Generalised socio-economic models have in the past been applied wholesale to Neolithic monuments throughout Scotland without taking the country's diverse physical landscape and cultural histories into account. This paper explores whether regional variations in Neolithic monumentality can be paralleled with earlier Mesolithic disparities, and considers to what extent, with the introduction of agriculture, contemporary social systems and thus the ideology underlying monumental construction was affected by geographical factors.

It is suggested that:

• Contrasts during the Mesolithic between the Western seaboard and the Eastern lowlands/South-east Scotland continue throughout the Neolithic.

• The different functions of monuments during the Early Neolithic are generally dictated by divergent topography in Eastern and Western Scotland.

• By the later Neolithic social hierarchies emerged in regions suited to agricultural development.

This paper provides a contextual summary of a diachronic analysis of ceramic vessels and hunter-gatherer societies from the final Pleistocene to the later Holocene in a remote corner of the Vitim Basin in Eastern Siberia. An integrated programme of ceramic analysis, raw materials survey, and archaeological investigation is drawn into new models of group mobility and social behaviour. The results challenge widespread assumptions about the relationship between ceramics, sedentarisation, and social complexity. Evidence of these transformations, though potentially identifiable in the archaeological record, could not be associated with the adoption of pottery.

I must first of all thank you, and more especially Professor Childe and Mr. Maynard, as colleagues and fellow-workers in the research of Prehistoric Man, for the special honour you have paid to my labours, by appointing me your President for this year. I owe, I think, this exceptional mark of esteem to the many personal friends I have amongst you and to the fact that you are particularly alive to the attention with which I have tried to follow the valiant efforts of many of you, and to absorb on the actual sites the unusually important stratigraphical facts which these efforts have helped to bring to light.

It was in 1898 that I came for the first time to your island, to study the Bronze Age of France at Nashmills, the home of your great fore runner, John Evans, one of the three English savants who gave their allegiance to Boucher de Perthes.

I came back again in 1904 to study the Bruniquel collection at the British Museum, where Charles Reid and Reginald Smith gave me a generous welcome. Haddon and Henry Balfour, by their small but very instructive books on the evolution of primitive art, opened for me hitherto unsuspected vistas on the ornamental art of the Reindeer Age. It is to them that I owe my introduction in 1912, to Miles Burkitt, whom I took with me when he was quite young on my Spanish explorations and excavations, and who is now one of your masters.

The excavation of a Viking mound in the north of the Isle of Man during October and November, 1946, led to the discovery of older remains beneath and around the mound. The site was in the yard of the disused farmstead of Ballateare (formerly called Killane) in the parish of Jurby.

It lies on a slight rise some 50 feet above sea level half a mile distant from the sea, which is now eroding this region of the west coast at an estimated rate of one yard per year. To the south the ground slopes down to the Killane river which runs a quarter of a mile away in a broad marshy valley. To the north and east the ground is flat, and from the site there is a wide view over the sea, the distant mountains to the south, and the plain to the north. In this district the light sandy soils alternating with more clayey soil are good for agriculture. The sub-soil in the farmyard is a fine yellow diluvial sand with some bands of coarser gravel. The ground around the mound had been much disturbed by agricultural activities, and for a long time the yard had been used for storing potatoes in clamps: only superstition had preserved the mound undisturbed.

In 1913 the gravel beds on the right bank of the Wey at Farnham were described as occurring on four terraces (A, B, C, D,) though admittedly the highest terrace (A) was only part of the much-dissected plateau of Alice Holt. All authorities were until recently agreed that these beds consisted of river gravel, but now Mr R. A. Smith and Major Wade, without giving any clear reasons for their dissent, assure us that there are only two river terraces, one at 50 feet above the river (Terrace D) and the other at 100 feet (Terrace C); and that all the Pleistocene deposits above the latter are ‘contorted drift.’ It does not appear, however, that these words are used in their ordinary sense, to denote the product of a glacier, but Mr Reginald Smith tells us that the gravel is ‘clearly not of river origin; hence some other geological reason for the deposit must be sought.’

In the following pages these assertions will be challenged, and an attempt will be made to show that river-gravels extend right up on to the plateau. The old names of the terraces, however, will be maintained throughout, as it seems undesirable to employ the terms ‘50 feet terrace,’ and ‘100 feet terrace’ until their relation to those of the Thames Valley is more fully established.

In May 1955 Professor Grahame Clark noticed a stone axe from Langwood Fen in the collection of Mr F. Walker of Manea. Its exotic character stood out among well known Fenland flint types and he asked me to arrange a petrological examination and to describe the implement.

The axe (fig. 1) is dark brown in colour with much of the polished surfaces roughened through oxidization, probably from underlying peat. The blue-grey, fine-grained nature of the stone shows through in fresh scars on both surfaces, which suggest its recent use as a whetstone, and in a modern chip at the butt. It is 10⅞ inches long, with a maximum width of 3 inches. The convex cutting edge is slightly asymetrical and 3⅛ inches wide, while the maximum thickness is 1¾ inches. There is a distinct waisting, or constriction, toward the butt which is rather square and 1¾ inches wide. Both edges have been ground into lateral facets ⅜ inch wide about the middle of the implement, tapering toward the butt and cutting edge. In its present state the axe weighs 3½ lbs.

In the course of research on Bronze Age metalwork from Surrey 1972–4, the writer's attention was drawn to an unpublished bronze shield in Chertsey Museum found locally at Mixnam's Pit several years earlier. The find obviously did not fall into any known British type, and closer parallels evident amongst the continental Nipperweise class made this, potentially, the first recognised import of a Bronze Age shield to Britain. With the aid of the Sir Cyril Fox Memorial Award for 1974, it was possible to study continental bronze shields in West Germany and Denmark, in particular three of the five known examples of Nipperweise type. Subsequently, in June 1977, by curious chance, a second British Nipperweise-like shield was recovered at Long Wittenham, and this has amplified the need for a detailed consideration of relationships within the class. First, however, it is necessary to describe the two British shields and their find circumstances, and to give descriptions of the relevant continental examples.

Ground and polished stone axes in southern Italy received little attention after a period of lively interest in the late 19th century. The great number of axes from archaeological sites and collections suggests widespread manufacture and exchange on a considerable scale. In eastern Sicily the production of basalt axes was long-lived, beginning in the Neolithic (Stentinello phase) and reaching a peak in the Copper and Early Bronze Ages. Greenstone axes are also found throughout these periods. By the Middle or Late Bronze Age, stone axes were probably little used, having been largely replaced by metal tools.

The axes from Serra Orlando (where the historical site of Morgantina is located) form one of the largest collections in Sicily from a single site, where they were found in multi-period contexts, dating from the third millennium BC until the Hellenistic period. Petrological analysis suggests that basalt from the Iblean hills was frequently used for their manufacture, while the serpentinites, tremolite-bearing rocks and pyroxenite probably originate in the Calabro-Peloritani Arc. The results of the analysis of thin sections are presented in appendixes. Raw materials, distribution and manufacture of axes are discussed and a preliminary investigation of their typology is presented. Multiple functions for Sicilian axes, related to morphology and raw materials, are suggested by their archaeological contexts.

This paper considers the timing and mechanisms of deforestation in the Western Isles of Scotland, focusing in particular on the landscape around the Calanais stone circles, one of the best preserved late Neolithic/early Bronze Age monumental landscapes in north-west Europe. We present new archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence from a soil and peat sequence at the site of Aird Calanais, which spans the main period of use of the Calanais circles. We then draw on a new synthesis of archaeobotanical and palynological evidence from across the Western Isles and a review of comparable data from the wider North Atlantic zone, before assessing the role of early farming communities in clearing the wooded landscapes of the region. Pollen and radiocarbon dating at the site of Aird Calanais reveal that a layer of birch branches, dating to the late Neolithic (2912–2881 cal bc), was contemporaneous with a decline in woodland at the site, as well as with the major phase of Neolithic activity at the Calanais stone circle complex. However, our synthesis of the pollen and plant macrofossil evidence from across the Western Isles suggests that the picture across these islands was altogether more complex: woodlands declined both before, as well as during, the Neolithic and deciduous woodlands remained sufficiently abundant for Neolithic fuel procurement. Finally, we consider the implications of the results for understanding the interactions between first farmers and woodlands in the wider North Atlantic region.

Integrated non-invasive survey in the Stonehenge ‘triangle’, Amesbury, Wiltshire, has highlighted a number of features that have a significant bearing on the interpretation of the site. Among them are periglacial and natural topographical structures, including a chalk mound that may have influenced site development. Some geophysical anomalies are similar to the post-holes in the car park of known Mesolithic date, while others beneath the barrows to the west may point to activity contemporary with Stonehenge itself. Evidence that the ‘North Barrow’ may be earlier in the accepted sequence is presented and the difference between the eastern and western parts of the enclosure ditch highlighted, while new data relating to the Y and Z Holes and to the presence of internal banks that mirror their respective circuits is also outlined.

This paper is intended as a sequel, reaching into the Early Iron Age, to the preceding one by Professor Childe on ‘The Final Bronze Age in the Near East and in Temperate Europe.’ When he and I were invited to prepare these papers first, as addresses to the Prehistoric Society's Conference in London in April 1948, we purposely agreed to do most of our work on them separately, he approaching the problem of the European Bronze—Iron Age transition from its Bronze Age end, and I from its Iron Age end. But now, through his kindness, I am writing with his paper in its final form before me; and I want therefore to begin by considering what he has written, in order to fit my contribution squarely into his. I shall then turn to Italy, and to its relations with Europe beyond the Alps and with Greece and the Orient, and so approach the Hallstatt question and the Final Bronze Ages of the North and West, upon which the Iron Age, in due time, supervened. I am most grateful to Childe for his approval to this course; and his paper is truly so important, that I cannot but make it the starting-point for mine.

South-east Italy, from the spur to the heel of Italy's boot, forms a natural geographic and cultural unit, separated from the Balkans by the Adriatic yet joined to them by the same sea. It is an area of plain and plateau bounded to the west and north by the Apennines, which come down to the sea at the Gulf of Taranto and again north of the Gargano peninsula.

Considerably more material for the study of the neolithic cultures in this area has been found since T. E. Peet drew attention to their interest nearly forty years ago (II). Yet while the main kinds of pottery are recognised, positive evidence for their succession is still scarce. This is chiefly due to the lack of fully stratigraphic digging, as well as to a tendency to regard the objects found on any single site as ipso facto contemporary with one another or at least as due to a continuous occupation. Some confusion is probably also caused by the number of separate stations all usually called ‘Matera.’ Even so the main phases are now distinguishable, and the chief differences of opinion are regarding the extent to which the characteristic range of pottery of each of these, with all that that implies, continued alongside of the innovations.

The following account based on war-time reading, and brief visits to Matera museum and a number of sites, will stress the view that there was fairly complete replacement: in this and the resulting division into three distinct periods, tentatively indicated by Rellini in 1929 (14c), it goes beyond the views of most Italian archaeologists, as well as previous English resumes. In particular Laviosa-Zambotti in her recent important study of Italian cultures and their relations with Central Europe and the Balkans (8b), while admitting that the various wares are due to a series of influences from outside, concludes that they are truly associated and therefore largely synchronous. This may be due in part to her leaning toward ‘short’ chronologies elsewhere. However, particularly in view of J. S. P. Bradford's remarkable crop-site discoveries (2), it seems worthwhile to set out the existing evidence for a more elaborate scheme, to be tested by future excavations.

Traces of Upper Palaeolithic settlement in Britain have up to the present been confined very largely to the limestone caves of the highland zone. Recent work in Holland, north Germany and Denmark during the last twenty or thirty years by Rust, Mathiassen, Schwabedissen, Bohmers and others suggests that indications of open settlement ought to occur in lowland England. Until the present investigations these were confined to surface industries from East Anglia and north Kent and to the recovery in association with remains of three horses of a small shouldered backed blade and of another without retouch from a deposit of Allerød age at Flixton (site 2) in East Yorkshire.

In the study of the earliest copper metallurgy, copper ornaments have received little attention compared with copper tools. Yet they are of particular interest because they often represent the earliest use of metal other than gold.

Excavations at the Glandy Cross monumental complex during 1991 and 1992 formed part of an integrated programme of evaluation, rescue, and research by Dyfed Archaeological Trust (DAT). Enclosures, pit circles, standing stones, and cairns were excavated and their environs systematically surveyed. Radiocarbon dates show the monumental complex to have been constructed between c. 2190–1530 cal BC. However, the earliest activity at the site may date to c. 4470–4230 cal BC. A defended enclosure was constructed on the peripheries of the complex c. 830–510 cal BC.

The 1991–92 excavation results are presented along with a summary of survey, salvage, and research spanning the period 1981 to 1992. This new data set is tentatively interpreted in terms of historical process and the social practice of monumental construction. A brief commentary on heritage management at Glandy Cross is also presented.

A note on authorship: one of the authors (George Williams) directed the Glandy Cross excavations during 1991–92 and prepared an initial draft of the project report. Following his retirement from DAT a project editor (Trevor Kirk) was commissioned by Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments to guide the project towards publication. This paper was largely penned by the project editor, though the excavation and survey data were produced by George Williams and his fieldwork team. The excavation and survey archives are held at the offices of DAT.

During the spring of 1993 Mr Darren Nichols was searching land near Canterbury with his new metal detector when he made a most interesting discovery. At a shallow depth he unearthed a burial, containing a decorated bronze mirror, a bronze brooch, and the remains of a pot holding cremated bone. The mirror was subsequently identified as being of Iron Age date, bearing a characteristic engraved Celtic design on its reverse. Realising the importance of the find, Mr Nichols reported the discovery to local archaeologists who were able to visit the site and re-excavate the find-spot. These investigations produced a second brooch and further sherds from the very fragmented cinerary urn.

In July 1994 the metalwork from the burial was passed to Dr Ian Stead of the British Museum for detailed study and recording. A year later the finder sold the mirror and brooches at a Sotheby's auction (Sale LN5398, Lot 3) to a private collector, who has very kindly agreed to details of the objects being published here.

This paper summarises the results of the first attempt at systematic study of the megalithic monuments of Wales. Time after time, in the pages of Archaeologia Cambrensis and other journals will be found scattered papers in which the same familiar tombs present themselves; they have formed very inadequate foundations upon which to build, and none of their writers has attempted to place matters upon the only really sound basis, which is that of the study of each and every individual site in the field.

This omission is the more unfortunate because so much destruction has taken place in the last fifty years, and inevitably it has been the less well-known sites which have suffered most. No less inevitably the feeling of gratitude to earlier workers for what they have recorded—frequently under some difficulty—is tempered with one of regret for their failure to cover a wider field, and to replace passing references with plans, sketches, or even a few lines of more detailed description, which would have enabled us to obtain a better picture of the monuments as a whole than is now the case.