The Newcastle meeting of the British Association 1889 : report of proceedings reprinted from the "Newcastle Daily Chronicle".

  • British Association for the Advancement of Science. Meeting
Date:
[1889?]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Newcastle meeting of the British Association 1889 : report of proceedings reprinted from the "Newcastle Daily Chronicle". Source: Wellcome Collection.

    201/238 page 197
    Unfortunately, no trace of any of these pieces of stag's horn can now be found. It can scarcely be questioned that the two horns with holes in them had been fashioned into implements by human hands, but neither Mr. Bald nor Mr. Home Drummond describes the shape of the pieces of horn, nor states the probable use to which they had been applied. Several writers who have subsequently referred to these specimens have, how- ever, described them as lances or harpoons ; but the brief statements about them by their discoverers scarcely justify this inference, for in the fitting of a handle into -either of such weapons a hole would not be bored through the weapon, but into one end of it. It is with peculiar satisfaction , therefore, that I have had an opportunity of examining a third specimen of a stag's horn made into an implement and associated with a whale's skeleton. In 1877, the skull and other bones of o balaeenot era were exposed in the course of drainage operations on the estate of Meiklewood, a few miles west of Stirling. Resting upon the front of the skull and lying vertically in the blue silt, was an implement made of the horn of a red- deer which possessed the following characters :—It was 11 inches long and 6^ inches in its greatest girth. It con- jsisted of a portion of the beam of the antler immediately above the frontal burr and brow antler, and included that part of the beam from which the tine second in order from the frontal burr had sprung. This tine had been broken off, and a hole had been bored at thac spot completely through the thickness of the beam, the centre of which was 4 inches from one «nd and 7 inches from the other. The greatest circum- ference of the implement was at the part through which the hole was bored, and here it was slightly curved. The aperture where it opened on the convexity from which the tine had sprung was oval and elongated in the long axis of the beam, its dimensions being 1^ inch by | inch ; on the opposte aspect the aperture was almost circular and I inch in diameter. The shorter segment of the antler was truncated and shaped so that It could have been used as a hammer. The opposite end was bevelled and smooth, and polished to a sharpish edge, like that of an axe or chisel. In the process of forming this edge one side of the antler had been rubbed down much more than the other, so that the edge was formed by the hard solid part of the antler. The smooth shining surface of this edge contrasted with the rough, tuberculated appear- ance of the rest of the antler. A piece of wood 1| inch long occupied the hole in the antler. Though much shrunk, JBO as not to fiU it, it was obviously the remains of a handle with which the implement had been provided. The circular shape of the hole on one aspect, and its oval form on the other, leads one to infer that the handle had been a cir- cular stick secured in the hole by wedges of wood, after the manner in which the handle of an axe is now fitted. Prom the hole not being midway between the two ends the implement was not evenly balanced and the bevelled end was longer than the hammer-shaped extremity. The selection of the end of the antler furthest from the frontal burr for the formation of the bevelled edge enabled the maker to obtain a denser part of the horn for the cutting edge. When used with a handle the bevelled end could be employed as an axe, and without the handle it could be used as a chisel. I have little doubt that the imple- ments found along with the Airthrey and Blair Drum- mond whales corresponded in shape to that which I have just described. Implements made of the antlers of the red deer are well known to archasologists, and drawings and descriptions of several varieties may be found in various pubhcations. As a rule thev seem to have been ^shioned into hammers of sharp pointed implements. The particular pattern found with these ancient whales is somewhat unusual. In the Royal Museum at Brussels, however, are some specimens from the Belgian bone caves which closely resemble in shape that which I have described. I may refer especially to those found in the Caverne de Montaigle, which were perforated with a hole for a handle, had one end truncated and the other bevelled to a chisel-like edge. The discovery of these horn implements proves that when the fertile land now forming the Carse of Stirling was submerged below the sea level, the surrounding high lands were inhabited by & hardy Caledonian race, who manufactered from the antlers of the red deer useful tools and weapons. I have already stated that there is nothing in the form of these imple- ments to lead one to suppose that they could be usea in the chase of the whale as lances or harpoons. It is probable that the whales, by the side of which they were found, had been stranded during the ebb of the tide, and that the people had descended from the adjacent heights, and with the aid of their chisels of horn had spoiled the carcase of its load of flesh and blubber. In support of this view I may state that the three skeletons along with which the implements were found were lying in proximity to the edge of the Carse land, where it approached the adjacent high ground. It is expressly stated by Mr. Blackadder that the Blair Drum- mond whale was found within 400 yards of the margin of the Carse clay. The Airthrey whale was exposed near the high ground of the Abbot's Craig; whilst the Meiklewood whale was lying at no great distance from the foot of the Gargunock Hills. We cannot fix a precise date when the men whose imple- ments we have been considering lived in Scotland. It was of course long before the Roman occupation of Britain, and preceded the beginning of the present adjustment of land and sea on our coasts. It is doubtless to be referred to the period[termed the Neolithic, the termination of which, according to the estimates of M. Morlot and other geolo- gists, could not have been less than from 5,000 to 7,000 years ago. Dr. HoDGKiN expressed great interest in the reading of both papers. All Northumbrians, he said, knew Mr. Hall's work. Some of their friends, however, might nob know how diligently he had been working out these pre- historic finds. In his little country parish, it was an ex- tremely interesting sight to see a country clergyman doing his spiritual work heartily and well, and, at the same time, able to carry out those interesting investigations into the exceedingly remote past which the excava- tions revealed to them. Mr. Rowe Hall alluded to one excavation which he (the speaker) had the privilege of being present at. He would not forget the time. It was on Pitland Hills, overlooking the North Tyne. There they saw the cairn in which they might suppose, ages ago, the chief was laid among the wails of his people. The Bishop of Newcastle was with them, and, stripping off his coat, he howked, as they termed it in Northumberland, for two or three hours into this cairn. He (the speaker) asked him if he was not afraid of being brought up on a warrant by the Secretary of State for opening a tomb without a warrant. His lordship replied he would take his chance. He remembered the food vessel and cinerary urn, which had to be hardened by fire in order to prevent it giving way and then they saw the crouched up skeleton of the poor chief. His chest was greviously broken in, but the skull was fairly perfect. It was also interesting to observe how the hut circles of Northumberland resembled those of Dartmoor. (Applause.) Dr. Thomas Wilson, of America; Dr. Embleton, of Newcastle ; Dr. Garson, and Mr. Adam Robertson also took part in the discussion which followed this paper. ORIGIN OF HUMAN FACULTY. Prof. G. J. Romanes, F.R.S., read a paper on The Ori- gin of Human Faculty. He said that he had been requested by the council of the Neurological Society to read a paper on a recently published book of his own, tor the purpose of raising a discussion on the psychological doctrines which are therein presented. The aim of the treatise was twofold. First, to meet upon their own ground those various writers—psychological and theological—who main- tained that a great exception must be made in the case of the human mind to the otherwise uniform law of continuous evolution; and, secondly, to indicate the probable causes, and thus to trace the porobable history of the transition between the in- telligence of the lower animals and the intelligence of man. The paper was listened to with great interest, and a short discussion followed.
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