Since 1998 archaeological investigations on Holme-next-the-Sea beach have recorded the waterlogged remains of two Bronze Age timber circles, timber structures, coppiced trees, metal objects, and salt- and freshwater marshes. The second timber circle (Holme II) is only the third waterlogged structure of its type to be discovered in Britain and only the second to be dated by dendrochronology. The felling of timbers used in Holme II has been dated to the spring or summer of 2049 bc, exactly the time as the felling of the timbers used to build the first circle (Holme I). This shared date provides the only known example of two adjacent monuments constructed at precisely the same time in British prehistory. It also informs comparisons between Holme II and other British timber circles and therefore helps develop interpretations. This paper suggests Holme II was a mortuary monument directly related to the use of Holme I.

The timber circle and other sites within the Sarn-y-bryn-caled ritual complex were excavated in advance of the construction of the Welshpool bypass and published in this journal in 1994 (Gibson 1994). The radiocarbon dating undertaken at the time relied totally on charcoal and, in the case of site 1 (the timber circle) and site 2 (a small panannular ring ditch), oak charcoal was the only available material. At the time, it was not possible to date cremated bone but now with this facility at our disposal, it seemed appropriate to redate these two important sites to check the existing dating and refine that dating if possible.

The first season's digging at Star Carr, Seamer, was confined to the examination of a single cutting and a lateral extension from this, the whole area amounting to no more than 475 square feet. The second season's work carried out in June and July 1950 was aimed first and foremost at learning more about the character of the brushwood flooring revealed in 1949 and in increasing the range of data bearing on the culture of the mesolithic hunters and on the wild animals on which they subsisted. Cuttings (II and III) were accordingly opened on either side of the original one, but three-foot balks were retained so as to prevent loose peat and water pouring from the original cutting into the new workings (fig. 1). The width of cuttings II and III was maintained at three yards so that the peat overlying the archaeological level could be dumped without harrowing. The new cuttings were started three yards south of datum, in view of what had been learnt in the previous season about the limits within which organic materials survived. Cutting II was extended southward well out into the lake bed, but cutting III was not carried out so far owing to the seepage of water from the lateral extension from the original cutting. The total area examined in cuttings II and III was approximately 747 square feet.

Eight years ago Grahame Clark published in these Proceedings a fundamental study of the earlier prehistory of archery in north-western Europe (Clark, 1963), and last year Roger Mercer developed the theme in a discussion of the evidence provided by metal arrow-heads from Reinecke Bronze B to Hallstatt D (Mercer, 1970). Between these two papers there may be thought to be little opportunity for useful additional comment, but within the ambit of the Beaker cultures of Europe (discussed only incidentally by Clark, and antecedent to Mercer's survey) some evidence seems worth critical examination, and such an examination is offered here as a footnote to Clark's wide-ranging paper. The primary suggestion to be made is that certain distinctive forms of arc-shaped or bow-shaped pendants from a restricted group of Beaker graves are in fact miniature representations, in some detail, of actual archers' bows of uniform type.

This paper discusses whether a consideration of the capacity of rocks to affect humans in terms of their charisma or object-agency can aid in understanding identified variation in patterns of lithic procurement, distribution, and use. Lithic assemblages at sites dating to both the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in two separate areas of the central mountain plateau in southern Norway demonstrate use of locally available rock. Their use contrasts with that of flint which could only be sourced at the coast. While the use of flint in regions with a restricted range of available and suitable rock types is understandable, the presence of flint in regions rich in flint alternatives is more puzzling. In order to understand the choices and actions of prehistoric communities we must consider other factors, such as a sensorial exploration of the ability of raw materials to affect humans, together with the diverging ontological perspectives that shape human–material relations and the social situations of practice. This paper argues that, in addition to their straightforward utility, lithic raw materials had socially situated object-agency and inherent characteristics of charisma and that these exerted powerful influences on human choice, perception, and preference.

Archaeologists of earlier generations were often interested exclusively in the artifacts of early man. We have now learned that the geological context in which they are found and the natural objects associated with them are often as important as the artifacts themselves for the reconstruction of the way of life of ancient peoples. The soil itself, in which archaeological objects occur, can, in certain cases, tell us something about the way in which it has been formed and therefore about the environment and habits of the people concerned.

This paper is a small selection from our ‘case-book’ in the Department of Environmental Archaeology of the London University Institute of Archaeology, designed to illustrate some of our methods and giving results from a number of Bronze Age monuments which have been studied during the last few years.

This particular material was chosen because the problems presented by the individual sites are linked, in many cases, by a constantly recurring question as to how the climate of the British Bronze Age differed from that of the present day. The amount of soil evidence now accumulating does point, on the whole, to a Bronze-Age climate characteristically different.

There is no feature of quaternary cave art that has called forth more admiration for the Aurignacians and Magdalenians than the apparent liveliness and naturalness of action in their pictured animals. The general belief seems to be that the artists were impelled by a definite desire to depict characteristic actions. This is implied by the titles that have been given to various examples such as ‘The trotting boar,’ ‘The bellowing bison,’ ‘The charging mammoth,’ ‘The wounded and falling reindeer,’ ‘The galloping reindeer,’ ‘The browsing reindeer,’ ‘The neighing horse.’

Yet there are excellent reasons for asking whether the general acceptance of these beliefs has not been too casual and whether the spirit of enquiry might not have carried us much further in this field than it has so far done.

The faults in the action of many of the pictures have received much consideration and it is perhaps fair to say that the following quotation represents current general opinion regarding the matter. ‘We cannot,’ says Mr Baldwin Brown, ‘credit our palaeolithic artist with either the desire or the capacity for analysing and reproducing the actual movements which instantaneous photography has now revealed to us. Many actions which he rendered in the walk or the canter, accord fairly well with the well-known Muybridge photographs, though where the difference comes in the artist gives a more convincing appearance of movement than the camera. It may therefore be said that as a rule action is rendered in an artistic and not a scientific spirit, and the animals are made at all hazard to look as if they were moving. At the same time there is secured a fairly large measure of scientific accuracy. In two cases … the eye of the hunter artist has been quick enough to catch a position, revealed to us moderns by photography.’

Professor Dorothy A.E. Garrod's 1928 excavation of the Mousterian Layer D at Shukbah Cave in the Wadi en-Natuf (Palestine) has been neglected by prehistorians in favour of the Epipalaeolithic Layer B with its Natufian culture, for which Shukbah is the typesite. The excavation of Layer D is now re-examined with the aid of Garrod's own unpublished documentation and photographs, and the lithic industry analysed in the light of her conclusion that it was the work of a late Middle Palaeolithic hominid population, probably of Neanderthal type. Application of current analytical methods to approximately one half of the recovered assemblage confirms Garrod's correlation of the Shukbah Mousterian with Tabun Layer B in the later model for the Mount Carmel Levantine Palaeolithic succession. Comparison is made, and consistency demonstrated, with the late Mousterian industry of Kebara Cave (Mount Carmel, excavation 1982–90) and the Shukbah D assemblage is further considered in the wider regional context of approximately contemporary sites ranging from southern Jordan to northern Syria. Suggestions are made regarding future excavation at Shukbah.

The object of this essay is to study the effect of shifting Pleistocene climates on the numbers and distribution of early man. The geographical setting for the study is southern Africa. Chronologically, it is concerned with the cultures of the First Intermediate Phase—the Fauresmith and the Sangoan, which flourished in this region during the period 50,000–40,000 B.C.

The main body of the work is devoted to a description of the ecological zones of southern Africa and an evaluation of these zones in terms of their suitability for hominid occupation. Three maps of ecological zones are employed: the first shows the vegetation as it exists under the present climate; the second and third plot the zones as they might appear under conditions of higher and lower rainfall respectively. The regions of southern Africa are then classified on the basis of their long-term favourability for hominid occupation.

The use of this framework enables one to reinterpret the distribution of archaeological materials and to produce revised estimates concerning the numbers of men in the Pleistocene.

The material from the cremation cemetery which was found by Sir T. Zammit in 1915 stratified above the earlier remains in the Tarxien temples raises some of the most fascinating and intricate problems in the whole of Maltese prehistory. Who were these bizarre people, whence did they come to Malta and at what date ? The excavator, basing himself on the ‘Copper Age’ appearance of the culture and the various parallels with early Trojan, Cycladic and Cypriote materials to be observed in it, suggested that their arrival in Malta should be placed somewhere about 2000 B.C. and that they had probably come from the East. Zammit's parallels were, as I hope to show here, basically correct as far as they went, but his chronological inference was invalid because he did not allow sufficient time for the relatively slow cultural movements which brought material of this type from the Eastern to the Central Mediterranean. This was largely due to a failure to trace the intermediate steps in detail, a failure which has not subsequently been made good by any other student. Professor Childe has compared the metal types of the Tarxien Cemetery with Danubian and Sardinian ones, and the two-storied urns with Italian Iron Age types, but admitted that at that time the date of the culture might by reasonably placed anywhere between about 1800 and 800 B.C. The dating question is of great importance, since, if the Tarxien Cemetery can be confidently dated to some period in the second millennium B.C., it provides us with the first known examples of inurned cremation in the Western Mediterranean.

Recent studies have illustrated a series of marked regional differences in the distribution and design of Neolithic monuments throughout lowland England. They fail, however, to provide an interpretative framework for the discussion of these contrasts. This paper proposes that such regional variability can only be understood with a scale of analysis which outlines the fundamental distinctions between political communities in different parts of lowland England. It is argued that factors such as population size and density can be clearly related to the variability from area to area in the number and structural complexity of causewayed enclosures. It is also possible to link these demographic factors to a long-term process of social change whereby the small autonomous groups of the earlier Neolithic were transformed into larger political units. The cursus and henge monuments were an important component of this process, and regional variability in the distribution and design of these sites can be taken to demonstrate that the extent of this transformation differed throughout lowland England. It is evident that there were important contrasts between those regions which had previously been distinguished by the variability in the layout of causewayed enclosures. The stylised morphology of the cursus and henge monuments appears to have deliberately accentuated such contrasts. These sites therefore provide clear evidence for the existence of long-term regional traditions across lowland England.

‘Rising from the middle of the Irish Sea, within sight of each of the three Kingdoms, with a history and associations so distinct, yet so intimately linked with those of the rest of Britain, this interesting Island presents in its geological structure features which connect it alike with England, Scotland, and Ireland, while at the same time it retains a marked individuality in regard to some of the rocks that form its framework.’—Sir Archibald Geikie.

The prehistory no less than the geology of the Isle of Man is of absorbing interest from its geographical position in relation to the larger units of the British Isles. The island is placed (fig. 1) at an equal distance (31 miles) between the coasts of Ireland and of Cumberland; its northern tip, the Point of Ayre, reaches to within 16 miles of Wigtonshire, and Anglesey lies 45 miles to the south of Langness Point. An observer on Snaefell (2034 feet) can view England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales in one sweep. Since the first settlement of the island, cultural and ethnic influences have approached from all directions, but its size (227 sq. miles) and the distance of sea which isolates it from the coasts of the mainlands have been sufficient to ensure vigorous local developments. The interaction of British and Irish influences and the occasional insular developments are the chief features of the prehistory of the island.

Apart from a triangle of flat ground to the north, broken only by the Bride Hills (200–300 feet), and so far as its drift deposits are concerned, relatively recent in origin, the island consists almost entirely of slate diversified by local intrusions of igneous rocks (granite and diabase), by the sandstone of the Peel area, and by the carboniferous limestone of the Castletown district in the south. Most of the area of older rocks lies above the 400 foot contour and quite large areas are more than 1000 feet above sea level. The mountainous mass of the island, divided by the valley between Douglas and Peel, remained almost uninhabited throughout prehistoric and historic times.

Remnant field systems and enclosures are key indicators of social change during the 2nd millennium bc – their study has considerable significance in terms of interpreting the Bronze Age in the eastern region. Despite widespread current interest in the topic, little if any evidence for Middle Bronze Age settlement and land division had been found in Norfolk prior to the investigations at Ormesby St Michael which form the focus of this paper. Here, archaeological excavations uncovered evidence for strip field systems, succeeded by a large and well dated enclosure containing at least two structures. These results are supplemented by cropmark evidence for other elements of the enclosure produced by the National Mapping Programme. When combined, the findings are of great significance since they indicate a Middle Bronze Age date for numerous comparable cropmarks recorded across the region as part of the National Mapping Programme, emphasising the crucial value of such work. It can now be suggested that the apparent dearth of Bronze Age field systems in Norfolk is not 'real', but the combined effect of limited excavation of such sites and misinterpretation of those that have been investigated.

This paper presents a re-examination of Iron Age and early Roman cauldrons, a little studied but important artefact class that have not been considered as a group since the unpublished study of Loughran of 1989. Cauldrons are categorised into two broad types (projecting-bellied and globular) and four groups. New dating evidence is presented, pushing the dating of these cauldrons back to the 4th century bc. A long held belief that cauldrons are largely absent from Britain and Ireland between 600 and 200 bc is also challenged through this re-dating and the identification of cauldrons dating from 600–400 bc. Detailed examination of the technology of manufacture and physical evidence of use and repair indicates that cauldrons are technically accomplished objects requiring great skill to make. Many have been extensively repaired, showing they were in use for some time. It is argued that owing to their large capacity cauldrons were not used every day but were instead used at large social gatherings, specifically at feasts. The social role of feasting is explored and it is argued that cauldrons derive much of their significance from their use at feasts, making them socially powerful objects, likely to be selected for special deposition.

Some seventy years ago, when the tunnel was cut through the Stoke Hills at Ipswich, animal remains were found at a short distance from the London end of it, on a level with the line. These were examined by Professor Prestwich, and though the collection was scattered, a certain number of the bones and teeth of mammals found their way to the Ipswich Museum, where they may still be seen.

In 1908 it struck me that it might be possible to open up some of the sections which were then exposed, and to locate the deposits from which the remains had been taken. This was successfully done, but for fear of the bank above slipping, permission could only be obtained to open a very small portion of the side of the cutting. The researches, however, proved that a varied assortment of animals of the Pleistocene period had either perished on the spot or had been brought down by flood to this position.

This paper is based on work carried out in 1984 to 1986 for an M.Phil, degree at the University of Lancaster. Virtually no work had been done on the subject for over seventy years and, with the exception of one article (Evett 1973), nothing showing the influence of the work of the Implement Petrology Committee of the Council for British Archaeology. Consequently little information was available which could be used as a basis for further research. Three problems were immediately faced: the time available in which to study artefacts in south Italian museums was severely limited; thin-sectioning could not be used; and due to lack of earlier studies data collection would have to be made blind, without reference to any formal model designed to answer previously formulated questions. These problems were all solved, and this paper outlines the development of, and theoretical and practical justifications for, my methodology, the methodology itself, its application to a sample of polished stone artefacts, the data thus obtained and their interpretation, and wider concerns such as the application of this methodology to other areas.

This paper investigates the distribution of artefacts and monuments in one part of the Peak District, in relation to the land use models put forward by Hawke-Smith in 1979. Although these distributions are generally consistent with his predictions, they suggest that communities in newly settled areas may have been of lower status than those near the henge monument of Arbor Low. This distinction is emphasized in the burial rite and by differential access to imported materials.

The background to discoveries of early mining sites in southwest Ireland is examined. Particular attention is devoted to the workings at Mount Gabriel, currently believed to date from the Bronze Age. Working principally from historical sources it is concluded that the site was exploited in shallow workings and trial pits between c. 1852 and 1862. Theories concerning the output of these and other Irish mines are discussed. Palaeoenvironmental and archaeological survey as well as documentary research are recommended to help solve the many outstanding problems.