The distribution of Mesolithic sites in Wales is controlled to a great extent by the terrain, for physiographically, Wales is a highland block defined on three sides by the sea and for the greater part of the fourth side by a sharp break of slope. Geologically the Principality is composed almost entirely of Palaeozoic rocks, of which the 600-foot contour encloses more than three quarters of the total area. There are extensive regions above 1,500 feet and 2,000 feet and in the north the peaks of Snowdonia and Cader Idris rise to 3,560 feet and 2,929 feet respectively. Indeed North Wales consists of an inhospitable highland massif, skirted by a lowland plateau and cut deeply by river valleys, providing only limited areas for settlement. The hills and mountains of Snowdonia with their extension at lower altitudes into the Lleyn Peninsula, and the ranges of Moelwyn, Manod Mawr, Arenig Fach and Cader Idris, are discouraging obstacles to penetration, save for a short distance along the river valleys. To the east of these peaks are extensive tracts of upland plateau dissected by rivers, bounded on the west by the vale of the river Conway and cleft by the Vale of Clwyd. To the east of this valley lies the Clwydian Range and further again to the east these uplands descend with milder contours to the Cheshire and Shropshire plains.

To the south the district merges into the uplands of Central Wales, which are continuous until they are replaced by the lowland belt of South Wales.

It may well seem presumptuous to attempt a fresh analysis of the Late Bronze Age in the Iberian peninsula, after the numerous contributions which the subject has received in recent years from Spanish archaeologists, and in view of the fact that the Civil War prevented the writer, when Maclver student in Iberian Archaeology, from visiting Spain at all. In fact he would not have dared to make such an analysis, if the recent output of well illustrated books and articles by Spanish archaeologists had not made study from a distance somewhat less hazardous. But the itinerary which political conditions in 1936–8 imposed on him—Portugal first, then south-western France and finally the Rhône basin—at least showed him an aspect of the Late Bronze Age in south-western Europe which is perhaps less obvious to archaeologists who look from Madrid and Barcelona with eyes trained in Central Europe.

Long ago Louis Siret was impressed by the typological lacuna between the copper and bronze implements of early forms in the Iberian peninsula and those which appeared to represent the second and last phase of the local bronze industry. He drew what most archaeologists now recognize to be the right conclusion, namely, that the Early Bronze Age industry of El Argar stagnated and was replaced at a relatively late date by an industry, which had passed through the earlier stages of its development elsewhere, but soon took on a strongly local character. In his recently enunciated Esquema Paletnológico de la Peninsula Iberica Professor Santa Olalla has taken account of this new conception.

The long barrows of Lincolnshire have been the subject of long-term but intermittent interest. One aspect not investigated hitherto is the air photographic evidence for plough-levelled long barrows. Recently completed mapping work in the county by the Aerial Survey section of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME), as part of the National Mapping Programme, has made possible the analysis of the air photographic evidence. This article presents an evaluation of that evidence and considers its significance in terms of the Neolithic of the region.

A comprehensive survey of air photo collections has dramatically increased the number of long barrows known in the county, identifying over 50 examples of levelled sites. The majority are found on the chalk Wolds where the dozen surviving earthwork monuments are located. The distribution of long barrows in the county may now be extended onto the Jurassic Limestone ridge to the west where five examples have been recorded. The Lincolnshire long barrow enclosures have three categories of shape; oval, trapeziform, and oblong. The ditch plan is predominantly full-enclosing, and is found as the distinct form in the eastern region of England. The morphology and dimensions of two sites suggests they may have been a long mortuary enclosure or short cursus.

At Harlaxton in the southern Limestone a long barrow enclosure forms part of an extensive later Neolithic ritual complex which incorporates a multiple pit-alignment as a principal component. The form of the complex appears to be unique and underlines the importance of Harlaxton as an inter-regional link.

Eskbank Nurseries, a market garden allotment some 200 m long and 30 to 40 m wide, lies at approximately 70 m OD on a relatively level terrace overlooking the south bank of the river North Esk (fig. 1). The excavated area is centred on NT320660 and lies within the two superimposed Roman camps first noted as crop marks by St Joseph in 1965 and subsequently excavated by Maxfield in 1972. Her excavation areas I and II were sited to investigate a pit alignment, visible on the aerial photographs and plotted by her (Maxfield 1974, 142, fig. 1). In the event no pits were discovered by excavation, a fact attributable to an unfavourable combination of weather and soil conditions (Maxfield 1974, 150). The pit alignment did not, of course, appear as a crop mark in the deep market-garden soils of the Nurseries but, by extrapolation of Maxfield's plot, it was clear that it must cross the northern half of the allotment, possibly intersecting the north ditch of the earlier of the Roman camps (Maxfield's Camp A) on the west edge of the site.

The Suazoid period lasted some three hundred years (c. AD 1100–1400) in a small geographic area in the Lesser Antilles from Tobago to Southern Martinique. Defined by a relatively narrow ceramic series, the people represented by this material are still poorly understood. Deriving from peoples from mainland South America, they evolved a marine-based settlement area of some 35,000 square miles including six main islands and many smaller ones. This paper discusses the economic basis for one Suazoid group based on evidence from test-pitting an extensive site at Heywoods, Barbados. Formerly a mangrove swamp, the site yielded extensive evidence for a marine-based economy. In addition, the first evidence on Barbados for an Archaic presence (c. 2000 BC) was located, together with Saladoid (c. 2.00 BC–AD 650) and Troumassoid (c. AD 650–1100) activity.

A substantial series of pottery was submitted to me from both the Plumpton Plain sites. Its examination has emphasized the distinction of date between them. It will appear that Site A belongs to the earlier part of the Late Bronze Age, from perhaps about 1000 B.C., whereas Site B cannot be dated before about 750 B.C., and covers the transition to the Early Iron Age in the period approximately centred on 500 B.C.

A recurring theme of the Late Bronze Age is the apparent association between deliberate deposition of material and wet places. Recently, a human skull has been discovered within the basal sediments of a relict mire at Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, dating to the later Bronze Age (c. 1250–840 cal BC). The find, which belonged to a c. 25–35 year old male, was located within a layer of silty wood peat elm deep, representing the ancient root system of a hazel copse and containing many hazelnuts and some charcoal. Palaeopathological investigation established the likelihood that the skull had decomposed before deposition and there are strong parallels between the find and its context and other prehistoric skulls recorded from British wetlands. The connection of the human remains with considerable amounts of hazel wood may also be of significance when viewed within the wider context of similar associations recorded from European bog-bodies. During the course of excavation and survey of the site worked wood fragments were recovered indicating both human and animal (beaver) activity, dating to the later Bronze Age and Early Iron Age respectively. The stratigraphic sequence indicated that organic sedimentation resulted from the rapid flooding of a formerly relatively dry landscape, perhaps as a result of the effects of beaver damming – a possibility which may hold wider implications for the archaeological interpretation of prehistoric pollen data.

The reconstructed roundhouse is everywhere: on the television, in the literature, in the landscape. It has powerful currency in both the public and academic understandings of the vernacular architecture of later British prehistory, in particular for the Iron Age. However, because the focus of these reconstructions is normally on technologies and engineering principles on the one hand, or on the experience of their occupation on the other, the roundhouse reconstruction — even after more than 30 years research around them — in fact currently tells us remarkably little about the past and a great deal about who we understand ourselves to be. This paper will explore what insight roundhouse reconstructions currently do and do not give into later British prehistory and what they may be able to indicate if the act of building is taken as a theme over the technologies of their construction or the experience of their space.

British Iron Age tankards and their handles have been somewhat neglected in recent archaeological literature and so far have not received a separate study. This paper is intended to bring together such information as is available to the writer in the hope that it may prompt a greater interest in this minor field of Iron Age craftsmanship. The first part is a general discussion of those tankards which are either complete or could be reconstructed, their handles, and handles found unassociated with any vessel. The second offers some comment on chronology and typology. The appendix contains a distribution map and an inventory of all the known examples. A list of acknowledgments is at the end, but special mention must be made here to the generosity of Mr R. W. Feachem, who unreservedly placed at the writer's disposal all his material which had been collected for a similar study but which he relinquished on hearing of the present paper.

W. F. Grimes excavated a rectangular earthwork in advance of airport construction in 1944, at Heathrow, Middlesex, and found a timber building of unique ‘concentric-rectangle’ plan, together with penannular house gullies; all these features were thought to be part of the same settlement except for two Neolithic pits. Now it can be seen that a Late Bronze Age occupation attested by scattered pottery and small finds but next to no identifiable structures, was followed by 11 Middle Iron Age round houses, and one or two features that may be Late Iron Age. The rampart of the earthwork overlay at least some of the houses. The rectangular building may be Middle or Late Iron Age: though other Iron Age rectangular buildings are now known, its concentric plan remains unique in Britain and resembles that of some Romano–Celtic temples. The precise chronological relationship of the strong earthwork, the round houses and the rectangular building remains uncertain.

The most complete section of the glacial series of deposits described and illustrated in Lamplugh's classic paper entitled “On the drifts of Flamborough Head” is that which is located at Danes' Dyke.

Referring to this section Lamplugh says:—

“I have spent much time in exploring this section, and consider that the beds up to this horizon represent the Basement Clay, while the persistent upper band of brown Boulder-clay (3) is all that remains of the upper Clay of Sewerby, this bed and the underlying sand and gravel (3b) together taking the place of the Purple Clays of Bridlington and Holderness. Above this clay lie the Sewerby Gravels (2b), the lower part chalkless and the upper layers composed chiefly of chalk-pebbles, as noticed farther west. A few feet of loamy stuff overlies these gravels at the cliff top (2c), resembling a weathered Boulder-clay, and a little farther east (near Hartindale Gutter) a seam of Boulder-clay certainly appears in these gravels, their contemporaneity with the uppermost part of the Boulder-clay, and consequently their Glacial age, being thus fully established.”

Landscape geophysical survey around the small upland ‘henge’ at Yarnbury, Grassington, North Yorkshire revealed few anthropogenic features around the enclosure but did identify a small rectangular structure in the same field. Sample trenching of this feature, radiocarbon and archaeomagnetic dating proved it to be an earlier Neolithic post and wattle structure of a type that is being increasingly recognised in Ireland and the west of Britain. It is the first to be recognised in the Yorkshire Dales and it is argued that the Dales may have been pivotal in the Neolithic for east–west trade as well as pastoral upland agriculture.

With the working of high level dry gravels now such a rarity, students of palaeolithic archaeology have to be extremely grateful for the large collections of implements made from them when various pits were open. Although these collections have drawbacks, the chances of recovering so great a quantity of specimens from so many localities may never occur again. It is well-known that the majority of the large palaeolithic collections were made by the purchasing of specimens from workmen employed in the gravel pits. The provenance or horizon of any artifact may therefore be debatable, as it depends on the integrity of unknown people. There are stories of hand-axes from prolific, famous sites being taken to other sites in order to increase their market value. Some of these stories are undoubtedly true, but it would have required a thorough knowledge of typology and Pleistocene geology to have perpetrated any large-scale fraud and, as none of the large collections of labelled specimens have ever been in marked contrast with more recent finds, their validity can be generally accepted. If forgeries were purchased it is of no consequence for they would be evident as such. The only serious objection to these older collections being used as a basis for palaeolithic study is that they rarely give a true representation of the artifacts contained in the deposit: flakes were rarely preserved and ruder workmanship was often unrecognized.

Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age chronology in Greece remains obscure due to a lack of stratified deposits and radiocarbon dates. In this paper the Greek evidence is considered in the light of typological parallels, stratigraphic sequences, and the larger series of radiocarbon dates available from the south-east European cultures, and a tentative chronology for Greece and south-east Europe is presented. The evidence does not support the earlier notion of an overlap between the Thessalian Rachmani period and the Early Helladic period of southern Greece, but rather suggests that Rachmani is essentially contemporary with the southern Greek Final Neolithic. The Final Neolithic–Early Bronze Age transition in southern Greece shows affinities to Petromagoula in Thessaly and the Boleráz culture of Europe. Several radiocarbon dates place the Boleráz period in the early 5th millennium BP, suggesting that dates from FN–EBA transitional contexts in Greece may, in the future, help to fill the existing early 5th millennium gap in the Greek radiocarbon date series.

In terms of their interpretation, cursus monuments remain arguably the most enigmatic class of Neolithic landscape monument. This paper reconsiders this ‘cursus problem’ through the study of the complex of cursuses that surrounds the village of Rudston, East Yorkshire. Using a GIS-based analysis, it is argued that two distinct forms of architecture can be recognised. In the earlier phase it is possible to recognise the importance of somatic experience generated through movement along the interior of the monuments, incorporating elements of visual surprise in addition to constant visual relationships with earlier monuments. By the later phase, somatic experience becomes less important, with the cursus forming a more naturalised role in harmony with the natural landscape and less structured for movement. The results of this analysis have wider implications for the study of both cursus landscapes elsewhere and prehistoric landscape archaeology more generally.

The ancient field system on Horridge Common, Ilsington, on the southern slopes of Dartmoor (fig. 1) has been known to scholars since 1954 but has never been studied in detail. In 1964 the owner of the adjoining Bagtor wood felled some timber and in order to remove it, had a broad track bulldozed from the Rippon Tor rifle range north-eastwards along the hill-side and across the field system, despite the fact that this was a scheduled ancient monument. In September 1965 Mr W. J. Hopkins, a ‘small-scale reviser’ of the Ordnance Survey, plotted the new track and noticed the palstave in the loose soil which had been churned up recently. The implement was eventually sent to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum at Exeter, where I saw it; in May 1966, Mr Hopkins kindly visited the site with me and marked the exact position of the discovery (fig. 2). It was obvious that the palstave was not the usual south-western type and that its discovery within a Dartmoor field system was of particular interest; accordingly Mr Dennis Britton was asked to describe it and with the assistance of Mr D. Walling a survey was undertaken of the relevant group of huts and fields adjoining (fig. 2).

After fire swept across 2.5 km2 of heather moorland the detail of a wide range of archaeological features was revealed. Among these was a so-far unique small circular monument, the principal component of which was a circle of near-upright slabs set in a shallow trench. The stones included one with a complex pecked geometric design reminiscent of some Grooved Ware ceramic decoration, and another with more commonly found cup-mark and linear motifs. Limited excavation was undertaken in response to disturbance of the monument and it was discovered that the stone with complex decoration had been reshaped for its monumental setting, having perhaps previously been a free-standing decorated monolith. In its altered form the stone formed part of a small circular arena, the interior face of which may have included alternating decorated and undecorated stones. The open arena had later been filled with rubble creating a small cairn, its material including a small block detached from the main stone as well as a number of cup- and other marked stones. Apart from the decorated stones there were no diagnostic artefacts and no direct dating information was present. It is suggested that the decorated stones originate in the later Neolithic period and that the monument containing them was constructed in the Early Bronze Age.

Sand quarrying in 1989 at Sand Fiold, Sandwick, in Orkney resulted in the accidental discovery of a rock-cut chamber containing a cist. Subsequent excavation revealed that this cist had a number of unusual features. The cist slabs had been fitted together exceptionally well and the completed cist was designed to be re-opened by the removal of a side slab. Within the chamber, access was provided to the opening side of the cist and a relieving structure was built over its capstone.

The cist contained cremation and inhumation burials that had been inserted on more than one occasion; as its builders intended. A collection of poorly preserved unburnt bone was found to comprise the remains of two individuals: a young adult and a foetus. Two collections of cremated bone, each derived from a single adult, were also present; one in a Food Vessel Urn, the second forming a pile on the floor and containing two burnt antler tines and two unburnt human teeth. The un-urned cremation deposit and the unburnt bones had been covered in mats of plant fibres derived from grass and sedge. The urn had been lined with basketry, also made from grass. Outside the cist, an exceptionally large collection of fuel ash slag (FAS), derived from a cremation pyre, had been deposited between the cist and the wall of the rock-cut chamber.

Radiocarbon dates indicate that the site and its contents had a long history. The FAS and the foetus skeleton date to 2900–2500 cal BC. Between 2200 and 1900 cal BC the urned cremation and young adult human bones were inserted and charcoal was deposited in the foundation slots for the back wall of the cist. The deposition of the un-urned cremation was dated to 1000–800 cal BC, some 900 years later, when the urn had already fallen over and broken. At this time, it is assumed that the urn was restored to an upright position and propped with stones, while the stone lid for the urn was reused in the foundation slot of the left-hand side of the cist. Reuse and refurbishment over two millennia seem evidenced in the results from this cist.

This paper examines interactions between co-occupants of riverine niches in north-west Europe during the Late Upper Palaeolithic using both ecological and archaeological data. It is argued that consideration of both the Lateglacial record and autecology of eel, beaver and horse supports a reinterpretation of some famous but enigmatic panels of Magdalenian mobiliary art as representations of eel fishing, along with horse and beaver exploitation in disturbed riverine habitats. It is further suggested that this constitutes a humanly co-constructed niche in ecological, nutritional, and symbolic terms, which was also particularly advantageous for human well-being and social development in this time and place.