I have said nothing in the first part of this book about the famous ‘crannogs’, or pile-dwellings (so called), which were discovered a few years ago at Dumbuck and Langbank in the estuary of the Clyde, the hill-fort of Dunbuie by Dumbarton Castle, and the remarkable objects which they contained, because it is admitted that they belong to a period several centuries later than the Roman conquest of Britain; but, for a reason which will presently be apparent, they must not be ignored. Everything worth reading that has been written upon the subject is included in two recent books—Archaeology and False Antiquities, in which Dr. Robert Munro contends that the disputed objects are spurious, and the Clyde Mystery, in which Mr. Andrew Lang endeavours to show that the difficulty of regarding them as forgeries is at least as great as the difficulty of maintaining their authenticity, and that, if they are genuine, they prove the survival of ritual and magical ideas that must have belonged to the Stone Age.

It may be premised that Professor Boyd Dawkins,2136 after a careful examination of certain engraved oyster shells, which were a part of the finds at Dunbuie, reported that he ‘had satisfied himself that two of the shells were American blue points’, and, as he somewhat superfluously added, ‘consequently of very modern date.’ Mr. Lang, admitting this, suggests that, as Dunbuie was left unguarded for several months, the shells were introduced by some local wag.2137 At the same time he argues that if the disputed objects were not genuine, either the forger must have been a man of extraordinary erudition, who had studied the archaeology of England, America, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Australia, or, by a coincidence which is incredible, he produced objects which are found in all those countries. I would suggest, however, that he may himself have been a person of quite ordinary education, who was either employed by an archaeologist with a peculiar sense of humour or learned what was necessary for his purpose from some one more erudite than himself. Mr. Lang reminds us, further, that if the disputed objects have been found in Britain only in the basin of the Clyde, certain painted pebbles, similar to those of Mas d’Azil, which have been found in Scottish brochs, are also unique in Britain, and yet are disputed by nobody; and he might have said the same of the strange objects of Mycenaean type which were found in a barrow on Folkton Wold.2138

Dr. Munro, on the other hand, can see no resemblance whatever between the disputed objects and the genuine productions of Australia or certain other questionable ‘antiquities’ that recently startled the explorers of a Portuguese dolmen.2139 The reader, as Mr. Lang says, must decide for himself; and I doubt whether he will see eye to eye with Dr. Munro.

The doctor also insists that if the Scottish objects are survivals, ‘we ought to find, at least somewhere in Britain, decided and undisputed evidence of the existence of a phase of culture in the Stone Age in which the prototypes ... would be the prevailing forms in general use. But,’ he adds, ‘of such archaic remains there is not a vestige.’2140 No; but the earth has not yet given up all the vestiges of the Stone Age: the first discovery of a Scottish interment of the Early Iron Age has been made within the present century,2141 and the doctor will admit that it is probably not unique; besides, do not the brochs and Folkton Wold suggest an answer to his argument?

Mr. Lang, concluding that at present the only position which the impartial savant can reasonably assume is a seat upon the proverbial fence, admits that ‘the very strong point against authenticity is this: numbers of the disputed objects were found in sites of the early Iron Age. Now,’ he continues, ‘such objects, save for a few examples, are only known—and that in non-British lands—in Neolithic sites. The theory of survival may be thought not to cover the number of the disputed objects.’2142 May it not also be said that as an ignorant or sportive forger undoubtedly carved the oyster shells, so the disputed objects may have been smuggled into the sites by a forger who was well informed?2143