The shells found by Edward in the kitchen-midden at Boyndie corresponded in a great measure with those found by the Rev. Mr. Gordon at Brigzes. Thus, he found the Periwinkle, the highly-esteemed Buckie, the Limpet, the Horse Buckie (in some places called the Dog Periwinkle), the Mussel; bones of various kinds of wild animals, such as the Deer, the Hare, and the Rabbit; the remains of several species of fish, such as bones of the Skate; a few of the Crab family; fragments of Pottery, and small bits of charred wood and ashes. The ashes are just like those left from a wood or peat fire. Small stones, also, were got, partially blackened, as if they had been used for cooking purposes. One very common ingredient among the fish was that part of the head known as the “lug been,”—a bone usually given to the children of the family to pick.
“A remarkable fact,” says Edward, in his account of the Boyndie kitchen-midden, “and one not mentioned in any account of a similar place, is, that whilst some of the shells crumble to dust almost with the least touch, others are still so hard that they would require the fingers of a giant to pound them. The enamelling of some of the limpet and mussel shells is still as beautiful as almost to persuade one that the animal had been but newly taken out. On the other hand, some are so far gone and so soft, as to feel like a piece of wet blotsheet. But what appears to be the most remarkable peculiarity in these two very opposite extremes is, that the shells thus spoken of may be found in the same handful and from the same spot. Another very striking feature is, that in handling the old ‘muck,’ one’s fingers soon get nearly as black as ink. Here also, as in all the other shell-accumulations, the larger bones are broken—not cut, but broken up longitudinally, or what might rather be called splintered. This has been done, it is thought, to get at the fat or marrow, of which these early people seem to have been very fond. They broke the bone just as we break up with some heavy instrument the large toes of a lobster or parten in order to reach the food.”
M. Engelhardt, in describing the Kiökkenmöddings of Denmark, says that no human bones have been found among the shell-heaps. Sir John Lubbock has also said that “the absence of human remains satisfactorily proves that the primitive population of the North were free from the practice of cannibalism.” Recent investigations have, however, cast some doubts upon this statement. For instance, Mr. Laing, M.P., read a paper before the Ethnological Society on the 14th December 1864, in which he described the results of his investigations of the kitchen-middens at Keiss in Caithness, about eight miles north of Wick. Large masses of periwinkle and limpet shells, mixed with bones, flint splinters, and bone instruments of the rudest sort, were found. Among the bones, part of the jaw of a child was discovered, which had been broken as if to get at the marrow; and affording ground for presumption that cannibalism was prevalent, or, at least, was occasionally resorted to among the race to which the remains refer.