The archaeology and prehistoric annals of Scotland . r use whichhas been suggested is that they are the stone weights used with thedistaff, and they have accordingly received in Germany the name ofSpindelstein. The Scottish whorle, orfly of the spinning-rock, however, isstill familiar to us, and bears only a veryparticil resemblance to these perforatedballs; consisting generally of a flatteneddisc, much better adapted for the motionrequired in the distaff. But independently of this, these rude orna-ments have been found alongside of male skeletons, and in such num-bers as might rather induce t
The archaeology and prehistoric annals of Scotland . r use whichhas been suggested is that they are the stone weights used with thedistaff, and they have accordingly received in Germany the name ofSpindelstein. The Scottish whorle, orfly of the spinning-rock, however, isstill familiar to us, and bears only a veryparticil resemblance to these perforatedballs; consisting generally of a flatteneddisc, much better adapted for the motionrequired in the distaff. But independently of this, these rude orna-ments have been found alongside of male skeletons, and in such num-bers as might rather induce the belief that they had fomied the collarof honour of some old barbarian chief, esteemed as no less honour-able than the golden links of rue and thistle worn by the knights ofSt. Andrew at the court of the Scottish Jameses. As such, therefore,they should be classed with the personal ornaments of the sameperiod, but their use is still open to question, and they may thereforemeanwhile not unfitly rank with the other objects treated of in 188 THE PRIMEVAL OU STONE PERIOD. On demolisliing- a cairn at Dalpatriek, in Lanarksliire, a few yearsago, it was found to cover a cist inclosing an urn, and in the surround-ing- heap Avere discovered another urn about six inches high, a smallervessel of baked clay, and a curious whinstone of roundish form, aboutfour inches in diameter, and perforated with a circular Inone of the Orkney graves, says Barry, was found a metal spoon,and a glass cup that contained two gills Scotch measure; andin another a number of stones formed into the shape and size ofwhorles, like those that were formerly used for spinning in Scotland.^Two of these bead-stones in the Museum of the Scottish Anticjuarieswere discovered in Dumbartonshire, along with various smaller ones,some of them of glass and undoubtedly designed as examples are more in the form of a tnincated cone, and arereferred to in a later chapter as perhaps the table-me
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