Many of Pembrokeshire's 58 coastal promontory forts are iconic and well-known monuments. They occur in a density unparalleled in the rest of Wales. Morphology is highly variable, as is Pembrokeshire's ever-changing coastal geology, from resistant granite in the north to softer limestones and sandstones in the south. New surveys by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) of three promontory forts on the Castlemartin Peninsula in south Pembrokeshire – Linney Head Camp, Flimston Bay Camp, and Greenala Point Fort – have demonstrated how complex and different each of these sites is and, as part of a wider study of the Castlemartin Peninsula, have raised new questions concerning our understanding of this monument type. Dominating and shaping the discussion is our modern-day perception that coastal promontory forts are remote, exposed, and dangerous places. How much is this an accurate portrayal of prehistoric attitudes to the sea or was their outlook more mundane and practical? Did coastal promontory forts share identical functions as defended domestic/agricultural settlements, exploiting a seaward position for ease of defence, or were they indeed special places? Their highly variable architecture – coupled with some unusual characteristics of topography and setting – may indicate varying functions among even closely neighbouring sites. The evidence revealed from the study suggests that some coastal promontory forts may have been exclusively used for ceremonial or seasonal activity, while others may have been quite different prestigious residences investing heavily in monumental architecture. In conclusion, there is considerable merit in the detailed resurvey and re-investigation of coastal promontory forts within distinct regional groups to shed new light on our understanding of this later prehistoric monument type.

This paper examines the containment and covering of people and objects in burials throughout later prehistory in Britain. Recent analyses of grave assemblages with exceptionally well-preserved organic remains have revealed some of the particular roles played by covers in funerary contexts. Beyond these spectacular examples, however, the objects involved in covering and containing have largely been overlooked. Many of the ‘motley crew’ of pots and stones used to wrap, cover, and contain bodies (and objects) were discarded or destroyed by antiquarian investigators in their quest for more immediately dazzling items. Organic containers and covers – bags, coffins, shrouds, blankets – are rarely preserved. Our study brings together the diverse and often elusive objects that played a part in covering and containing prehistoric burials, including items that directly enclosed bodies and objects, and those that potentially pinned together (now mostly absent) organic wraps. Overall, we contend, wrapping, covering, and containing were significantly more prevalent in prehistoric funerary practices than has previously been recognised.

Ring cairns in Wales have been viewed as a discrete form of structured cairn, a stony ring enclosing an open central area, dating to the second millennium be, whose distinctive character may reflect a particular role not primarily connected with the interment of the dead. Fifteen likely ring cairns were noted in cairn groups on five ridges in SE Dyfed and on the Gower Peninsula. Although the position of ring cairns on these ridges to some extent overlaps that of other cairns, ring cairns tend towards locations particularly dominated by higher ground which are not so favoured by the other cairns. A range of structural elaborations was present amongst the ring cairns including kerbing, in-filled interiors, orthostats in the bank, and breaks in the ring possibly representing entrances.

Two ring cairns adjacent to each other, GCRC I and II, on Cefn Bryn, Gower were excavated. GCRC I was a stony ring bank, originally with two entrances, one of which had been blocked in antiquity. It enclosed an open area at the centre of which was a pit containing a very little burnt bone. GCRC II comprised a ring bank of stone with inner kerb, against which was a pit containing earth and charcoal flecks. It certainly had one entrance, which was deliberately blocked perhaps at the same time as the interior was filled with stone to the level of the top of the kerb. The pit contents at the rings each gave mid-ind millennium be radiocarbon dates. It is possible that the pit fill at GCRC I came from an earlier burial elsewhere so the determination may not reflect the time of deposition at GCRC I.

A case can be argued that ring cairns in the area were built for the public performance of ceremonial on the basis of the apparent absence of formal burial at GCRC I and II, and the structure and siting of the monuments suggesting their suitability as arenas. Ceremonial may have been connected with mortuary ritual, although undated evidence for early agricultural activity in the vicinity of the rings indicates a potentially wider social and economic context for their use. While aspects of the evidence for activity at the two excavated ring cairns may be paralleled at structurally similar monuments in N Wales and S W England, some variations in form and activity are apparent which could indicate differences of emphasis during the time they were in use across the region. Finally, ring cairns are not the only form of broadly contemporary monument to which a ceremonial role can be assigned, and the differences in monumental form could well reflect different ritual requirements, or even social distinctions though too little work has been undertaken as yet on possible social models for the region for this idea to be developed.

A petrographic analysis of 74 Ausonian (Late Bronze Age) sherds from the Acropolis of Lipari (Aeolian Islands, Sicily) was undertaken to ascertain whether they represent intrusive mainland Italian Subapenninian and Protovillanovan imports, as their typology might suggest, or were the products of an indigenous island economy. The sample included ‘impasto’ and painted pottery and was extended to include 15 Apenninian sherds from the preceding Milazzese cultural phase. The Acropolis has an almost unbroken stratified ceramic succession from the Middle Neolithic to the early historic period and the site is located in an island with a restricted, but well defined, volcanic geology. The petrographic evidence indicates that the Ausonian pottery is the product of the indigenous insular economy using both local and imported materials. This conclusion suggess that new ceramic forms were quickly transposed by the ‘native’ potters of Lipari to produce an indigenous ‘Subapenninian’ and ‘Protovillanovan’ range of wares.

Discoveries of organic remains are rare on Late Stone Age sites in southern Africa. However, it is known from numerous historical records that in the case of the Wilton people the perishable elements of the material culture were in many cases the most important aspects of the tool-kit of Late Stone Age man.

The prehistoric settlements at Gwisho hot-springs, Lochinvar, Zambia, assume particular importance, for excellent circumstances of preservation have enabled us to make an exceptionally complete reconstruction of Late Stone Age economy and material culture in a savannah woodland and riverside environment. The object of this paper, in advance of a comprehensive study, is to describe some of the wooden implements found at the sites during recent excavations.

An evaluation of the concept of ‘Lower Perigordian‘ is attempted in this paper. The conclusion of this work suggests that the Lower Perigordian is a fallacious concept, that it can no longer be accepted as the first stage of the French Upper Palaeolithic, and that the so-called Lower Perigordian stone industries may not even represent a unified stage in the development of stone-tool technology.

The terms ‘industry’ and ‘assemblage’ will be used in this paper in the sense defined by Braidwood (1946, 133–6). An industry is a collection of tools of one category of material (here stone or bone only) which appears in archaeological context, or in an untransported geological context. An assemblage is ‘… a variety of categories of artifacts and non-artifactual materials which appears in archaeological context.’ The non-artifactual aspect of an assemblage most notably provides information on geological context and physical relationships. Many of the collections of tools to be dealt with below can in no way be considered assemblages, but we still know something of their archaeological contexts, so they have not yet sunk to the level of Braidwood's ‘aggregations’. ‘Culture’ will be used in its anthropological sense to mean the whole of patterned, learned behaviour shared by a group of human beings, and the effects of this behaviour on material artifacts. If set off by quotation marks, ‘culture’ may refer also to the ‘material culture’ of other writers or be a convenient translation of the French word ‘civilization.’

It is so rare for Palaeolithic artifacts to be found unequivocably stratified beneath glacial till, that the recent report by Alabaster and Straw (1976) of such an occurrence in Lincolnshire warrants some comments. Three hand-axes (fig. 1) were found between 1969 and 1973 in the quarry of Stephen Toulson and Son Ltd at Welton-le-Wold (TF 282884, 5 km west of Louth). They were found in association with fragmentary faunal remains of elephant, deer, horse and possibly Irish Giant Deer (see appendix by Boylan, in Alabaster and Straw 1976). Both artifacts and fauna came from a narrow zone in the Upper Division of the Welton Gravels underlying some 13 m of glacial till. This Upper Division, comprising silts, sands and flint gravels, is considered to have been deposited by periglacial aeolian and niveofluvial processes, whereas the Lower Division contains more water-bedded sands. The conclusion of the investigators was that as the animals represented could not have lived under the severe environmental conditions that prevailed during the accumulation of this Upper Division of the gravel, they had presumably been derived from an earlier temperate, interglacial deposit. The relative concentration of animal remains, the finding of two conjoinable elephant molars and the fairly fresh state of the artifacts suggests that they had not travelled far before coming to rest in the gravel. No sediment was traced in the quarry area which could have been a likely source.

Sixteen accessory or pygmy cups of the Early Bronze Age front Lincolnshire are illustrated and discussed for the first time: many were previously unpublished. The possible origins of the cups are considered and it is suggested that they had organic counterparts in domestic use more suitable for the lifestyle of the early 2nd millennium BC. The use of grog tempered fabrics is considered, leading to the concept of ritual use of the cups in traditional rites connecting society with its past. In the Early Bronze Age it seems very likely that the use of pottery was restricted to special occasions, and the cups in particular were used for drinking and smoking sessions, recognisable as part of both modern and past social gatherings and ceremonies.

The paper re-examines arguments concerning the early development of early Celtic (La Tène A) art and its relations with the Mediterranean world. Taking as a focus the recent spectacular discoveries below the hillfort of the Glauberg north-east of Frankfurt, the Celtic approaches to representations of the human form are analysed and the complex question of meaning and the relationship of early Celtic art to contemporary belief systems discussed. As a brief coda, the striking changes which took place in many parts of the early Celtic world after c. 400 BC are referred to in the context of the major population movements of the time, notably those which brought settlers from north of the Alps to Italy.

It is intended in this paper to describe briefly the occurrence and, to a limited extent, the variety of ornamented metal axes belonging to the earlier part of the British and Irish Bronze Age, rather than to publish the results of an exhaustive study, such as the present writers have had no opportunity of making. The present aim is to indicate in a general way the importance of these axes in the material culture of our Bronze Age, and that of Western and Northern Europe. The objects themselves have been well discussed up to a point by Wilde (51) and Evans (23), but without special consideration of the significance of their distribution and associations.

These ornamented axes, which are of the ‘flat’ or ‘flanged’ type, are apparently all of bronze. Some analyses have been made (3, 27, 42), but without spectrographic examination (48) it is difficult to draw any definite conclusions as to the source of the ores used or the place of manufacture. Open moulds for casting axes of the ‘flat’ form (e.g. pl. LIII, c, d) have been found in various parts of the British Isles, and their distribution is discussed on page 287.

The results of an area-intensive surface collection survey are described and evidence for a coarse-grained response to the distribution of resources is presented. Surface collection surveys have occurred over many areas of southern England with attention focused especially on the neolithic landscape of the monument zone. The results of such surveys provide an indication of the social landscape within which monument building occurred. However, to fully appreciate human behaviour in an active and emergent landscape, the results of similar investigations from what appear passive landscapes must be available as well as evidence for human exploitation in earlier and later periods. The upper Meon valley survey represents one of only few attempts to redress that imbalance and to assess objectively the nature of occupation away from the monument zone throughout the prehistoric period. The results demonstrate an intensity of occupation equal to that in other parts of Wessex but confined, predominantly, to the mesolithic and earlier neolithic periods. The survey also provides a case-study in interpretation. The emphasis is less on places than on the space in which they occurred.

This study attempts to define patterns in the artefact distributions from subsoil features at Winklebury Camp, an early Iron Age hillfort in lowland Britain. Two aims are identified: the first is to elucidate the nature and organization of past human activities within early Iron Age hillforts; the second is to determine whether meaningful patterns can be identified within the artefact distributions preserved in subsoil features. A variety of hypotheses drawn from the literature are presented and these are compared with the results of a number of statistical techniques. It is possible to distinguish patterns within the artefact distributions from Winklebury and some interesting results are produced. Specifically, it can be suggested that Winklebury was not participating in specialized craft production, that round-houses had a variety of functions, and that four-posters did not have a domestic function.

The site whose excavation is here recorded is a small kite-shaped enclosure all but obliterated by ploughing. It is situated (ST (179) 942197; 6-inch sheet ST 91 NW) at the southern tip of a spur known as Berwick Down 1 mile north of the village of Tollard Royal on the borders of Wiltshire and Dorset. It is surrounded on its south or downhill side by a semi-circular bank and ditch. The locality has been recently described briefly by H. C. Bowen and P. Fowler whose plan (1966, 46–8, fig. 2) is here reproduced (fig. 2). The other two sites occupying the 16 acres of the spur comprise:

(1) An Iron Age settlement to the north consisting of a concentration of unenclosed pits, a large round house demarcated by a pennanular palisade groove and two cross-dykes.

(2) A circular enclosure 2½ acres in extent containing Romano-British hut platforms and crossed in its southern sector by a modern fence. To the north of this fence the earthworks have never been ploughed and are in a state of preservation, only too rarely found in southern England. To the south of the fence the downland has been heavily ploughed over a number of years.

The earthworks of the kite-shaped enclosure had become so degraded that in 1962 the Ministry of Public Building and Works initiated a trial excavation under the direction of Mr E. Greenfield. With the assistance of Miss V. Russell, Mr Greenfield covered the area with a 10 foot grid of test-holes which were expanded into trenches when required. In 1965 the site was put down to grass and the earthworks planned in the spring by members of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, by which time the bank and ditch of the kite-shaped enclosure were virtually invisible. In August and September of that year the interior of the enclosure was completely stripped by the author on behalf of the Ministry of Public Building and Works.

The burial chamber of the Clyde-Carlingford cairn at Beacharra, Kintyre, Argyll, was excavated in 1892 by members of the Kintyre Scientific Association. The finds, consisting of six pots, a jet slider or belt-fastener and a utilized flint flake, were placed in Campbeltown Museum. A newspaper account of the excavation appeared at the time, and with the aid of this and of information from Mr A. Gray, who had been in charge of the excavation, T. H. Bryce was able to compile the first proper report upon the excavation. This he incorporated in the first of two papers on the cairns of Arran. A sketch plan of the burial chamber, prepared in 1892 by Mr P. Mackay and now in the records of the Kintyre Antiquarian Society, is reproduced (fig. 1).

The importance of the pottery from Beacharra was fully recognized by Bryce, but it was not until 1929 that it was related by J. G. Callander to Scottish Neolithic pottery as a whole. Subsequently this evidence was analysed and placed in its British and European context by V. G. Childe and S. Piggott. In 1935 Childe introduced the term Beacharra to describe the pottery from sites of the Clyde-Carlingford culture in Scotland. The term was retained and the classification developed into Beacharra A, B and C by Piggott for the Clyde-Carlingford culture as a whole. More recently, and inadvisedly in the present state of knowledge, it has been suggested that the use of the term Beacharra, at least insofar as pottery from Ireland is concerned, should be discontinued.

The main object of this article is to describe the material from three microlithic sites in south-west England, and to interpret them in the light of present information. Two of the sites are in Somerset, at Shapwick and Middlezoy on the Burtle Beds in the vicinity of Bridgwater, and the third is in Cornwall at Dozmare Pool on Bodmin Moor (fig. 1). Thanks are due to the authorities of the following museums for their kind cooperation: The County Museum, Taunton; The Torquay Natural History Museum; The Plymouth Museum; The Exeter Museum; The County Museum, Truro; and the British Museum.

The Isle of Thanet, no doubt on account of its proximity to the Continent, has during the flow of the centuries experienced its full share of the tide of human immigration and invasion. The Birchington district in particular appears to have been singled out for settlement in ancient times. Flints ranging in age from Palaeolithic to Neolithic have been recovered from various localities, whilst out on the Flats directly facing Minnis Headland, pottery of Roman, Jutish and Saxon character has been found. The most recent addition to the sequence is the considerable occupation area of Late Bronze Age date found by the late ‘Jimmy’ Beck opposite the Minnis Bay esplanade slipway some 210 yards from dry land. The exact position of the site is marked by a black dot on fig. 1. During the Late Bronze Age, no doubt, the present Minnis Bay Flats, scene of the excavations described in this paper, formed the floor of a seaward extension of the valley flanked on the one hand by the Minnis Headland and on the other by the Rifle Range land, both of which must have stretched considerably further out in the Thames Estuary than they do to-day. The fact that the site could only be excavated between tides, being covered by several feet at high water, imposed a severe limitation on the excavations described in this paper.

The pottery illustrated on Plates XXI-XXII and figures 1 and 2 was found some forty years ago by the Rev. W. Budgen at Green Street Drove, Eastbourne (Budgen 1922). It is displayed in the Lewes Museum, and I must thank the curator Mr N. E. S. Norris for permission to study and republish it.

Three of the vases stand out from the others because they are misformed wasters—‘cripples’ Budgen called them. It is most likely that they were fired at the same time and it seems reasonable to treat this small series as a closed group. They appear, in any case, to have been found in the same pit (Budgen 1922, 355). The rest of the pottery, or at least the more complete vessels, could have formed part of the same assemblage, but there does not seem sufficient evidence to insist on any further associations within this material.

Whether associated or not, the pottery merits republication as a whole, both for its intrinsic interest and as a tribute to the skill and patience bestowed on its reconstruction by Budgen, and one purpose of this paper will be simply to present this material. However, the small group of three ‘cripples’ raises some fundamental problems of interpretation and the main part of the paper will attempt to discuss some aspects of the British Iron Age and its classification in a more general way.

It is now nearly 20 years since the late W. F. Rankine first drew attention to the use of Portland Chert as prehistoric material (Rankine, 1951). He mapped the distribution of such artifacts in southern England, as known to him. No attempt was made to differentiate between artifacts of different cultural affinities or periods. Also, when he wrote, hardly anything was known of the prehistory of the Isle of Portland, Dorset, and of the immediate neighbourhood where the chert occurs in natural form.

During the past few years rich stone age habitation sites and workfloors have been found on the Island and along the landward shore of the Fleet nearby (Palmer, 1963–1968). Research is continuing in the area. This lends far greater importance to the question of the distribution of Portland Chert artifacts.

The present paper will assess the significance and scope of the distribution of Portland Chert artifacts in relationship to the industries in the Portland area. Investigations in the field and in numerous museums and private collections have greatly lengthened Rankine's original list of Portland Chert artifacts. It is likely that even now numerous specimens in other collections have not been traced, and that the distribution of these artifacts is even wider than suggested by the present list (Appendix A).

Ardleigh lies midway between Colchester on the River Colne, and Manningtree on the estuary of the Stour, the distance from each place being about four miles. Vinces Farm covers an area roughly half a mile to a mile south of Ardleigh church on the road to Great Bromley. The farm lies on a plateau, 110 feet above sea level, and has no particular geographical feature other than its flatness. The soil is a medium loam over gravel and requires no artificial drainage. Grid Ref. TL/056284.

The land has been under arable cultivation for centuries, but not until 1955 was a deep-digging plough introduced, ploughing to a depth of a foot or more. In September of that year the plough brought up sherds of Roman pottery in the Long Eleven Acres field (O.S. 716) and with these, sherds of Bronze Age ware.