The authors examine critically MacKie's long-standing contentions concerning Neolithic Britain — theocratic control of society, the relationships between monuments and sunrise or sunset on significant days of the year, the use of an ‘elaborate and accurate’ solar calendar and its survival into the Iron Age and into modern times.

The north Italian Bronze Age culture–the terramare–has recently been celebrated in a splendid exhibition at Modena, and new catalogues, research and the re-opening of old excavations. Mark Pearce discusses the relevance of the old ideas in the light of new data.

Urban archaeological survey in Africa is rarely undertaken, and relatively little is known about many important cities and their development. Here Tim Insoll describes the results of a preliminary season at Timbuktu.

Introduction

Over 90 structures have been identified as probable houses dating to the Neolithic period in Ireland (Grogan 2996; Cooney 1999; FIGURE 1; TABLES 1- 3). While there is a considerable variation in size and form two principal types are discernible, the large rectangular buildings of the Early Neolithic and circular or oval structures that have a much wider chronological span. In the past some of these have been readily accepted as houses while other, generally more ephemeral, structures havc occasionally been classified as having more temporary or specialist functions

The Spanish conquest of the Americas was one of the most dramatic cultural and biological transformations in the history of the world. Small groups of conquistadores toppled enormous empires. Millions of Native Americans died from epidemic disease. Old World animals and plants revolutionized Native American societies, while New World crops fundamentally altered the diet and land-tenure of peasants across Europe. In the words of historian Alfred Crosby (1972: 3),

The two worlds, which God had cast asunder, were reunited, and the two worlds, which were so very different, began on that day [I1 October 14921 to become alike.

There are several kinds of fossil sea-urchin that are the subject of folklore, the commonest in the south of England being casts in flint, derived from the Chalk, of the heart-urchin Micraster, and of the helmet-urchin Echinocorys. Both of these, but more commonly the latter, are known to the country people as shepherd's crowns or fairy loaves (PL. xxib). Formerly at least, the Essex labourer believed that so long as one of these fossil sea-urchins was kept in the house, his family would never go short of bread (Johnson 1908, 149). At a number of localities in southern England fossil echinoids are traditionally placed on dairy shelves to keep milk from going sour. This practice is clearly linked with the ancient idea that these fossils are thunderstones.

The earliest known case of fossil echinoids being used in a ceremonial burial is in the Early Bronze Age tumulus on the Dunstable Downs, where nearly IOO shepherd’s crowns, mainly Micraster, had been arranged to encircle the bodies of a woman and child (Worthington Smith 1894, frontispiece, 337-8). H. S. Toms collected evidence that up to the middle of the last century fossil sea-urchins were called thunderstones throughout Sussex, whereas they are now simply regarded as ‘lucky’ (PL. XXIIb), and if seen in the soil and not brought home, at least one should spit on the shepherd’s crown and throw it over the left shoulder. Even the idea of luck being attached to sea-urchins found on the fields has disappeared latterly from many villages. As there were still scattered traces of the thunderstone belief in Sussex in 1930, it is probable that more than a century ago the thunderstone aspect was dominant there. This idea survived longer in West Sussex than in East Sussex, and oral tradition can be traced back to 1860.

Few archaeologists (or prehistorians) would agree on a comprehensive definition of their science. There is not even a unanimous answer to the question whether it deserves the proud (or debasing?) designation ‘science’. Anyway, most of those who feel themselves concerned with modern archaeology would presumably admit that this peculiar human activity has two important aspects. First, it is connected with the study of material remains left behind by ancient man. Secondly, its aim is to recover at least some aspects of man’s past, mainly those unrecorded by written documents.

Western Sahara has one of the last remaining unexplored prehistories on the planet. The new research reported here reveals a sequence of Holocene occupation beginning in a humid period around 9000 bp, superceded around 5000 bp by an arid phase in which the land was mainly given over to pastoralism and monumental burial. The authors summarise the flint and pottery assemblage and classify the monuments, looking to neighbouring cultures in Niger, Libya and Sudan.

In world archaeology, there has always been a problem regarding the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. Late twentieth-century research has attempted to address this issue through the recognition of Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP) lithic industries. These assemblages were first characterised through evidence from the sites of Boker Tachtit and Ksar Akil (the Levant), and they are now identified in many regions of Eurasia, including Central Asia, the Near East, the Altai Mountains, Transbaikalia, Mongolia and northern China. A characteristic IUP assemblage has also been recently found in Kazakhstan (Ushbulak-1) (Shunkov et al. 2016). Large blades and elongated pointed flakes dominate these assemblages, and there is a prevalence of Upper Palaeolithic tool types in tool sets.

Defining territories and settlement hierarchies is a primary goal of archaeological survey, involving the mapping of different-sized settlements on the ground. However it may not always work, owing to the particular land use or political strategies anciently employed. With the aid of cuneiform documents from Tell Leilan, Syria, the author shows how the settlements found by archaeological survey in northern Mesopotamia actually relate to a number of intersecting authorities, with a hold on major tracts of pasture as well as on arable land and cities. These insights from the Near East have important implications for the interpretation of surveyed settlement patterns everywhere.

Despite ongoing fieldwork focusing on the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods of the Aegean, the eastern part of this region, especially western Turkey, remains almost entirely unexplored in terms of early prehistory. There is virtually no evidence from this area that can contribute to broader research themes such as the dispersal of early hominins, the distribution of Early Holocene foragers and early forager-farmer interactions. The primary aim of the Karaburun Archaeological Survey Project is to address this situation by collecting data from the eastern side of the Aegean Sea, thereby contributing to the currently debated issues of Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean prehistory.

The author uses a detailed analysis of lithic assemblages to propose a major social and economic change in the Pyrenees around 18 ky cal BC, roughly the watershed between the Lower and Middle Magdalenian periods. Nomadic groups begin to settle down, occupy loose territories, move raw materials over vast distances and specialise in manufacture for hunting and domestic use. These trends coincide with a cold period and an increase in grassland, the Heinrich Stadial.

The present age, as far as archaeology is concerned, may well be termed that of excavations, and Mesopotamia is more than any other country the centre of such activity. It is work on the most ancient sites that has come most before the public eye ; but later ruins too have received some attention, both before and since the war. Samarra stands and must long stand as the classical example of an excavation of the later eriod, but the recent work at Ctesiphon is no going investigation by the Baghdad school and the Michigan University expedition and the ancient city of Kish has produced a Sasanian palace. Our work at Hira, some 50 miles to the south of ancient Babylon, now adds another name to this list, and though we made but preliminary soundings they served to show that the town of Hira was definitely an important and interesting place, the further examination of which will be without doubt well repaid. The work which we did was undertaken on behalf of Oxford University and was carried out under the joint direction of Mr Gerald Reitlinger and of the author of this paper. Most sincere thanks are due to Mr Reitlinger, who bore the entire cost of the expedition, and to Professor Langdon of Oxford, who greatly simplified our work by allowing us to become a branch of the Oxford-Field Museum expedition to Kish.

Almost half a century has elapsed since the first area excavation of a prehistoric site in north-east Thailand at Non Nok Tha (Bayard & Solheim 2010) (Figure 1). A long and still unresolved debate has ensued, centred on the chronology of the establishment of rice farming and bronze casting, that has dovetailed with further controversies on the pace and nature of social change. Results obtained during the past 20 years of fieldwork focused on the upper Mun Valley of north-east Thailand, together with a new series of AMS radiocarbon determinations from key sites, have thrown into sharp relief contrasting interpretations of two issues: one centres on the timing and origin of the Neolithic settlement; the other on the date and impact of copper-base metallurgy. A consensus through debate would bring us to a tipping point that would see Southeast Asian prehistory turn to more interesting issues of cultural change.