Research Items

Abstract

SHORT CIST BURIAL IN KINCARDINESHIRE.—A short stone cist unearthed at Catterline, Kincardineshire, in March 1923, contained a fairly perfect male human skeleton which has been carefully examined by Prof. R. W. Reid and recorded by him and Rev. J. R. Fraser (Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., ser. 5, vol. x., 1923-24, pp. 27-40). The discovery revealed several unusual features. The covering of the cist, instead of being formed of a single series of large stones as is usual, was made up of several layers definitely arranged and graded, and embedded in sand three feet deep from top of bottom. One of the larger of the cover stones bore rude incisions in spiral and concentric circle form, but the weathering of the stone showed these were clearly handiwork of a much older date, and were not used as the artist had intended. Another of the cover stones was artificially perforated. The skeleton showed the ordinary characteristics of the round-headed bronze age race of north-eastern Scotland, with strongly platymeric limbs, but the skull capacity was unusually large, 1600 c.c, as against an average of 1458 c.c. for a considerable series of short cist skulls from the same region. The height of the individual was also out of the ordinary for his race, his stature, calculated from the leg bones, being 5 feet 10 inches, and calculated from the arm bones, 5 feet 8 or 9 inches. It would appear, however, that his arms were shorter in proportion to his legs than is the case in modern races. The average height of the short cist men of Aberdeenshire is only 5 feet 4 inches. The skeleton was accompanied by a low-rimmed clay beaker of the “drinking-cup “type, and by a fragmentary and rudely chipped quartzite pebble.