Professor T. Zammit was so kind as to invite me, during a short visit to Malta in March and April 1921, to conduct supplementary excavations under the torba floors of the sanctuary at Hal-Tarxien, which he had discovered and excavated. The results are not without interest both for the history of the building and from the nature of the objects found. They bear out Professor Zammit's conclusions as to the relative date of the various portions of the building; and we may add that the spiral decorations and small niches found in the temple of the second period all appear to belong to the latest (third) period in the history of the whole. It also unfortunately seems clear that we have not, as I had hoped, acquired any information to help us in the dating of the various forms and decorations which we find in the pottery of Malta. The excavations in those parts of the building which belonged to the first and second periods revealed in almost every case the existence of an earlier floor below that which had previously been cleared. Taking the earliest building first, we found that the slabs in the right-hand apses BB, DD (which are alone preserved, the left-hand apses having been destroyed by subsequent alterations) rested upon the rock, which had been cut away so as to follow their curve, and were kept in place by inclination against one another, smaller stones being placed to block up the interstices between them.

Although the Romans were mining lead in the Mendips by A. D. 49, it seems almost certain that they did not begin seriously to work the Cornish tin-mines for another two hundred years. We only know of one site at which they appear to have mined tin in the first century: the earthwork at Tregear, close to Bodmin, was probably occupied by Roman tin-workers under Vespasian, but it does not seem to have outlasted the reign of Trajan. Cornwall contains no other Roman site of the first or second century; and the isolated finds of that period, which are almost exclusively single coins, are evidence of trade and not of occupation.

Four and a half miles west of Witney on the south side of the high road from that town to Burford, and immediately opposite the point at which the by-road to the villages of Asthall and Swinbrook descends steeply into the valley of the Windrush from the high ridge along which the main road passes, stands Asthall Barrow (fig. 1), one of the most prominent landmarks in the whole county. It commands an unrivalled view of the Thames valley from Lechlade to Wytham Hill. Northwards across the Windrush valley Leafield Barrow stands out on the sky-line; southwards appear Faringdon Hill and beyond it the Berkshire Downs at White Horse Hill, while to the south-east across the high ridge on the right bank of the Thames at Tubney, Sinodun Hill near Dorchester comes into view with the Chilterns in the distant background.

Before being presented to the British Museum by Mr. G. W. Smith, two pottery vessels of exceptional interest were exhibited to the Society on 6th December 1923, and are here illustrated from photographs. Both have been made up from fragments, but the result is unusually successful inasmuch as the fractures were recent and very little was missing in either case, the profiles above all being complete and the bases unquestionable.

A recent addition to the Museum of Archaeology and of Ethnology, Cambridge, is due to Mr. G. E. Daintree, of Boughton, Stoke Ferry, Norfolk, and I have to thank the Curator, our Fellow Mr. L. C. G. Clarke, for permission to publish it.

In the course of a conversation with the writer, the late Émile Cartailhac, of Toulouse, once expressed the opinion that, in localities where copper ore was plentiful and easily smelted, true Neolithic culture without the knowledge of the use of metal for purposes of tool-making was of brief duration as far as Europe and the Mediterranean basin were concerned. This applies to many parts of Spain, and we therefore should expect and do find a rich Aeneolithic culture flourishing over large areas of the country, while in neighbouring parts of Europe still only stone was employed for purposes of tool-making. It is important to study this culture, since it had its influence on the development of the early metal cultures elsewhere. Certainly a close connexion existed between parts of north-west Spain and Ireland from very early times, for certain engravings on rocks in Galicia recall some of those occurring in Ireland (e.g. those on the stone of Clonfin-lough). Further, a number of dolmens, resembling those found in many places in Ireland (e.g. those near Sligo), occur in very large numbers in many districts—notably in south-east Portugal, on the Spanish frontier.

The Antiquaries Journal for January, 1924, contained an article by Mr. A. D. Passmore on ‘the Age and Origin of the Wansdyke’. So little excavation has been done on Wansdyke up to the present, and its course is so imperfectly known, that I think the time has hardly come for these questions to be profitably discussed. But it is all the more important that the known facts about the dyke should be accurately presented, and it is this that leads me to offer some comments on Mr. Passmore's paper. In 1913 and the early part of 1914, and again during the last three years, I have devoted much time to tracing the actual course of Wansdyke. A detailed itinerary of its course through E. and SE. Wilts appeared in the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine for December 1921, and a summary of results obtained in Somerset in the Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological Society for the year 1922. Any claim I have to speak upon the subject rests upon this work.