Scotland in Pagan Times: The Bronze and Stone Ages

Joseph Anderson (1832-1916), curator of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, delivered the Rhind lectures of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from 1879 to 1882 as a sequence on the ancient history of Scotland, and subsequently published them in book form. This highly illustrated 1886 work gives the 1882 lectures on the Stone and Bronze ages, beginning with burials or cremations discovered in Bronze Age cairns and their associated grave-goods, and going on to consider stone circles and standing stones, and the bronze weapons, tools, jewellery (some of it gold) and other artefacts discovered outside the context of burial, including apparent offerings of weapons in peat bogs. The second part describes the chambered Stone Age cairns of the mainland and islands, and the pottery and types of stone weapons and tools associated with the period. Anderson’s other Rhind lectures are also reissued in this series.