At a very early date, undoubtedly within the primitive era to which we give the name of the Stone Period, but apparently only towards its close, the practice of cremation was introduced. This, however, is one of the many points that must be left for final determination when a greater number of accurate and trustworthy observations have been accumulated. Meanwhile it may be assumed as unquestionable, that simple inhumation is the most ancient of all modes of disposing of the dead, and we possess abundant evidence of its use in this country, apparently by the earliest colonists of whom any definite traces now exist. We are not without proof that there was a long transition-period after the remarkable change consequent on the acquisition of metals, before the stone implements and arts were completely superseded by those of bronze; and it is to this era we shall most probably have to assign the first practice of cremation. Both the introduction of the metallurgic arts and the change of sepulchral rites may indeed be equally supposed to mark the influence, if not the advent, of a new race. In nearly every state of society the burial of the dead is associated with the most sacred tenets of religion, and its wonted rites are among the very last to be affected by change. It accords therefore with all analogy that the source of so remarkable a change should come from without, and accompany other equally important social revolutions. It will be seen in a succeeding chapter, that some of the very rudest and apparently most primitive of cinerary urns yet found in Scotland have been associated with undoubted proofs of their connexion with the bronze period. But it has not hitherto been the prevailing fault of British antiquaries to assign too remote an era to the introduction of the funeral pile. It has rather been one of the endless blunders springing from the too exclusively classical nature of modern education, to assume for it a Roman origin, and to accept the urn as an evidence of Roman influence and example, even where it was owned to be the product of native art. If, however, we make sufficient allowance for the poetical preference of the funeral fire and the inurned ashes, rather than the simple and more common rite, and so decline to receive some of the allusions of Virgil and Ovid as historic evidence of the ancient usage of the former by the Romans, we shall find good reason for inferring that the funeral pile should rank among the later introductions of Roman luxury, derived in all probability from the Greeks, by whom it was used at a very early period. The oldest accounts indeed which we possess of the sepulchral honours of the funeral pile, the urn, and the monumental tumulus, are the descriptions of the funeral rites of Patroclus and Hector in the Iliad. The whole circumstances are characterized by much simple grace and beauty:--the burning of the body during the night, the libations of wine with which