The object of this paper is to compare the fauna from sites on the Mediterranean coast having a similar physiography at the present day and which may have responded to climatic change in a similar way during the Pleistocene.

Carbon 14 dating has shown a relatively short time span for the Late Pleistocene, and it is no longer possible to think of the correlation of cave deposits on a geological time scale. A thousand years or less is of some importance. It is possible and indeed probable that faunas and cave sediments may have been at the same point of time quite different in caves on the shore of the Mediterranean from, say, inland caves at 1,000 or 2,000 feet above sea level, such as those of the Judean Desert.

The term ‘Later Bronze Age’ is being used in this paper to cover that period of the Bronze Age in Ireland that started around 1200 B.C. and continued on until supplanted by iron-using cultures during the second half of the first millennium B.C. This term provides a means of escaping from the nomenclature that is applied to the period covering the last two centuries of the second millennium B.C. and the beginning of the first millennium B.C., a phase considered by some as a late Middle Bronze Age and by others as an early Late Bronze Age. Here both terms are being avoided and the period is called the ‘Bishopsland Phase’. This is followed by the ‘Roscommon Phase’ of roughly the 9th and a large part of the 8th centuries B.C. Finally comes the ‘Dowris Phase’. It is hoped that this new terminology will allow the Irish material to be more readily incorporated in any future overall scheme for the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland. The Middle Bronze Age in Ireland is here restricted to cover approximately the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.

Upwards of three thousand palaeolithic implements are known to have been obtained from gravels within 8 miles of Bournemouth. The largest proportion, probably a majority, come from the gravels of the 130-ft. terrace which constitutes the greater part of the ‘Palaeolithic Terrace’ of Reid (1) and is correlated with the Boyn Hill terrace of the Thames. Most of the less rolled of these belong to Middle Acheulian types, especially Acheul III of Breuil, and, though their exact position is rarely known, the correspondence is so usual that the gravels of this terrace near Bournemouth have been dated by them with some confidence.

On the other hand the palaeolithic dating of other terraces has been the subject of some doubt. Recently the terraces have been mapped on the six-inch scale and their morphology measured with improved accuracy (2). It is the object of this paper to record some further implements from the local gravels, and in the light of the latest geological and archaeological evidence, to date the gravels in two critical areas, as a step towards more complete chronology here and elsewhere.

It is now generally recognised that the activity known as hunting is a complex but predictable adaptation of small social units to the variable structure of the environment. In the last decade we have passed from the model of the hunter as a ‘catch-as-catch-can’ opportunist to an appreciation of his ability to exploit resources in both a systematic and efficient manner (Wilmsen 1973; Williams 1974; Jochim 1976). The investigation of how hunting decisions are made has led to a fuller appreciation of the component parts of this particular lifestyle, with the result that attention has shifted from technology, as the principal interest, to considerations of resource exploitation, demography, settlement location, interaction, and mating networks (Higgs 1976; Wobst 1974, 1976). In particular the differing adaptations of hunter-gatherer groups have been examined in relation to variations in the global ecosystem which shows a spatial succession of habitat types, grading from generalised to specialised, between the equatorial tropics and the arctic poles (Harris 1969; Yellen and Harpending 1972). While this is a most convenient framework for predicting many variable features of hunter-gatherer organisation, e.g. territory size and cultural patterning, its extreme generality obscures the options that exist within ecosystems at the smaller scale of local adaptation. Thus, far from confining hunting outcomes to broad eco-determinism, decisions made by hunting bands will be influenced by immediate features of the environment such as the location of grazing areas and the configurations of relief. The outcomes as seen in settlement patterns and demographic arrangements may well resemble, at a local level, the expected pattern as influenced by generalised environmental conditions, while viewed at a wider scale the prevailing environment might be highly specialised (Gamble 1978b, 181). The purpose of this paper is to examine, by means of a case study, a comparative structure for palaeolithic hunting strategies that involved the exploitation of large mammals.

In this paper an attempt is made to integrate discussions on social and technological aspects of Copper Age metallurgy. The South-east European Copper Age is widely held to be characterised by newly emerging elites and a strong societal impact of metallurgy. It is shown that much of this discussion is influenced by the evidence of the exceptionally rich Varna cemetery in Bulgaria. This is not a suitable model for Copper Age social structure in general because Varna is an extremely short-lived phenomenon and may reflect aspects of culture and identity other than our search for social elites implies. In any case there is no comparable evidence throughout the rest of Copper Age Europe. In the Carpathian basin, for example, Copper Age society certainly did not know permanent hierarchies, centralised control over dispersed settlements units, or distinctions in personal identity other than age and gender. Against this background metallographic data are used to establish the state of knowledge of Copper Age metalworkers. There are similarities in overall approach, yet within this broad tradition two distinct horizons of metallurgical knowledge and practice can be distinguished. The reasons of the differences observed in casting technique and forging are discussed. Drawing on ethnographic data a model is presented to account for uniformity in the basic parameters on the one hand and the spread of innovations in Middle to Late Copper Age society on the other without social elites being in control of raw materials, metalworking, and exchange.

The author has already published a full account of the investigation of a mesolithic chipping-floor (Warren V) on the Lower Greensand of East Hampshire in the parish of Oakhanger, near Selborne (fig. 1). The present report is concerned with another (Warren VII), discovered early in 1957 only a few yards to the north-west (fig. 2) and excavated later that year and in 1958.

The interest of the new site is partly that it supplements and enlarges certain details of the material equipment recovered from Site V, but mainly in the evidence it has provided on chronology through the application of pollen-analysis and radio-carbon analysis.

To begin with excavation was carried out in transects 3 feet by 1 foot, but when it became apparent that artifacts were occurring at three levels (fig. 3) the size of the transect was increased to 3 feet by 3 feet. The earliest level (Phase I) occurred at a depth of c. 24 inches; Phase II, which corresponded with the lined surface noted by Dr Dimbleby in his pollen enquiry (see p. 256) at c. 8 to 10 inches; and Phase III in the top 3 inches of humus.

In 1937 the writers, with the help of members of the technical staff of I.C.I., Billingham, and of a W.E.A. Class on local prehistory, excavated Loose Howe, a large round barrow which, as shown on the Map (Fig. 1), stands above the head of Rosedale almost at the centre of the Eastern Moorlands of Yorkshire.

Permission to excavate was kindly granted by the landowners, Milburn Estates Ltd., Newcastle-on-Tyne, with the proviso that we began after the close of the grouse-shooting season. We were therefore obliged to carry out the work in October and November, and then only at week-ends when our helpers were free. The weather was often bad, and this considerably increased the difficulties of what proved to be an arduous excavation.

The Howe is situated in Lat. 54° 23′ 53″ N. and Long. 0° 55′ 04″ w. where Danby High Moor to the north adjoins Glaisdale Moor to the east on the central watershed of the Eastern Moorlands. It stands on rising ground a few yards north of the road from Ralph Cross to Rosedale Abbey and is a conspicuous landmark for miles around. Its elevation, 1400 feet, makes it one of the highest in the whole of Eastern Yorkshire. In this respect it is only exceeded by Drake Howe (1427 feet) on the Cleveland hill, Cranimoor, and by four small barrows at 1480 feet on Urra Moor where, above Ingleby Greenhow, the moorlands reach their greatest elevation of 1489 feet.

Several years ago during the investigation of neolithic chambered tombs in Galloway a fragment of green jade polished on two opposite flat faces was found in the floor of the ante-chamber to Tomb I at Cairnholy in Kirkcudbrightshire. It was only about 3 centimetres square and 1.5 centimetres thick but, nevertheless, Professor Stuart Piggott and Mr T. G. E. Powell recognized that it had once formed part of a flat triangular axe of a type already known from several places in Scotland. A fine collection of such axes in jade existed in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh. In an appendix to their paper on the chambered tombs Piggott and Powell listed the jade axes recorded from British and Irish sites and republished the map compiled by Miss L. F. Chitty and published by Sir Cyril Fox in 1933. This appendix also contained brief notes supplied by me on thin microscope sections of the Cairnholy fragment and of five other British axes reported to be made in jade. Some of these identifications were only partly correct, and have now been revised (see below, pp. 145, 158, 159 and footnote 2, p. 153).

Some years later the question of the identification of the material of reputed British jade axes arose again and it was decided to examine as many of the axes in Piggott and Powell's list as could be borrowed and to utilize in their examination determinations of density and refractive index, and, where possible, to obtain X-ray powder photographs and to have thin sections prepared.

The Bell Beaker bracers, or wrist-guards, are traditionally thought to have functioned as archery equipment, protecting the arm against the sting of the bowstring. Their position on the body is therefore thought to have been on the inside of the lower arm. Through analysis of the position in which wrist-guards are found, we have come to the conclusion that they were, however, more often than not fastened to the outside of the arm, which leads us to consider a range of new possible uses and meanings for the bracers. With combined information from archaeological and ethnographic surveys we have come to think of the stone wrist-guard as an artefact that was associated with a martial, ideologically-laden activity in the Bell Beaker culture.

Two articles published in recent years have drawn attention to distinctive bronzes which are found concentrated in Somerset. Sir Cyril Fox showed in 1941 that sickles cast with an elongated terminal knob for hafting, or pair of conical knobs, are in England entirely confined to the county; and in 1949 Mrs C. M. Piggott discussed types of bronze ornament also commonly found in Somerset, and often in association with such sickles, though distribution of these extends to other parts of southern England as well. As these authors demonstrated, the sickles and some of the ornaments must alike derive from foreign prototypes. The interest of the Somerset hoards in which they occur lies in their combination of other, peculiarly British, bronzes with these foreign-paralleled types, which may serve to link the developments of British industry with the established chronological sequences of Continental Europe.

Somerset hoards of this class are characteristically composed of several types of ornament together with a few bronze implements from a restricted number of forms. Fewer than half the ornaments seem to have been deposited in a pristine condition, and of those damaged some are in fragments. Most often, however, the associated tools are usable, and some (especially sickles) are still untrimmed from the mould.

This paper addresses a small group of Neolithic monuments recorded as cropmarks in eastern lowland Scotland that have been termed timber halls, the best known example being the large rectangular building, Balbridie. Three such sites have now been excavated, and all have been shown to date to the early centuries of the Neolithic and to have been largely similar structures; further possible examples in the cropmark record will be assessed, through looking at the use of the term ‘timber hall’ in Scottish archaeology over the past 40 years. The paper will also address a number of sites, mostly known as cropmarks, which have similar dimensions and architectural traits to these timber halls. Excavations, however, have shown them to have a very different form (for instance, probably unroofed), and to date to the latter half of the 4th millennium cal BC, several centuries later than the first timber halls. Drawing on excavation results, cropmarks, and evidence from outwith Scotland, this paper will discuss the changing form and function of the Neolithic ‘timber hall’ tradition in Scotland, arguing that roofed ‘big houses’ were later replaced by ceremonial and mortuary ‘cult houses’, drawing on social memory and tradition.

Research on the late Pleistocene and Holocene environment and archaeology of the upper Kennet valley, north Wiltshire, is described. In concentrating the work in the valley bottom, the main aims were: (1) to see if there was a record of environment and archaeology there, and if so to detail it; and (2) to redress brasses in research towards the visible archaeology of slopes and plateaus and their environmental record.

Soils and sediments with biological and archaeological materials covered the late Pleistocene to the present and, with dating by 14C and thermoluminescence, enabled a history of environment and human activity to be established.

The distinction in hydrology and environment between the valley floor and slopes/plateaus varied with time. In the upper part of the study area at Avebury, there was no stream in the earlier Holocene: woodland covered the valley floor which in some areas was similar to that of the slopes/plateaus in being dry while in other areas it was marshy. In the lower part of the study area at West Overton there was also an earlier Holocene land surface but there were locally streams and swamps, represented by the North Farm Formation. During the earlier Neolithic there was woodland clearance and some cultivation of the valley floor which initiated minor hydrological changes, namely paludification at Avebury and alluviation at West Overton. Dry grassland later developed which was little different from that of the slopes and plateaus. There was no woodland regeneration during the later Neolithic in contrast to the situation in monument ditches on the valley slopes and plateaus. Throughout the study area there was a major episode of alluviation in open country, represented by the West Overton Formation, which was probably initiated in the Beaker period and carried on until the early Iron Age. This, while not putting the valley floor out of use and indeed perhaps enhancing its fertility, provided a very different environment from that of the slopes and plateaus. Another period of alluviation, represented by the Arion Clay, took place in post-Medieval times.

The main Holocene deposits were not wholly allochthonous or made up solely of clastic material derived from slopewash incorporated into the river. Calcium carbonate precipitation accounted for much of the North Farm and West Overton Formations while the Arion Clay may derive from flocculated material redistributed from watermeadow channels in the course of their management. On the other hand, periods of arable activity in the area, often close to the river valley floor, notably in Iron Age, Roman and Medieval times, have no signal in terms of alluvium.

Archaeology, although concealed, is abundant and significantly extends the local record of slopes and plateaus. Mesolithic flints, Neolithic flints and pottery, two lines of probably later Neolithic/Beaker sarsen boulders, later Bronze Age sarsen structures, pottery and a cremation are present on the valley floor, concealed by deposits of the West Overton Formation. Medieval activity, represented on the valley sides as earthworks, extends on to the valley floor where it is concealed by Arion Clay and earthworks of watermeadows. The visible distribution of archaeology presents a pattern which may be of more than local significance for chalkland areas.

Investigations into Mesolithic and Neolithic activity and environmental impact on the Cambridgeshire fen-edge are described, consisting of stratigraphic and pollen analytical research at Peacock's Farm, and trial excavations at Peacock's Farm and Letter F Farm. At Peacock's Farm, the bulk of archaeological occupation was found to be of Mesolithic date, around 8000 BP uncalibrated; minimal signs of Earlier Neolithic activity were recovered. At Letter F Farm there was mainly Earlier Neolithic occupation, around 5000 BP, but there had also been Mesolithic activity. Radiocarbon dating at Peacock's Farm shows that the Mesolithic black band within the peats flanking the sand ridge, first described by Clark et al. (1935), covers a surprisingly long period: over 1700 years, mainly between approximately 8500 and 6800 BP. Dates from Mesolithic occupation areas on the sand ridge coincide with the first half of this period. Consideration of the stratigraphic results, radiocarbon dates and two pollen diagrams suggests that a channel was eroded through the Mesolithic black band at an early stage of its formation, probably not long before 7500 BP. In one area infilling of the channel apparently took place in a number of stages; in another it filled progressively with shell muds. A tentative reconstruction of the sedimentary, environmental and archaeological sequence is made. Before the Mesolithic occupation the landscape appears to have been densely forested both on the wetland and the elevated sands. Minor damage to this cover took place around 8500 BP, coinciding with the beginning of the Mesolithic occupation. This was followed, at about 8250 BP, by a substantial opening of the forest cover, when the site may have been more actively used than before, possibly as part of a new settlement pattern. Relatively open local conditions persisted for some 700–1500 years before the forest cover was re-established. Regeneration may have involved alder as a colonist, coinciding with the classical Boreal-Atlantic transition of Godwin. The relative importance of human impact and the occurrence of a period of dry climate are discussed. The balance of evidence, some admittedly circumstantial, points to a pronounced human impact on the local environment in the Mesolithic period. Burning may have been connected with short-stay visits in a settlement pattern spanning both wetland and dry areas; the context for this apparent lowland change might be sought in the insulation of the British Isles in the 9th millennium BP and increased territoriality from that date as reflected in microlith styles. By contrast in the Neolithic period there is very little pollen evidence of local environmental damage at Peacock's Farm. The Neolithic archaeological evidence from Peacock's and Letter F Farms suggests small short-stay visits only, as part of a regionally now more differentiated settlement pattern.

This paper re-examines current arguments concerning the evidence for Neandertal-modern human interaction and admixture. While most researchers now agree that the ancestry of all present day humans can be traced back to African late Middle Pleistocene populations, at a time when the remainder of Eurasia was inhabited by ‘archaic humans’, most notably the Neandertals, issues that remain to be resolved are the tempo and mode of early modern human dispersal and interaction with archaic humans.

This paper focuses on what happened at the time of contact in Europe, and assesses the level of admixture that may have occurred, as well as the extent to which such level may have varied in both time and space. It explains how the available mtDNA evidence does not preclude admixture at the time of contact, and is in fact consistent, depending on a number of parameters, with a possibly substantial Neandertal contribution to the initial modern human population of Europe. It is argued that the absence of Neandertal mtDNA lineages among present Europeans is likely, on dating evidence, to be simply a particular case of generalised loss of Pleistocene mtDNA lineages. Although the full range of interaction types (mutual avoidance, hostile confrontation, full integration) is conceivable, there is plenty of archaeological evidence to suggest that admixture must have been the general rule, and that the paleontological evidence for the generalised presence of archaic traits among Europe's earliest moderns implies the transmission of genes, and indicates that mixed groups should have been reproductively viable. In this context, it would seem that the most parsimonious explanation for the disappearance of the Neandertal mtDNA lineage is genetic swamping.

On the open downland, at the crest of the central chalk ridge of the Isle of Wight, and overlooking the village of Arreton, there are to-day two round barrows, the larger, some 9 feet high, known locally as Michael Morey's Hump, and the smaller, nameless and less than half as high, the subject of the present report. The barrow lies 20 feet to the south-west on the bank of the artificial cliff created by the Down End Chalk Quarry (see fig. 1). The barrow, endangered by the quarry, was examined in August and September 1956 on behalf of the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments, the Ministry of Works. The working party was composed of undergraduates from Cambridge and Durham Universities and volunteers from London and the Isle of Wight. Through the generosity of the landowner, Mr A. Brown, the objects found have been placed in Carisbrooke Castle Museum.

For many years excavations within British prehistoric settlement sites were largely confined to selective sampling of a very limited nature since this approach, it was thought, offered the best chance of locating an intensively occupied area from which dating evidence and perhaps even the ground plan of a structure might be recovered. More recently, with the results of a small number of large-scale area excavations to draw upon, it has become possible not only to examine the plans of individual buildings in isolation but to identify standard structural designs used repeatedly on the same sites and, further, to learn something of the overall disposition of structures within the settlement plan. This increasing body of evidence is beginning to reveal, as analogy with historic and existent settlements might anticipate, a basic dichotomy between those which grew and those which were created. To establish a terminology, we should first recognize the essential distinction between a settlement plan and a planned settlement. All settlements have a plan, but not all were consciously planned. Many will have resulted from gradual growth over a period of time, developing from a nucleus to which additions and replacements were made as required (i.e. in the parlance of urban geographers, organic settlements). Accordingly, their plans should not normally be expected to display any great degree of orderliness and will be particularly unlikely to incorporate a systematic pattern of streets.

Elaborate, religiously sanctioned relationships between people and place are one of the most distinctive features of Aboriginal Australia. In the Australian desert, rock paintings and engravings provide a tangible link to the totemic geography and allow us to examine both changes in the role of individual places and also the development of this system of relationships to land. In this paper we use rock-art to examine the changing history of Puritjarra rock shelter in western central Australia. The production of pigment art and engravings at the shelter appears to have begun by c. 13,000 BP and indicates a growing concern by people with using graphic art to record their relationship with the site. Over the last millennium changes in the surviving frieze of paintings at Puritjarra record fundamental changes in graphic vocabulary, style, and composition of the paintings. These coincide with other evidence for changes in the geographic linkages of the site. As Puritjarra's place in the social geography changed, the motifs appropriate for the site also changed. The history of this rock shelter shows that detailed site histories will be required if we are to disentangle the development of central Australian graphic systems from the temporal and spatial variability inherent in the expression of these systems.

A simple derivation of henges from causewayed camps is rejected. Attention is also drawn to a range of neolithic structures, some covered by a mound, some not. Though interpreted as mortuary structures, they have affinities to henges. Henges may thus best be derived from a broad tradition of neolithic structures; this may in turn have been part of a more widely distributed north-west European tradition of both ritual and domestic structures. Within Britain, similarities of form and function suggest that henges should be seen as a parallel development to ring banks, ring ditches and stone circles. Regional preferences rather than distinct regional types of monuments emerged. Later survival of henge traditions into the first millennium is also discussed.

In the 1964 Proceedings a preliminary report was published of an initial sounding at this site, discovered and named (after a nearby village) in 1962. The main excavation, in the summer of 1964, was undertaken with the kind permission and co-operation of the Iranian Government and authorities, and with the financial assistance of grants from the British Academy and the Crowther Beynon Fund of the University of Cambridge. Subsequent laboratory analysis has been carried out mainly in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Cambridge.

Since the geographical situation of the site forms an essential factor in its interpretation, the main features may be repeated here for convenience. The cave is eroded in the base of an escarpment which follows the foot of the Elburz range where it bounds the coastal plain along the southern shores of the present Caspian. The mountains rise abruptly in an impressive series of ridges to over 10,000 ft; the plain extends to the north to the modern sea-shore now some 8 miles away from the site and rapidly retreating. It is known however that in the recent geological past this situation has varied greatly. At times the sea lapped the base of the hills leaving traces in the form of escarpments and raised beaches, while at others it retreated scores of miles to the north and may even have disappeared altogether.

The Causewayed Enclosure at Orsett, Essex, was trial trenched in 1975 to determine the state of site preservation and confirm its postulated Neolithic date and site sequence. The enclosure consisted of three incomplete circuits of discontinuous ditch with an associated timber palisade slot lying inside and concentric to the middle ditch. Within the interior was an oval post hole structure of a contemporary date. Quantities of Mildenhall style pottery and flint artifacts of the mid third millennium b.c. were recovered from the primary ditch silts and other features. A small quantity of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age wares came from the secondary ditch silts and the interior.

Later phases on the site were represented by unenclosed Early Iron Age occupation, a Middle Iron Age sub-rectangular enclosure and Saxon ring-ditch burials.