This paper is written in the hope that it may assist in getting more uniformity in the description of beads. At the present time there is no general agreement between different archaeologists as to how a bead should be described. For my own work I have found it essential to have some classification and nomenclature, and I have endeavoured in this paper to work out a system applicable to the beads of all countries. I will give two instances showing the necessity for some definitions. The first is that I consulted two well-known archaeologists, working on the beads of different countries, as to what they considered a disc bead. They did not agree, in fact the only point on which they did agree was that no bead called a disc bead by the other should be called a disc bead. The second instance is taken from the Antiquaries Journal for July 1925, where it is stated that a coloured Anglo-Saxon bead of the usual type was found.

About three years ago it was suggested to me by Dr. Tapp that I should investigate further the stones of Stonehenge in the hope that additional light might be shed on the vexed question of their origin.

This paper was given at a meeting of the Society held on 12 January 2006 and it discusses the relationship between academic research and developer-funded archaeology in Britain today, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each. It considers the relationship between archaeological theory and practice and discusses the changing roles of academics, fieldworkers and managers. It argues that important issues need to be resolved, including the dissemination of information from recent archaeological fieldwork and the use of ‘grey literature’ in informing more ambitious interpretations of the past.

The small metal cruet (pl. LXXI) that is the subject of this communication was acquired by the British Museum as part of the collection of Sir Wollaston Franks, and all that is otherwise known of its history is that it had previously been in the collection of Lord Londesborough and is engraved in Fairholt's Miscellanea Graphica of 1857. It is a cire-perdue bronze casting in one piece, afterwards covered with a wash of copper and a coat of gilding, and it stands 7·2 cm. high without its lid, which is missing. It is a remarkable piece, chiefly because of the most unusual ornament on the body of the vessel which consists of two rows of identical symmetrical decorative units in relief in the form of a pair of birds in a foliate spray. It will be noticed that these birds are, so to speak, ‘locked’ into the foliage by their wings, and it will also be noticed that they are biting upwards at the leaves with a curiously emphatic gesture of the back-thrown head and gaping bill. The units of decoration are quite distinct; but they are set close enough together to give the effect of a rich and crowded surface-ornament; and it will be seen that the spaces between their tapering upper portions are filled by small lion-masks. Over the spout there is a variation in the character of the ornament, for here we have a single downward-biting bird standing on a thin foliate branch; so we see that the designer was able to adapt and modify the stereotyped pattern that so much attracted him; and there is no doubt that he was a craftsman of considerable humour and skill. He has turned the spout itself into a lion's head, not by modelling but by the use of incised lines, and he has cunningly employed spiral curves to suggest the shoulders of the beast. The simple scroll on the foot does not call for comment; but the handle should be noticed. It is in the form of a serpent issuing from an animal-mouth on the hinge of the cruet, and its quaint curly end is a most striking feature that adds considerably to the ragged, lumpy prettiness of this charming little vessel.

In South-eastern England, north of the River Thames, is a small but important group of rich La Tène III cremation burials (fig. 1). One of the characteristics of the group is the absence of a mound, or any other surface indication, and it follows from this that the discoveries are invariably by chance, as a result of some agricultural or commercial excavation. At best the archaeologist has had to make a hasty excavation under conditions far from ideal, and at worst he has been presented with a garbled account of the discovery and an incomplete collection of grave-goods.

I take the liberty to request you to lay before the Society some flints found in the parish of Hoxne, in the county of Suffolk, which, if not particularly objects of curiosity in themselves, must, I think, be considered in that light, from the situation in which they were found. See PL XIV, XV.

A petrological study of the rock inclusions present in Early Iron Age Glastonbury ware suggests that the raw materials for pottery making were not usually obtained on or near the find-sites, but from specific localities throughout south-western England. Since each of the petrological groups has its own range of typological traits there is reason to believe that the completed pots, rather than the materials, were transported, suggesting the activity of specialist potters working from production centres. The relevance of the new evidence to the origin of the decorative styles and the cultural interpretation of the pottery is briefly discussed.

The Fussell's Lodge Long Barrow is an earthen long barrow derived from flanking quarry ditches. It lies on relatively low ground, between the 300 ft. and 400 ft. contours three miles north-east of Salisbury, Wiltshire, on the eastern side of Stock Bottom, a broad dry valley (fig. 1), at Nat. Grid. Ref. SU 19203246.

The purpose of this paper is to present five large prehistoric bronze vessels, from Wales, Ireland, and the north and south of England, found at various dates from the early nineteenth century to 1932, but published as yet imperfectly or not at all, and to consider, with reference to their affinities abroad, their significance for these islands’ Late Bronze and earliest Iron Ages. The starting-point for any such study must in general be the article in Archaeologia, vol. lxxx, by the late E. T. Leeds. In the twenty-seven years since he wrote, new finds and new work have indeed supplemented and somewhat varied his conclusions, but they leave us still deeply in his debt.

The widespread use of coal in Roman Britain has long been recognized. It has been found on many sites in burnt and unburnt state, occasionally in direct association with industrial and domestic use. The fullest account of the subject has been given by the late R. G. Collingwood, and it is the purpose of this note to supplement this with additional information and comment.

Documentary, topographical, and archaeological evidence suggests that the rectilinear street plan of modern Winchester was laid out as a planned system not later than the mid tenth century and probably before c. 904. Among the places listed in the Burghal Hidage there are seven which show clear evidence of rectilinear planning which is not of Roman origin. Four are on the sites of Roman towns—Winchester, Chichester, Exeter, and Bath—and three on non-Roman sites—Wareham, Wallingford, and Cricklade. These plans are seen as the result of a deliberate policy of urban formation in response to the military situation during Alfred's reign (871–99). These places are not so much fortresses as fortified towns in which the rectilinear street plan is a deliberate expression of the organization and apportionment of the land for permanent settlement. Rectilinear street systems appear to be characteristic of the larger places founded or re-organized by Edward the Elder or Athelstan, but rectilinear planning does not thereafter appear until the plantation of new towns in the Norman and later period.

This paper identifies the ways in which the enormous upsurge in the volume of commercial archaeology in England since the introduction of PPG 16 in 1990 has affected our knowledge and understanding of Roman Britain. The difficulties in establishing a comprehensive database of interventions are discussed, but overall it is estimated that around 6,600 separate interventions sampled Roman deposits between 1990 and 2004. While many important excavations have been published in conventional formats, a considerable amount of information resides only in grey literature. Commercial work has generated major advances in our understanding of non-villa rural settlement and its associated land use, while analyses of material culture and, to a lesser extent, biological remains have considerable potential for wider synthesis and inter-site comparison. Improvements in collection methodology and reporting standards are suggested, and the need to integrate the results of commercial investigations with data derived from other sources is stressed.

One of the finest gravel-pits in the world for flint implements is in process of extinction, and a final opportunity has been given for studying its stratification with a view to classifying, however roughly, the thousands of specimens from this site that have passed into public and private collections both at home and abroad. Every collector is familiar with the name of Swanscombe, a village on the south bank of the Thames between Dartford and Gravesend, and many have procured implements from the workmen on the spot without realizing to the full the necessity of fixing the horizon of each, if their purchases are to be of scientific value.

In 1980, it was suggested on petrological grounds that during the Roman period Orvieto was an important source of Pompeian-style mills. In 1985, a short programme of field work led to the discovery of the quarry site. This paper assesses the evidence for leucitite quarrying near Orvieto and describes newly discovered production waste.

Much archaeological and historical research has recently been devoted to the study of the early Swahili communities inhabiting the East African coast during the late first millennium a.d. The practice of Islam can be shown to date back to perhaps the beginning of the ninth century from when the first mosques have been excavated. The economic importance of East Africa for the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean world is apparent from the wealth of imports and exports found in a large number of these coastal sites. African trading systems brought to medieval society high-value commodities ranging from gold, rock crystal and ivory, to slaves and timber. The items were carried across large distances sea by traders following the seasonal monsoon system around the coasts and across the Indian Ocean. is argued that the trading settlements were African in culture and origin, but then attracted Muslims who were responsible for occasional local converts from a very early period in the history of Islam.

This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary project that has revealed the location, extent and character of the winter camp of the Viking Great Army at Torksey, Lincolnshire, of ad 872–3. The camp lay within a naturally defended area of higher ground, partially surrounded by marshes and bordered by the River Trent on its western side. It is considerably larger than the Viking camp of 873–4 previously excavated at Repton, Derbyshire, and lacks the earthwork defences identified there. Several thousand individuals overwintered in the camp, including warriors, craftworkers and merchants. An exceptionally large and rich metalwork assemblage was deposited during the Great Army’s overwintering, and metal processing and trading was undertaken. There is no evidence for a pre-existing Anglo-Saxon trading site here; the site appears to have been chosen for its strategic location and its access to resources. In the wake of the overwintering, Torksey developed as an important Anglo-Saxon borough with a major wheel-thrown pottery industry and multiple churches and cemeteries. The Torksey evidence allows for a radical reappraisal of the character of Viking winter camps, and the legacy of the Viking Great Army for Anglo-Saxon England.

This paper describes the survey of sarsen stones (grey-wether sandstones) in the Wessex counties of Dorset, Hampshire, and Wiltshire. This was conducted as a pilot exercise in the resolution of basic landscape problems through fresh investigation on the ground by a relatively large number of people in a restricted time. It sought to settle the following questions: how extensive was the surface sprawl of sarsen boulders and how, from Neolithic times, were sarsens dealt with either as an impediment or as a mineral resource? A small test excavation to see whether and how superincumbent sarsens affected the bedrock is briefly described. The massive collection of data is now kept as an archive in the Society's library at Burlington House and Xerox copies of summary lists based on this archive are available on request from the Assistant Secretary.

The archaeological landscape of the Mun River valley in north-east Thailand is dominated by many large, prehistoric settlements. These are easily recognized from the air, since they are encircled by banks and moats. Several of these sites were later occupied under the Angkorian kingdom, and incorporate brick temples. These sites present both an enigma and a challenge. Few have ever been excavated, and then only on a very small scale. This article presents the results of a fifteen-year research programme designed to illuminate the cultural sequences at several sites, investigate the social organization as it changed over time, and to identify the period when the moats and banks were constructed. Three sites have been excavated and a cultural sequence covering more than 2,000 years has been dated. This paper concentrates on the Iron Age (450 bc–ad 500), a period of effervescent social change that may be linked with population growth, engagement in a maritime trade network that incorporated India and China, the development of militarism and, in due course, the rapid transition into the period of the early states that anticipated the foundation of the kingdom of Angkor.

Peacock's Farm in the parish of Shippea Hill, Cambridgeshire, is situated in the SE. corner of the Fenland some 7 miles ENE. of Ely and about 20 miles almost due south of King's Lynn. The position of the site is shown in fig. 1, in which areas of alluvial deposit are reserved and more ancient deposits are obliquely shaded, marking the margin of the fen basin and in places islands, which break the monotony of the level fen. Crossing the map obliquely in the bottom right-hand corner is the Icknield Way, marked by a solid line where its course is certain and by a broken line where it is less well defined; and situated in immediate proximity to this ancient track on Therfield Heath, near Royston, is the only Long Barrow at present known in the region. A corner of the modern Wash is shown at the top of the map for convenience, though actually the sea was very far away in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. The river system marked on the map is based entirely upon the work of Major Gordon Fowler, F.S.A., F.G.S., and indicates fairly certainly the system which functioned during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, or rather that part of the river system of these periods still available for study above the sea. It will be observed that all the rivers shown on this map form tributaries of a single great river, flowing through the present site of Wisbech, through the estuary in the sixteenth-century coast line (shown by a broken line), and by way of what are now known as the Lynn Deeps and Silver Pit out across the present North Sea, to reach the contemporary coast-line.

The natural connection between Geology and Archaeology has at various times been pointed out by more than one writer on each subject; and it must, indeed, be apparent to all who consider that both sciences treat of time past as compared with time present. The one, indeed, merges by almost imperceptible degrees in the other; while the object of both is, from the examination of ancient remains, to recall into an ideal existence days long since passed away, to trace the conditions of a previous state of things, and, as it were, to repeople the earth with its former inhabitants.