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The Clyde Mystery, a Study in Forgeries and Folklore, a non-fiction book by Andrew Lang |
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VIII - THE ORIGINAL DATE AND PURPOSE OF DUMBUCK AND LANGBANK |
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_ VIII - THE ORIGINAL DATE AND PURPOSE OF DUMBUCK AND LANGBANK The actual structures of Langbank and Dumbuck, then, are confessedly ancient remains; they are not of the nineteenth century; they are "unique" in our knowledge, and we ask, what was the purpose of their constructors, and what is their approximate date? Dr. Munro quotes and discusses {43} a theory, or a tentative guess of Dr. David Murray. That scholar writes "River cairns are commonly built on piled platforms, and my doubt is whether this is not the nature of the structure in question" (Dumbuck). A river cairn is a solid pile of stonework, with, perhaps, a pole in the centre. At Dumbuck there is the central "well" of six feet in diameter. Dr. Murray says that a pole "carried down to the bottom would probably be sunk in the clay, which would produce a hole, or well-like cavity similar to that of the Dumbuck structure." {44} It is not stated that the poles of river cairns usually demand accommodation to the extent of six feet of diameter, in the centre of the solid mass of stones, and, as the Langbank site has no central well, the tentative conjecture that it was a river cairn is not put forward. Dr. Murray suggests that the Dumbuck cairn "may have been one of the works of 1556 or 1612," that is, of the modern age of Queen Mary and James VI. The object of such Corporation cairns "was no doubt to mark the limit of their jurisdiction, and also to serve as a beacon to vessels coming up the river." Now the Corporation, with its jurisdiction and beacons, is purely modern. In 1758 the Corporation had a "lower cairn, if it did not occupy this very spot" (Dumbuck) "it stood upon the same line and close to it. There are, however, no remains of such cairn," says Dr. Murray. He cites no evidence for the date and expenses of the demolition of the cairn from any municipal book of accounts. Now we have to ask (1) Is there any evidence that men in 1556-1758 lived on the tops of such modern cairns, dating from the reign of Mary Stuart? (2) If men then lived on the top of a cairn till their food refuse became "a veritable kitchen midden," as Dr. Munro says, {45} would that refuse exhibit bones of Bos Longifrons ; and over ninety bone implements, sharpened antlers of deer, stone polishers, hammer stones, "a saddle stone" for corn grinding, and the usual debris of sites of the fifth to the twelfth centuries? (3) Would such a modern site exhibit these archaic relics, plus a "Late Celtic" comb and "penannular brooch," and exhibit not one modern article of metal, or one trace of old clay tobacco pipes, crockery, or glass? The answers to these questions are obvious. It is not shown that any men ever lived on the tops of cairns, and, even if they did so in modern times (1556-1758) they could not leave abundant relics of the broch and crannog age (said to be of 400-1100 A.D.), and leave no relics of modern date. This theory, or suggestion, is therefore demonstrably untenable and unimaginable. Dr. Munro, however, "sees nothing against the supposition" that "Dr. Murray is right," but Dr. Munro's remarks about the hypothesis of modern cairns, as a theory "against which he sees nothing," have the air of being an inadvertent obiter dictum . For, in his conclusion and summing up he writes, "We claim to have established that the structures of Dunbuie, Dumbuck, and Langbank are remains of inhabited sites of the early-Iron Age, dating to some time between the fifth and twelfth centuries." {46a} I accept this conclusion, and will say as little as may be about the theory of a modern origin of the sites, finally discarded by Dr. Munro. I say "discarded," for his theory is that the modern corporation utilised an earlier structure as a cairn or beacon, or boundary mark, which is perfectly possible. But, if this occurred, it does not affect the question, for this use of the structure has left no traces of any kind. There are no relics, except relics of the fifth (?) to twelfth (?) centuries. In an earlier work by Dr. Munro, Prehistoric Scotland (p. 439), published in 1899, he observes that we have no evidence as to the when, or how of the removal of the stones of the hypothetical "Corporation cairn," or "round tower with very thick walls," {46b} or "watch tower," which is supposed to have been erected above the wooden sub-structure at Dumbuck. He tentatively suggests that the stones may have been used, perhaps, for the stone causeway now laid along the bank of the recently made canal, from a point close to the crannog to the railway. No record is cited. He now offers guesses as to the stones "in the so-called pavements and causeways." First, the causeways may have probably been made "during the construction of the tower with its central pole," (here the cairn is a habitable beacon, habitable on all hypotheses,) or, again, "perhaps at the time of its demolition" about which demolition we know nothing, {47a} except that the most of the stones are not now in situ. Several authentic stone crannogs in Scotland, as to which we have information, possessed no central pole, but had a stone causeway, still extant, leading, e.g. from the crannog to the shore of the Ashgrove loch, "a causeway of rough blocks of sandstone slabs." {47b} If one stone crannog had a stone causeway, why should this ancient inhabited cairn or round tower not possess a stone causeway? Though useless at high water, at low water it would afford better going. In a note to Ivanhoe , and in his Northern tour of 1814, Scott describes a stone causeway to a broch on an artificial island in Loch Cleik-him-in, near Lerwick. Now this loch, says Scott, was, at the time when the broch was inhabited, open to the flow of tide water. As people certainly did live on these structures of Langbank and Dunbuie during the broch and crannog age (centuries 5-12) it really matters not to our purpose why they did so, or how they did so. Let us suppose that the circular wall of the stone superstructure slanted inwards, as is not unusual. In that case the habitable area at the top may be reduced to any extent that is thought probable, with this limitation:--the habitable space must not be too small for the accommodation of the persons who filled up the eastern third of an area of from twelve to fourteen feet in breadth, and in some places a foot in thickness, with a veritable kitchen-midden, of "broken and partially burned bones of various animals, shells of edible molluscs, and a quantity of ashes and charcoal . . . ." {48} But Dr. Munro assures me that the remains discovered could be deposited in a few years of regular occupancy by two or three persons. The structure certainly yielded habitable space enough to accommodate the persons who, in the fifth to twelfth centuries, left these traces of their occupancy. Beyond that fact I do not pretend to estimate the habitable area. Why did these people live on this structure in the fifth to twelfth centuries? Almost certainly, not for the purpose of directing the navigation of the Clyde. At that early date, which I think we may throw far back in the space of the six centuries of the estimate, or may even throw further back still, the Clyde was mainly navigated by canoes of two feet or so in depth, though we ought to have statistics of remains of larger vessels discovered in the river bed. {49a} I think we may say that the finances of Glasgow, in St. Kentigern's day, about 570-600 A.D., would not be applied to the construction of Dr. Munro's "tower with its central pole and very thick walls" {49b} erected merely for the purpose of warning canoes off shoals in the Clyde. That the purpose of the erection was to direct the navigation of Clyde by canoes, or by the long vessels of the Viking raiders, appears to me improbable. I offer, periculo meo , a different conjecture, of which I shall show reason to believe that Dr. Munro may not disapprove. The number of the dwellers in the structure, and the duration of their occupancy, does not affect my argument. If two natives, in a very few years, could deposit the "veritable kitchen midden," with all the sawn horns, bone implements, and other undisputed relics, we must suppose that the term of occupancy was very brief, or not continuous, and that the stone structure "with very thick walls like the brochs" represented labours which were utilised for a few years, or seldom. My doubt is as to whether the structure was intended for the benefit of navigators of the Clyde--in shallow canoes!
{43} Pp. 135, 177, 257-258, and elsewhere. {44} Munro, pp. 177, 257, 258. {45} Munro, p. 139. {46a} Munro, p. 264. {46b} These phrases are from Munro, Arch. and False Antiquities , pp. 138-139. {47a} Munro, p. 139. {47b} Munro, Prehistoric Scotland , p. 420. {48} Munro, p. 130. {49a} See page 246 of Dr. Munro's article on Raised Beaches, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh , vol. xxv. part 3. The reference is to two Clyde canoes built of planks fastened to ribs, suggesting that the builder had seen a foreign galley, and imitated it. {49b} Munro, pp. 138, 139. _ |
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