgium). The Grenelle race
(name of a place near Paris) and that of La Truchere also
take their names from the localities where they were found.”
_Ibid._, page 301. He gives many interesting details of
these several races, but the evidence on which some of the
details rests does not come up to my standard.

♦ “Quaterfages” replaced with “Quatrefages”
“Constadt” replaced with “Canstadt”
“Cro-Magon” replaced with “Cro-Magnon”

It was seen that the Aryan languages must either all have originated in Europe, one member, the Indo-Iranian, separating from the rest and migrating to its present region, or they must all have originated in Asia, and then migrated severally to Europe, still retaining in their new homes the precise relative positions which their mutual connections prove must have originally existed. Which of the two alternatives is the more probable? That of a single migration, of a people whom we know to have been nomads at no very remote period, or six distinct migrations of six separate peoples, of which there is no evidence that they ever migrated at all, and whose traditions assert that they were aboriginal?¹

¹ Taylor’s _Origin of the Aryans_, pages 22‒23.

According to Dr. Schrander two positions are settled――that from the earliest period of which there is evidence we find Asiatic Aryans on the Jaxartes, and the European Aryans in Northern Europe. He maintains that not a shred of evidence has been adduced to show that any migration of the European Aryans from the East ever occurred. At the earliest period the European Aryans seem to have been moving toward the south and the south-east; and he has now finally placed the main original home of the Aryans on the Middle Volga where it is joined by the Sanna.

As yet, however, there is not a concurrence of view among scholars and inquirers, some holding that Central Europe was the original cradle of the Aryans, others Eastern Europe, and some Northern Europe. The problem itself has often been discussed with needless heat. French and German scholars range themselves on opposite sides, and each representative of the two nationalities vehemently contends in turn that his ancestors alone were the pure primitive Aryans.¹

¹ ♦Poesche writes thus:――“The true scientific theory, which
uplifts itself calm and clear, like the summit of Olympus,
over the passing storm-clouds, is that a noble, fair-haired,
blue-eyed people vanquished and subjugated an earlier race
of short stature and dark hair. In opposition to this is the
French theory, without scientific foundation, originating
in political hatred, which asserts that the primitive Aryans
were a short and dark people, who Aryanised the tall, fair
race.” _Die Arier_, page 44.

M. Chavée maintains that the mental superiority lies with
the other race:――“Look at the beautifully formed head of the
Iranians and Hindus, so intelligent and so well developed.
Look at the perfection of those admirable languages, the
Sanscrit and the Zind. The Germans have merely defaced and
spoilt the beautiful structure of the primitive Aryan speech.”
Again, Ujfalvy remarks: “If superiority consists merely
in physical energy, enterprise, invasion, conquest, then
the fair dolichocephalic race may claim to be the leading
race in the world; but if we consider mental qualities, the
artistic and intellectual faculties, then the superiority
lies with the brachycephalic race.” Another Frenchman, De
Mortillet, in his _Le Préhistorique_, strongly maintains
that the civilisation of Europe is almost entirely due to
the great brachycephalic race.

The German writers further argue, “That while the peasantry
and middle classes over the greater part of Europe
are brachycephalic, the nobles and landed proprietors
approximate rather to the long Teutonic type. This, they
say, is a proof that a brachycephalic aboriginal people was
conquered and Aryanised by Teutonic invaders.” _Origin of
the Aryans_, pages 227, 229.

♦ “Posche” replaced with “Poesche”

Dr. Taylor has presented the following conclusions:――“The four European types of race may be traced continuously in occupation of their present seats to the neolithic period; and in the case of the Italic and Swiss pile dwellers, and the round barrow people of Britain, we must believe that their speech in neolithic times was Aryan――either Celtic or Italic. We are, therefore, forced to adopt the view that one of the four races must be identified with the primitive Aryans, and that this race, whichever it was, imposed its Aryan speech on the other three. It is most reasonable to believe that the Aryan civilisation originated with the broad-headed race of Central Europe, which possessed the skill to construct, with rude stone tools, the pile dwellings of Switzerland and Italy. And on archæological grounds we have come to the conclusion that the Slavo-Celtic race, as represented in the round barrows of Britain, and in the pile dwellings of Central Europe, comes nearest to the primitive Aryans as disclosed by linguistic palæontology. Aryan speech may have been evolved out of a language of the Ural Altaic class; the grammatical resemblances pointing to a primitive unity of speech, just as the physical resemblances point to a primitive unity of race. There must have been some ruder form of speech from which the elaborate Aryan inflection was evolved, and there is no other known form of speech, except the Ural Altaic, which can be regarded as the germ out of which the Aryan languages may have sprung. We have also arrived at the conclusion that the Celto-Slavic race best represents the primitive Aryans, whose speech may have been evolved out of a language of the Ural Altaic class. We may, therefore, conjecture that at the close of the reindeer period a Finnic people appeared in Western Europe, whose speech, remaining stationary, is represented by the agglutinative Basque, and that much later, at the beginning of the pastoral age, when the ox had been tamed, a taller and more powerful Finnic-Ugric people developed in Central Europe the inflective Aryan speech.”¹

¹ _Origin of the Aryans_, pages 217, 242, 295‒296.

Whether the Aryan language was originated in Europe or not, it seems pretty evident that its origin must stretch back to a period at least three or four thousand years before the Christian era. But identity or relationship of language by no means proves identity of race; at the utmost it only raises a presumption in favour of a common racial origin. Language belongs to the organised community, not specially to the race; so it can only prove social contact, not racial kinship, unless where other evidence is available, such as physical characteristics, religious beliefs, similar customs and habits. Tribes and races sometimes lose their own speech and adopt the tongues of others,――a social phenomena which occurs from various causes operating in the ceaseless evolution of human society.

I have briefly touched on the early inhabitants of Europe, and the questions of the origin of the Aryan race and languages, merely preparatory to the treatment of the ethnology of Scotland. No relics of Palæolithic man have been found anywhere in Scotland.¹ Although such relics, and even fragments of human bones have been discovered in the southern parts of the island, yet it is not usually maintained that these earliest tribes or cavemen survived through the subsequent geological and climatic changes, and continuously occupied the country on to the polished stone age.² I now come to the ethnological problem in the limited sense in which it relates to Scotland; but this question cannot be treated at all without reference to the southern part of the island and to the Continent.

¹ Geikie’s _Prehistoric Europe_, page 428.

² “We have seen that during the last glacial epoch Palæolithic
man retreated with the reindeer and its congeners, and
occupied the valleys of Southern France. What is his
subsequent history? Did he return northwards with the Arctic
and Alpine animals to re-occupy the Belgian and English
caves in Postglacial times? As a matter of fact, he did
not.... It is open, of course, to argue that the Neolithic
race or races were identical with the Palæeolithic tribes,
who had somehow acquired a knowledge of husbandry, spinning,
and pottery; who had learned to domesticate certain animals,
and to finish their implements more perfectly.... All this
is possible, but, on the other hand, it is so extremely
improbable that, until some positive evidence in favour
of such a view be advanced, we may well leave it out of
account.... Other writers are of opinion that the man of the
reindeer period in Southern France probably remained where
he was, to become absorbed in the new wave of population
that swept into Europe at the close of the glacial period....
There are certain appearances in some Pyrenean caves, as
in that of Gourdan, described by M. ♦Piette, which lead
to the suspicion that the interval between the Palæolithic
and Neolithic ages in Southern France may not have been
prolonged.” _Ibid._, pages 546, 551‒552.

♦ “Pette” replaced with “Piette”

The earliest prehistoric race in Britain of whom we have reliable evidence, was a long-headed people of comparatively short stature. Their physical characteristics resembled the Berber race and North African tribes, and they probably migrated from that quarter into Europe at a very remote period. They seem to have spread over the Spanish peninsula, the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, Sardinia, Corsica, Southern Italy, and a great part of France; but they do not appear to have extended to Germany or the north-east of Europe. They were non-Aryan in race and in speech, and probably spoke Numidian dialects akin to the inscriptions of that character. This race arrived in the south of Britain about the beginning of the polished stone period: and gradually spread over the Island, and even reached the Orkneys.

They appear to have inhabited the Island alone for a very long period. They constructed the long barrows of England: and the chambered cairns of Caithness, Argyle, and Orkney. In Scotland they also seem to have constructed the curious underground structures called earth-houses, as will be shown in the sequel.

The first migration of a race of people of Aryan descent, who spoke a Celtic dialect, came from the Continent of Europe, and arrived on the southern or eastern shores of Britain, long before the close of the stone period. It is almost certain that there were several unrecorded migrations of Celtic tribes from the coasts of France and Belgium to the southern parts of Britain. These tribes spread very slowly over the country, and subdued, and intermixed with the long headed race which had preceded them in the occupation of the Island. The new-comers soon realised the advantage of living on friendly terms with the original inhabitants, instead of attempting to exterminate them; as all the available evidence tends to show that the two races peaceably and slowly amalgamated. The skulls and remains of the two peoples have often been found lying together in the same barrows.¹

¹ _British Barrows._ By Wm. Greenwell, pages 126‒129, 559‒632.

The earlier race, sometimes called Iberians, Basques, and other names, were a short limbed people, only averaging about five feet five inches in height, the tallest of the men reaching five feet six inches, and the shortest of the women four feet eight inches. Their heads were long and narrow, of the type termed dolichocephalic: their physical frame was not strong, though some individuals of the race possessed well developed muscular powers. It is said that they were dark and swarthy in complexion. On the other hand, the newly arrived Celtic tribes were of the brachycephalic type――a people with broad heads and very powerful physical frames; their average height was about five feet nine inches; and the female sex was also tall, very handsome and muscular.¹

¹ _Ibid._, pages 559‒632, 680, 682, _et seq._ Strabo, when
speaking of the inhabitants of the interior of Britain,
says of the Coritavi, a tribe in Lincolnshire:――“The men are
taller than the Celts of Gaul; their hair is not so yellow
and their limbs are more loosely knit. To show how tall they
are, I may say that I saw myself some of their young men at
Rome, and they were taller by six inches than any one else
in the city.” Elton’s _Origins of English History_, page 240,
1882.

The Celts imposed their Aryan speech on the aboriginal race, and became the ruling people.¹ They formed themselves into strong but separate tribes. Owing to a number of natural causes and circumstances, the movement of the Celtic people into the interior of the country, northward and westward, was extremely gradual and slow:――1, They had to come to an understanding with the original inhabitants as they advanced, even though there was little fighting; 2, A large part of the country was then covered with swamps, fens, and dense forests; 3, The natural barriers of rivers and firths which often overflowed their valleys, and of mountain ranges; 4, The difficulties connected with procuring a sufficient supply of food; and 5, The difficulties of protecting themselves from the severe colds and frosts, as the climate was much colder than the sunny region which they had left. Taking these conditions and circumstances into account, which must have greatly impeded the onward and outward movement of the Celts in overrunning the Island, we may reasonably assume that from the time the first Celtic tribes landed in the south of England, to the time when they reached the quarter now called Scotland, at least a century had elapsed. After they had crossed the borders, it must have taken more than another century to overrun Scotland and reach the extremities of the northern Highlands. If we recall the fact, that it took the Romans with all their resources, appliances, and disciplined legions, upwards of forty years to conquer their way from the South of England to the Firth of Forth, we will easily realise the probable truth of what has just been indicated.

¹ Some recent writers have in a half-hearted way maintained
that one of the prehistoric races of Britain was of a
Finnish type from the Baltic region; but there seems to
be a lack of evidence to support this view. See _Origins
of English History_, by Elton, pages 126, 144, 151, 160,
167‒179. The evidence adduced by this writer in support of
the Finnic origin of the men of the Bronze age in Britain is
altogether unsatisfactory, and indicates a lack of knowledge
touching the conditions of the prehistoric ages.

As I have said, there were probably several unrecorded migrations or invasions of Celtic tribes from Gaul or Belgium into Britain. The result of this would have been a continuance and an intensification of the onward and outward movement of the people; and ultimately the creation of real historical conditions, which in turn and in process of time, would account for all the varieties of Celtic language in the British Islands.

At a much later period, and after the foundation of the Gaulish empire in the sixth century B.C., invasions of Britain from the Gaulish territories took place. About the end of the second century B.C., the King of Soissons had extended his sway over a portion of southern Britain; and those Gaulish people, who came over during the later period, settled along the southern and eastern shores of England, and carried on a commercial traffic with their kindred on the other side of the Channel. But they did not then penetrate far into the interior of the country. In 58‒50 B.C. Cæsar conquered Gaul; and in 55‒54 he twice attempted to conquer Britain but failed; and nearly a century elapsed ere the Romans made another effort to conquer the Island.

Thus, at the opening of the Christian era, the whole area of Scotland was inhabited by people speaking an Aryan language――called Celtic. But this people themselves, as we have seen, were not a pure Celtic race; on the contrary, they had intermingled with and absorbed that original short-stature and long-headed race, whose blood runs in their veins more or less to this day. The same may be said of the whole of England, excepting the narrow strips along the southern and eastern shores which had been colonised by the later migrations and invasions of the Gauls. I must now turn to Ireland and its early inhabitants.

Into the maze of Irish ethnology and endless legends I cannot enter at length, but it is necessary to state a few facts. Ireland was inhabited in the Stone age, and probably by tribes akin to the short stature people which we have found occupying Britain. Celtic tribes migrated to Ireland at a very early prehistoric period, either from the Continent or from the southern shores of Britain. This Island was not invaded by the Romans, and consequently its early inhabitants were permitted to follow their own course of development uninterrupted by external interference till a much later period than Britain. The population of Ireland seems to have multiplied rapidly, and became crowded at a comparatively early period; and they began to molest the western shores of Britain in the early centuries of the Christian era. Migrations from Ireland to the western parts of Scotland became frequent; and an intercourse based on ethnic affinities sprung up between the two countries. The details of this connection will appear in the sequel.

About the seventh century the Scandinavians began a movement through the ocean towards the Shetland and Orkney Islands, and onward to the northern quarter of Scotland, which they ultimately reached; and hence became an element of the ethnology of Scotland. This movement will be detailed in the subsequent narrative. The Angles or Saxons reached the southern borders of Scotland about the middle of the sixth century, and settled in Lothian. Their subsequent movement and intermixture with the earlier inhabitants, and the gradual spread of their language, will be treated at length in the sequel. The last ethnic influx was the Norman Invasion; and in so far as it effected Scotland, it will be specially discussed in its appropriate order.

The origin and the consecutive relations of the constituent elements of the ethnology of the people of Scotland as briefly indicated in the preceding pages, may now be summarised:――1, The aboriginal people were a race of short stature, with long narrow heads; 2, They were invaded and subdued by a taller and broad-headed race, of Aryan descent, and speaking a Celtic dialect, and ultimately these two races amalgamated; 3, At a later period, Gaulish tribes settled on the south and south-eastern shores of England; 4, Migrations from Ireland, of tribes speaking Celtic, to the western parts of Scotland, began early in the Christian era and continued for several centuries; 5, The movement of the Scandinavians to the Shetland and Orkney Islands, onward to the Western Isles and the northern mainland of Scotland; 6, The invasion and settlement of the Saxons in the south of Scotland; 7, Finally, an influx of Norman nobles. Such simply stated, were the real ethnological elements out of which the Scottish nation was ultimately developed. Thus the subject is freed from a mass of legends and the obscuring accretions of many generations.