BEING THE
RHIND LECTURES IN ARCHÆOLOGY
for 1888.
BY
ROBERT MUNRO, M.A., M.D.,
SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND;
AUTHOR OF "ANCIENT SCOTTISH LAKE-DWELLINGS OR CRANNOGS."
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE.
1890.
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious misspellings were corrected. Uncertain or antiquated spellings were not corrected.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.
Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.
The cover image was designed by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain
The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, in offering me the Rhindlectureship in Archæology for the year 1888, left me no choice of asubject, as they had already suggested that the course should be onthe "Lake-dwellings of Europe." Their communication embodying thisproposal came upon me with complete surprise, and, indeed, it was withconsiderable misgiving that I pondered over the undertaking, becauseat that time I had no special knowledge of lake-dwellings beyondScotland. But the kind encouragement of friends and the fact that Ihad two years to collect the necessary materials, ultimately overcamemy scruples; and so with the acceptance of this appointment the worknow offered to the public may be said to have been begun. My firstand almost immediate step was a hasty run to the principal centres oflake-dwelling researches in Europe, so as to get a preliminary ideaof the best and most practical way of carrying out this work. It wasonly then that the magnitude of the labours I had undertaken dawnedupon me. The relics from the more important settlements, with fewexceptions, were so widely scattered that, to form an intelligiblenotion of the civilisation and culture of their inhabitants from astudy of their industrial remains, scores of museums and privatecollections had to be visited. Nor was the condition of the literatureand records of the various discoveries more favourable to my purpose.The successive investigations by different parties in the moreprolific stations were constantly altering the previous[Pg vi]records and, in some instances, even falsified the earlier deductionsfounded on them. Again, descriptive notices were directed more toillustrate the particular and rarer finds of the investigator than toconvey to general readers a fair estimate of the tout-ensemble ofany special station. Keller's earlier reports were really exhaustivemonographs, but by-and-by the subject became so extensive that tocarry out the work on the same scale would entail the publication ofmany volumes. In 1866, when Mr. Lee translated and arranged Keller'sfirst six reports, his work was fairly representative of the progressthen made in lake-dwelling researches; but to keep pace with thisprogress a second edition at the end of the following decade assumedthe magnitude of two large volumes.
Since then, however (1878), the results of lacustrine r