Hackpen Hill, 888-ft., is the highest ridge of the Marlborough Downs properly so called, and has already been described in my paper on the Palæoliths found on its summit. The southern hills, overlooking the Pewsey Valley, rise to 965-ft. The top of the hill, hough narrow, is flat, and bears pockets of Tertiary remains, the ub-soil being of a clayey nature almost throughout.

Until recently, five large fields were tilled, and seventeen years ago a sixth was still under the plough. The space covered by these was 1½ miles in length; and on an average, about ⅓ mile in width, two of the fields stretching a little way down the dip slope of the hill.

The megalithic tomb of Pedra Branca lies at Montum, on the west coast of Portugal about 140 kilometers south of Lisbon by road (fig. 1). The tomb is the first in Portugal to have yielded Beaker graves overlying earlier burials; prior to its discovery, no Beaker remains had ever been noted further south than Palmela, in the estuary of the Sado river, approximately 40 kilometers from Lisbon. The tomb is situated on the top of a small hillock 100 m above sea level, separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a fertile undulating plain about 5 km in width. The Lake of Melides lies to the north and, to the east, the hills of Grandola rise steeply to an altitude of 300 m; an expanse of rough terrain stretches to the south, ravined by various small streams which flow into the Lake of Santo André on the coast.

When the tomb was discovered by surveyors of the Geological Services of Portugal, it was already very badly damaged; all the orthostats had been broken for use in local construction and part of the circular covering mound had already been ploughed under. The Services therefore, decided that a salvage campaign was called for, and a team made up of the authors, was invited to carry it out with funds granted by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

In the absence of direct evidence, archaeologists interested in the demography of stone age hunter-gatherer societies are forced to turn their attention to sites as the unit of analysis. The distribution of sites and their varying density across space and through time have been considered to be acceptable, proxy, population records (see for example Constandse-Westermann & Newell 1984,158–64). This note is a contribution to these studies, but one which is not based on the site as a unit of analysis.

Smith & Openshaw (1989) have argued that the conventional archaeological site is a poor unit of analysis in considering regional settlement patterns. It is poorly defined and the recorded distribution of sites is potentially subject to too much distortion by post-depositional factors such as geomorphological processes and landuse practices, and biases inherent in archaeological method.

FxJj43 is one of a series of Early Stone Age archaeological sites preserved in the Okote Member of the Koobi Fora Formation, in northern Kenya. It is the focus of a new research project that aims to explore the impact of time-averaging on the composition and characteristics of Early Stone Age archaeological assemblages. FxJj43 lends itself particularly well to this exercise because, unlike other sites in the Okote Member, it preserves a laterally extensive set of interlocking landforms. These include part of a sandy river channel, its southern bank, levee, and adjacent floodplain.

Chipped stone artefacts and broken-up animal bones occur in clusters of varying size and density all the way along the 200 m long strip of outcrops containing the remnants of these landforms. Small-scale excavations aimed at investigating the characteristics of archaeological assemblages preserved in different palaeotopographic settings, and in clusters of varying size and density, suggest the existence of archaeological occurrences representing different amounts of overprinting. This underscores the long-term research potential of this locality for exploring the relationship between the material remains of individual behavioural events and agglomerations of debris resulting from many, often unrelated sets of activities.

The data for this paper were obtained in the course of a journey round Scandinavia made during the summer of 1947 with the aid of a Leverhulme Research Grant. Most of the evidence is housed in the Tromsö Museum, the Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm, and the National Museum at Helsingfors, and I am thankful to the authorities of these for ready access to their great collections and for help in many ways. A certain amount of the material from the northern provinces of Norway is contained in the Universitetets Oldsaksamling at Oslo and, since at the time of my visit the stone age collection was still in store from the war, I was not able to examine it in detail and have relied upon the works of Nicolaissen and Gjessing, supplemented by information obtained by correspondence. In the case of the material housed in the small but important collections at Umeå and Skellefteå, which I was unable to visit, I have relied upon articles by Dr Gustaf Hallström, whose knowledge of Norrland antiquities is unrivalled. While it is certain that a number of finds have escaped me, the evidence summarised in the Appendix can at least be taken as a minimum statement of what has already been discovered in territories, which owing to their remoteness, vast size—Norrland contains approximately four-sevenths of the whole of Sweden—and scanty population are still, so far as the Swedish and Finnish regions are concerned, comparatively unexplored archaeologically, when judged by the standards prevailing in other parts of Scandinavia.

It is admitted by all workers in prehistory that the human implements which are found upon the surface do not all belong to the Neolithic period, although, until recently, they have always been called Neolithic. It therefore seems better to define them clearly as a Surface Series, without prejudice to their date.

Beyond this point of general agreement, differences of opinion are strongly marked. Some workers would boldly place the majority of the Surface Series in the Later Palæolithic period, or “Cave Age,” while others are unable to accept this view.

It must be admitted that we have very little knowledge of remains belonging to a strictly-defined Neolithic period. We know that “Neolithic” implements continued to be extensively used during the Early Bronze Age, and even in later times.

This report describes a group of distinctive earthworks in the north-east of the North York Moors (fig. 1) that, prior to investigation by the RCHME, had been categorised as double pit-alignments. The earthworks consist of two or three pairs of pits, with the spoil from the pits spread into parallel enclosing banks. The orientation of the segments is fairly consistent along an axis north-west to south-east; in each case there seems to be a tangential alignment on burial mounds, putatively Bronze Age in date, which may give a clue as to their age and function.

The authors of these notes acknowledge the ready collaboration of the numerous excavators who have contributed information or notes concerning work carried out during the present year.

A segment of earlier Bronze Age arable landscape incorporating isolated round barrows on the high chalk spur of Hog Cliff Hill became the chosen location for a later Bronze Age earthwork of considerable dimensions. The area excavated within the bank and ditch was densely occupied by two major phases of buildings of timber construction, lasting into the earliest Iron Age. Sometime during the early Iron Age the oval enclosure was replaced by a more substantial one which partly followed its line and contained a series of unusual structures comprising dry-stone flint banks or wall-footings. The site was subsequently abandoned, the land probably being returned to agricultural use, until the Roman period when the agger of the Roman road from Dorchester to Ilchester was constructed across the earthwork.

The petrological examination of stone implements from Leicestershire commenced in 1947, when Mr W. A. Seaby of Birmingham Museum, assisted by Mr F. W. Cottrill of Leicester Museum, started to record the implements from the county. The work of thin-sectioning was undertaken by Professor F. W. Shotton of Birmingham University. In 1955, Mr J. Bartlett, then Deputy Director of Sheffield Museum, began a similar study in Derbyshire, and he also called on Professor Shotton for the petrological identifications. Within a few years, all the stone implements in Leicester, Sheffield, Derby and Buxton Museums had been sectioned, as well as those in Mr J. P. Heathcote's private museum at Birchover and a number of smaller private collections. By 1958, about 200 implements had been sectioned, 170 from Derbyshire and 30 from Leicestershire, and Professor Shotton had handed over the petrological work on the Derbyshire implements to his colleague, Dr G. R. Coope. During the last few years, while mainly concerned with Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire (Cummins and Moore, 1973), we (the authors) have also examined a number of implements from Derbyshire and Leicestershire. Then, at the Implement Petrology Meeting at Birmingham in May 1972, we were invited to complete this work and prepare it for publication. Professor Shotton and Dr Coope very generously handed over their Derbyshire sections and the Leicestershire sections were kindly loaned by Leicester Museum.

This paper attempts to resituate the Irish so-called ‘Royal’ sites within our vision of the Iron Age by challenging current understanding of their function as primarily situated in a ceremonial or ritual realm. While the evidence from these sites speaks to the complexity of their function, conceptualisation, and symbolic relevance, it is argued here that they are integral focal points of settled landscapes. Their architecture is suggested to address very specific concerns of the agrarian communities that built them and, in its very distinct change over the course of the Iron Age, to reflect broader societal developments, namely the emergence and decline of new society formations. Artefacts and ecofacts, architecture and landscape context of these sites contain a wealth of information on the activities that were taking place on and near them. It is argued that, freed from a binary ritual/profane interpretational framework, this evidence becomes readable as a record of Iron Age society and its dramatic changes over time.

Perforated plates of fired clay have long been recognised as a component of Late Bronze Age material culture in south-eastern England, but recent developer-funded excavations have produced a wealth of new evidence. These artefacts, showing a considerable degree of standardisation, are now known from more than 70 sites, which show a markedly riverine and estuarine distribution along the lower Thames. Their function is still uncertain, but it is suggested that they were parts of ovens for baking bread, a new technology for food preparation in the later Bronze Age. Some of the largest assemblages of such plates are found at strongly defended sites, and it is further suggested that the baking and consumption of bread was particularly associated with such sites of social authority. The estuarine distribution is discussed in this paper, and it presents further evidence for the regionally distinctive nature of food consumption in later prehistory.

This article presents the evidence for the distribution of Late Minoan stone vases outside Crete. This class of evidence has not been discussed previously and as the amount of material involved is substantial, over a hundred vases, it is here set out as a contribution to the discussion of Minoan foreign connexions in the earlier part of the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean.

The vases were made in Crete in Middle Minoan III/Late Minoan I—Late Minoan III A 1, c. 1600–1400 B.C., as is shown by the contexts of parallel vases from sites in the island (see the Catalogue). Most of the exports occur in Aegean contexts of this period; for those from contexts later than c. 1400 B.C. it is most reasonable to believe that they too were exported from Crete at the time of their floruit, containing in use for a time afterwards. In any case most of them are fragments, which indicates that their time of arrival and period of use were earlier than the late date of their contexts. Moreover after c. 1400 B.C. Cretan influence abroad ceased (Desborough 1964, 166–7; cf. Furumark 1950, 263–4 for the end of Minoan contacts with Trianda and Phylakopi), nor is there evidence that stone vases were then made in the island.

The past four decades have been a time of great activity for researchers examining the Iron Age in north-west Europe. Since the 1980s, the scale of archaeological fieldwork has expanded massively and, with it, the quantity of data available to study. Iron Age mortuary data have been one of the main beneficiaries of this. Britain is no exception to this trend, with a number of important discoveries made over the years, thereby improving our understanding of mortuary practices during this period. The situation is comparable for the regions which immediately border Britain: Ireland, northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This paper reviews the current state of research for this part of Europe, contextualising the Iron Age British data within the broader north-west European frame of these neighbouring regions. In so doing, a better understanding of how chronological developments in the British mortuary data relate to those elsewhere is possible. Additionally, these data may inform us of other aspects of past societies, such as population mobility, social structure, and the persistence of ritual practices over time.

Discussions of contacts between Britain and Ireland usually focus on monuments and on portable artefacts such as Grooved Ware, Beakers, and metalwork. New research on insular rock art suggests that it originated in the Middle to Late Neolithic period and continued to be used and re-used into the Early Bronze Age. This paper considers its relationship with decorated passage graves and other structures. It argues that the distribution of rock art sheds further light on connections between these islands. Estuaries, bays, and landing places were important, but the siting of pecked motifs indicates other links along three overland routes between the North Sea and the Irish Sea. Certain practices were shared between megalithic tombs and recently excavated rock carvings. It is possible that they expressed similar beliefs at a time when long distance travel was important.

In March 1949, work was carried out at The Bull Ring, Dove Holes, Derbyshire, by members of the Oxford University Archaeological Society, as part of the general survey of ‘henge“ monuments, undertaken by Mr R. J. C. Atkinson. The site was surveyed and was found to be of the ‘double-entrance’ class of Henge Monument. No stone-holes were found, but it is known from an 18th century account that the monument once had a stone setting similar to that at Arbor Low, Derbyshire. Trenches revealed the form of the ditch and bank, but the dating evidence was confined to two fragments of pottery, one of them a rim sherd, probably related to Beaker fabric.

The Bull Ring lies just to the east of the church and school in the village of Dove Holes, three miles north-north-east of Buxton, Derbyshire (Grid reference 078783). Although it stands on a small knoll, just over the 1100 ft. contour, and at the very edge of the Derby-shire limestone plateau, it does not dominate the countryside.

The English Midlands (fig. 1) as a natural region, and for the purposes of environmental archaeology, form a more restricted area than that to which the term is usually applied in modern geography. Fox (1943, 68) has written of ‘… the great triangle of forest lands which form the Midlands …’ and reference to the maps in the same work shows this triangle as roughly lying between the Dee estuary at Chester, the confluence of the Severn and the Avon at Tewkesbury, and a point in the vicinity of the watershed between the Trent and the rivers of the Wash. For convenience of reference it is suggested that the approximate eastern point should be represented by the site of Belvoir Castle for here the plain has narrowed between the southern tip of the Pennines, and the uplands of Leicestershire, to the effective basin of the Trent. This river in its course below Nottingham flows through ancient forest lands, but it is no longer Midland country.

The most uniform frontier of the Midlands, as here defined, is that provided to the south and east by the great sweep of the Jurassic uplands from the Cotswolds to Lincoln Edge. To the west, the Severn and the hill country of the Welsh borderlands form a zone which provides natural communications north and south and into the Welsh massif, but which, as it were, turns its back to the east. The northern confines of the Midlands are altogether less definite, but may be said to creep round the edges of the southern Pennines from the south bank of the Mersey to the middle course of the Trent.