THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1499, 7 August 1880, Page 26

THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES.

By William Hakhbr. It may surprise Borne of my readers who have not examined prehistoric relics, that the first inhabitants of the British Isles, and of the adjacent continent, were Esquimaux, and that the barbarous tribes occupying the Arctic regions, are now, save in the use of metals and foreign acquisitions, in a state of non-oivilization exactly corresponding to that of our predecessors, and that the former are the actual descendants driven northward, of our oldest inhabitants. In my opinion the present inhabitants of the Shetland, Faroe, and Iceland Islands bear a striking resemblance to the tribes of Esquimaux that reside in the vicinity of Cape Farewell, and as far up as the "Devil's Thumb." Any collection of implements from the lake-dwelliog3 of Ireland, or from the refuse heaps of the old Scandinavian folks in Denmark or Scotland, or France, Bhows that t'ae people of whom these are the relios, knew the use of fire, built huts, felled timber, cultivated grain, domestioated animals, hunted, boat d, fished, and fought. For awhile they were ignorant of metals, and made tools of native stone ; | then of imported stone, next of bronze, and last of iron ; the implements of the first age continued to be used down to the last, and are not yet extinct. To them belong tbe cromlechs and gallery graves, and those grand monuments of the absolutely dark ages, Stonehenge and Carnac. The term Celtic, applied to theße people and their works, only denotes that tbe period was characterised by a Celtic immigration. Not that the Celta destroyed the Esquimaux, or were destroyed by the Belgse, nor that any total difference "existed in the habits or implements of the three races. There may have been differences, but not suoh as .would enable us to assign to each their own share of the works which appear to have been continuous and common, with minor variations, to all. We have first an Esquimaux age, then a Celtic, then a Belgian admixture, then a Roman invasion. Anterior to the last, we get three stages overlapping each other. But whilst the historical end of this sequence can be plainly seen, coming down amidst recognised ( , landmarks, and whilst even its middle age, the reindeer.period, can also be clearly made out, the beginning eludes our vision. We can correlate'it with the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, but can give no positive dates. The level

of the valleys was different, as the gravel and silt which have subsequently filled them testifies. The coast line, which was In its present average condition when the Danish rovers landed, was then somewhat less elevated. The climate was more rigorous, the livers more powerful, and the ice more extended. The thousands of cuttings or digging tools found in the gravels of the Thames and elsewhere show that man was here, but we have no other token of his presence, Time must; have flown by, in the succession of many thousands of years, between the date of the rude stone tools and that of the bronze urn. I take the first flint implements to indicate a hunter's wants. And we find that was superseded by the ! occurrence of a long continued series of floods until the mammoth and its associates had died out. After a while the Esquimaux tribes again visited, and now remained on the river banks, and built their camps on the up-lands. Chronology doesn't assign any positive dates to these transactions ; nor do the other sciences attempt to construct anything more than the faintest relative record. We have all the ages in which to place the historic end of that sad story whioh, in my opinion, commenced long before Moses' time. I shall give a list of a few pre-historic relios, which are to be seen in Mr Christy's museum, Victoria street, Westminster London; also from the Times' report of the great French exhibition of 1867 : - Ist. Rough flint tools from the gravel of the Albar Valley, Thames Valley, Bedford, Suffolk, associated with the remains of extinct races of animals. Flints, flakes, and barbs, slightly dressed as knives. Tools of former type, with arrow-heads more carefully dressed, and flint-scrapers. Tools of former type, with piercers and arrow-heads of finer workmanship, at Pontlevy ; also with well polished foreign stones. Mammoth, rhinoceros, &c, abounded in Europe. 2nd. Mammoth nob found. Flint tools more folly dressed, stones for grinding and polishing, and bones of domesticated animals ; Irish flint tools and net-sinkers, fishing implements j Devonshire cave remains; Yorkshire barrows, with flint; tools j pottery j but no metal. 3rd. Introduction of metal. 4th. Iron and History.— To this class belong the bulk of our barrow interments, and of the lake remains. Thirty forts, built on piles on the lakes, with causeways of wood,have been discovered in Scotland, and more in Ireland, where they are called crannayes.