J. F. Campbell Collection > Archaeology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

KHI.IGIOX, AHT8, AND DOMESTIC HABITS. ooif
was comi)cllcd, tlirougliout the whole lironze Period, to manufactm-c
nearly all his bulkier implements of stone. Still he was being- edu-
cated, so that when the greater l\\cilities did come within his reach,
he was able to avail himself of them. We must look, indeed, upon this
whole period, as upon the early years of an intelligent child — rich Avitli
the freshness, the originality, and the unconscious simplicity of youth.
Its efforts are extremely unequal, blending the most Archaic works
with occasional productions rivalling the ingenuity and taste of the
polished eras which have succeeded. We detect, moreover, the evi-
dences of a social state wherein the value of combined oi^erations
had still to be learned, and where isolation led to abundant manifes-
tations of ingenuity and skill, without producing any immediate
results beyond the little sphere of the native hut, or hamlet, or patri-
archal clanship. We discover, indeed, nothing inconsistent with such
a social and political state as w^e knoAV to have pertained among the
most civilized British tribes in the century immediately preceding
the Christian era, when, for the first time, we are able to look upon
them with the aid of definite, though somcAvhat prejudiced and dis-
paraging narratives of classic historians. I would only add, that
there appears no shadow of evidence thus far discoverable, on which
to found a single doubt as to the indigenous character of British relics
of the Primeval and Archaic Periods. As to the favourite idea of their
Danish origin, it is altogether absurd and irreconcilable with known
facts. Nothing is more certainly established in the history of these
northern races, and, indeed, involved in the nature of things, than that,
long before the Scandinavian races emerged from the viks and fiords
of the north, the Archaic Periods both of Scandinavian and British
arts had been superseded by others more compatible with the social
status which such aggressive movements very manifestly indicate.
The term Archaic has been adopted as a definition of this era, be-
cause, in the sense which is now most generally attached to it, it
peculiarly applies to the artistic productions of the period. The
ornamentation is almost without exception only improvements on the
accidents of manufacture. The incised decorations of the pottery
appear, in many cases, to have been produced simply by passing
twisted cords round the soft clay. More complicated designs, most
frequently consisting of chevron, saltire, or herring-bone patterns,
where they are not merely the primary results of a combination of
such lines, have been suggested, as I conceive, by the few and half-