Herodotus' 5th-century BC Histories provide us with one of the earliest written accounts for the practice of cannibalism. This paper examines the references concerning cannibalism contained in Herodotus, reviews the theories proposed to account for these references, and suggests a new explanation for this cultural motif.

Consistent to most views of Indo-European in later European prehistory is a genetic focus. The blanket of related languages across Europe marks an equal human spread – whether of steppe warriors, Beaker burialists or slashing-and-burning farmers. What if the languages are reconstructed using other premisses than this ‘genealogical’ view?

In Garton Slack and Wetwang Slack, which together constitute one stretch of a dry valley to the west of Driffield, gravel extraction over 20 years has resulted in the excavation of a large part of an extensive Iron Age settlement.

Roads and ditches formed a focus for scores of buildings—roundhouses and post squares—as well as a cemetery of 446 inhumations in the ‘Arras Culture’ tradition and the first cart burial (in 1971) to be excavated under modern conditions (Dent, 1982, 1983; Brewster, 1971; 1981; Stead, 1984). Startling though many of these finds were, none exceeded the discovery of a group of three cart burials in the summer of 1984.

The first grave was discovered by the quarry manager, Mick Ward, who recognized it as a cart burial (he had seen the 1971 find, as well as numerous other burials in the valley) when the dark discolouration of the fill appeared in the quarry face and part of one tyre and the skull were exposed. He reported his discovery at once and I visited the site the same afternoon. The part of the quarry where the find was made had been stripped of topsoil a week or two earlier.

Christopher Hawkes was one of the leading British archaeological theorists in the middle decades of this century. Much underrated, Hawkes is reassessed here in the broader development of processual archaeology in Britain.

Key locations identified with the lives of important religious founders have often been extensively remodelled in later periods, entraining the destruction of many of the earlier remains. Recent UNESCO-sponsored work at the major Buddhist centre of Lumbini in Nepal has sought to overcome these limitations, providing direct archaeological evidence of the nature of an early Buddhist shrine and a secure chronology. The excavations revealed a sequence of early structures preceding the major rebuilding by Asoka during the third century BC. The sequence of durable brick architecture supplanting non-durable timber was foreseen by British prehistorian Stuart Piggott when he was stationed in India over 70 years ago. Lumbini provides a rare and valuable insight into the structure and character of the earliest Buddhist shrines.

High-resolution pollen and phytolith analyses can provide direct evidence for farming in archaeological landscapes. This is demonstrated here in the analysis of two mounds at Pouerua, northern New Zealand, where evidence indicates both functional and temporal differences between the structures, and the presence of gourd Lagenaria siceraria provides direct, unequivocal evidence that this crop was cultivated and that the site was used as a garden.

Introduction

The value of dendrochronology as a precise dating tool is well established (Ashmore, this volume) and this paper concentrates on other aspects of its value to Scottish archaeology and history. Timber in Scotland has been a resource under pressure for a long time, and consequently the history of timber trade and woodland exploitation is particularly interesting. Scotland now has very restricted semi-natural woodland, representing about 1% of land cover. While the extent of semi-natural woodland has undoubtedly shrunk in recent centuries, pollen evidence indicates that much of Scotland has been characterized by open landscapes since later prehistory (Tipping 1994).

Ancestor worship has been a dominant religious form in ancient as well as modern China. It has shaped thought and behaviour for millennia, and has been used by élites as propaganda legitimizing their political positions. Ancestors can be created and modified, so the nature of the ancestral cult has changed through time. Using archaeological data from China, this article first enables an exploration of the earliest manifestations and the development of ancestor-worship ritual in the Neolithic period; secondly, demonstrates that lineage/tribal ancestors became state deities in the Shang dynasty (c. 1600-1100 BC); and, thirdly, investigates the process in modern history by which a legendary sage, the Yellow Emperor, was first transformed into the progenitor of the Han Chinese, and then into the common ancestor of all Chinese people.

The Australian continent was peopled during the Pleistocene epoch. Positive evidence for this migration is lately emerging from that limbo known to archaeologists as (suspense account', a void into which many oddments have been shot over the years. Probably the most exotic claims were coincident with Dubois' revelation of Pithecanthropus in Java, when Australian optimists exhibited casts of the imprints left by (human' feet and buttocks, in allegedly Pliocene dune limestone from Victoria. This prompted Otto Schoetensach, progenitor of Homo heidelbergensis, to pronounce Australia as the probable focus of human evolution; both he and H. Klaatsch saw, in aboriginal techniques of tree-climbing, direct vestiges of arboreal ancestry [I].

The authors have surveyed the little known paintings of the Kurnool area in central south India, bringing to light the varied work of artists active from the Palaeolithic to the present day. By classifying the images and observing their local superposition and global parallels, they present us with an evolving trend – from the realistic drawings of large deer by hunter-gatherers, through the symbolic humans of the Iron Age to the hand-prints of more recent pilgrims and garish life-size modern ‘scarecrows’. Here are the foundations for one of the world's longest sequences of rock art.