In the same neighbourhood we also meet with plentiful marks of ancient
cultivation and with places of sepulture--all of which may without
much doubt be referred to the same period as the camps and forts. The
slopes of the hills are often marked with broad horizontal terraces,
that remind one strongly of the "lazy-beds" of the Hebrides. They are
evidently the "cultivated grounds" of the hill-men, and doubtless the
hill-slopes were selected for various reasons, chief among which would
be their retired and somewhat inaccessible position. The ease with
which they could be drained and irrigated would be another of their
recommendations; and we must bear in mind that at this early date the
low-grounds were covered with forests and morasses, and therefore not
so easily cultivated as the hill-slopes.
Here and there we notice also little conical hillocks or tumuli. They
were formerly much more numerous, and by-and-by they will doubtless
all disappear. Numbers, even within recent years, have been pulled
down, partly to clear the ground, and partly for the sake of the stones
of which they are composed. This is much to be regretted; for their
destruction simply means the obliteration of historical records, the
loss of which can never be made good. I asked a farmer what had become
of the tumuli which at one time, according to the Ordnance Survey
map, were dotted over the hill behind his house. "If it's the wee
knowes (knolls) you mean, I pu'd them down, for they were jist in the
way. There was naething o' importance below the stanes, only a wheen
worthless bits o' pottery!" And the worthy pointed to a heap of stones
behind a neighbouring "dyke," where I afterwards found some fragments
of the pottery which had been so ruthlessly demolished. These tumuli
are no doubt old burial-places, and much information concerning the
habits of our ancient predecessors might often be obtained by a careful
examination of the mounds, when it is deemed essential to remove them.
But, surely, after all, they might be spared, for they can seldom be so
very much "in the way"; and, at all events, if they must be removed,
might it not be well to communicate the fact of their approaching
demolition to some local archæological society, or to any member of the
Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, who for the sake of science would, I
feel certain, do what was possible to preserve an accurate account of
their contents?
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