Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE CELTIC AND SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES OF SHETLAND. THE PAGAN PERIOD IN THE STONE, BRONZE, AND EARLY IRON AGES. We have no reliable evidence of the existence at any time within the area of Scotland of the Palaeolithic (or Early Stone-Age) man, and I have not been able to recognise in Shetland the relics of any race that can be safely asserted to be earlier than the Celtic or, as usually designated in its northern relationships, the " Pictish" race (locally " Pechts"). It is to this people that, in our present state of knowledge, I think we are justified in referring most of the remains of prehistoric antiquity to be found in the islands. My belief is that the remains of the Neolithic period in Shetland are of later date than the similar remains in southern Britain, the probability being that this early civilisation in Britain passed from the south northwards and not from the north southwards. The prehistoric antiquities of Shetland may be conveniently described under the heads of Stone Implements, Grave-mounds, Cists, Standing Stones, and Castles (or " Brochs "). 1. Stone Implements. These are of two kinds, the roughly chipped and the finely polished. The latter class, as will afterwards be shown, has forages been well known in Shetland, as in many other countries, but it is only of recent date that the rude form of implements has attracted notice and come to be recognised as a special type. A few such implements had been found in Orkney, and were described by Mr George Petrie in his paper submitted to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in March 1867. But some years before that date the first hoard, as it may be termed, which had ever been observed was discovered, now forty years ago (in 1863-64), beside the house of Braefield, my own family place, in the pari... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.