A Correspondence in Man a few years ago led to the expression of various attitudes towards the nomenclature of Lower Palaeolithic finds. It was agreed that cultural names should not be used to describe distinct techniques, but it was recognised that difficulties of terminology might arise, since techniques may indicate cultural similarities and therefore perhaps connections. When the time factor enters into the problem then other authorities differ. Professor Childe says, ‘where there is the slightest danger of confusing the chronological with the cultural classification, such usage is to be deprecated.’ Yet Professor Garrod later states, ‘the time has come when the labels Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic should be used exclusively in a chronological sense,’ and she refers them to subdivisions of the geological chronology. Nevertheless, as Professor Garrod herself remarks, ‘nine prehistorians out of ten continue to use these terms as more or less synonymous with hand-axe, flake and blade industries respectively,’ so these names have a purely technical or cultural significance. It follows from Professor Childe's sage advice that their chronological application ought to be allowed to fall into disuse. There is a perfectly good chronology supplied by the geologist already, with a world-wide system of five glaciations (Geikie), or their equivalents. Moreover, since it is becoming more and more apparent that the division into hand-axe, flake and blade industries is unsatisfactory (there are blades, according to Burkitt's definition of a blade, in Lower Palaeolithic industries), the threefold division has lost its meaning. I therefore suggest that we label as Lower Palaeolithic all those industries of the Pleistocene not comprised within the purely cultural group association of those predominantly blade industries which are found towards the end of the Upper Pleistocene, and are known as the Upper Palaeolithic. It is the purpose of this paper to clarify the relationship between technique and culture in the Lower Palaeolithic industries, to define more satisfactorily the terms, culture, industry and technique as used by the prehistorian, and to define some, at least, of the major cultural assemblages in North-western Europe.

Few would doubt that prehistorians have come to regard the formulating of models and the testing of hypotheses as among their most important concerns in recent years. This trend towards explaining, rather than merely accumulating data can be regarded partially as reflecting a desire to maintain some degree of command over a rapidly expanding body of information, but also the feeling that prehistoric archaeology has tended to lag behind related behavioural disciplines such as ecology or geography. What has become a highly conspicuous feature of these developments is that prehistorians have tended to undertake two radically different kinds of studies, particularly on prehistoric subsistence. The first relies upon published archaeological data, often accumulated over several years, from regions as large as countries or even continents; the second type, however, tends to be more modest in scope, and based upon a small body of evidence that has been specifically collected from either a small number of sites, or at most, a small region such as a single valley system. Recent studies by Murray (1970) on European neolithic animal husbandry, or by Ammerman & Cavalli-Sforza (1971) on European neolithic dispersal rates are convenient examples of the first type of study: both may be contrasted with the more detailed, localised types of studies on the same topics by Payne (1972) and Barker (1975). Whilst these two approaches may be complementary, it is nevertheless noticeable that they often reach strikingly different conclusions that frequently result from fundamental divergences of opinion about the quality of the data itself, and the most appropriate way to examine it.

When a team of the Archaeological and Anthropological Department of the Cambridge University, working under Mr. Eric Higgs, recently discovered a Mycenaean dagger at the foot of the Kastritsa Mountain (altitude 757 metres), a few metres west of the mouth of the paleolithic cave, it came as no great surprise: for, in the last 15 years, about 10 bronze swords and daggers of Mycenaean provenance have been found in Epirus.

On the other hand, the discovery of the paleolithic cave itself at the western foot of the Kastritsa Mountain, and the finds yielded by its excavation, were as unexpected as they were important. It is hoped that continued excavations of the cave with its deep deposits and clear stratification will throw light on some of the problems connected with Homo Sapiens: his origins, the time of his appearance in Europe, his relation to other groups in Epirus and outside it, the civilization he evolved, and the ecological conditions in which he lived in the last phase of the last Ice Age (Würm III).

A fresh and more extensive excavation of the prehistoric settlement north of the village of Kastritsa, at the eastern foot of the mountain, would not be devoid of interest either, for it would complete the cycle of prehistoric research and probably throw light on the mesolithic occupation of which little is yet known in Greece.

The subject of this note is the chronology of the site of Khirokitia in Cyprus in the light of four recent radiocarbon determinations. Khirokitia has remained one of the most extensively uncovered prehistoric sites in the Levant since its initial excavation over thirty years ago (Dikaios 1953). The fourth millennium BC date then estimated for the site by Dikaios was revised markedly upwards to the mid-sixth millennium following the submission of samples for radiocarbon dating (Dikaios 1962). The fourth millennium estimate had assumed a stratigraphical continuity between the pre-dominantly aceramic occupation of the site and the appearance of well-made pottery in its upper-most levels. Since the radiocarbon samples were taken from aceramic contexts, Dikaios subsequently concluded that the pottery was the product of a re-occupation of the site in the fourth millennium bc, a date based on the ceramic parallels with and the radiocarbon dates from the site at Sotira (Dikaios 1962, 194).

This conclusion is borne out by a re-examination of the published evidence and, less conclusively perhaps because of its limited nature, by the evidence of a small sounding at the site undertaken by the author in 1972 (Stanley Price and Christou 1973). The four main aims of this 2 m square sounding included further observation of the aceramic-ceramic stratigraphy and the collection of additional radiocarbon samples in an attempt to determine the duration of the aceramic occupation.

In September 1986 a small excavation was done by S. T. to investigate an area of primitive-style mine-workings on Copa Hill, Cwmystwyth, Dyfed (SN816756). A small opencast and several overgrown tips associated with pebble hammers occur where the copper-rich Comet Lode outcrops on the brow of the hill. Copa Hill is within an area of seventeenth–twentieth-century lead-mine workings which extend for 1.2 km along the N side of the Ystwyth Valley (fig. 1). Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from within one of the tips suggests that mining commenced in the middle Bronze Age.

This report describes the total excavation of a small, rectangular ditched enclosure measuring 23.5 m by 15 m. It was shown to have been a cemetery enclosure (probably that of a small family group), belonging to the second half of the 1st century BC. Three vessels containing cremation burials were found in pits within the enclosed area, along with nine other funerary bowls, urns and jars. Whilst cremation burials of this date are fairly common, this is the first published example of such a cemetery enclosure from Essex.

The granite upland of Dartmoor has attracted settlers coming into the south-west of Britain from the early Bronze Age (Beaker phase) onwards. The long outline of the moor is visible from the South Devon coast, which with its series of good harbours invites intrusion. The navigable lower reaches of the south-flowing rivers—the Plym, Yealm, Erme, Avon, Dart and Teign—and the ridgeways along their watersheds provide convenient thoroughfares across the intervening coastal belt, the South Hams and the hinterland of Torbay, as far as the foot of the main escarpment. Above this steep ascent, where the granite overlies the Devonian rock formations, and where the rivers run in deep wooded gorges, the moorland mass forms a rolling tableland (1000-1400 feet high), broken only by the profile of the numerous upland valleys or by the fantastic eroded outlines of the tors. It is in this zone (light shading, fig. 1) that the evidence for most of the prehistoric settlement and early cultivation is to be found. Between 1400 and 1500 feet, the ground rises markedly again to the uninhabited northern heights (Yestor 2039 feet) and the southern heights (Ryder's Hill 1692 feet), in which the rivers have their sources and which are now blanketed in peat bog (dark shading, fig. 1). The heights apart, Dartmoor contains a broad tract of elevated open country, well-watered grass and heather moor, ideally suited to sustain a primitive pastoral economy. In many places on the marginal slopes and in the upland valleys a sufficient depth of sandy soil has accumulated on top of the rock to make arable cultivation possible; at present, cultivation ceases at about 1000 feet, which is the normal tres line.

Only three Roman coins varying in date from the late third century AD to about the middle of the fourth century AD were found during the excavations. These came from superficial deposits within the interior of the enclosure, in the area covered by the detailed plans, F, G, and H (see Fig. 5), and are as follows;

The great family of Carp's-Tongue Swords clearly embraces a number of varieties. The anatomization of this considerable mass of material has not yet received the attention it deserves; but the subject is a slippery one, and it is not easy to isolate a starting-point for analysis.

One assemblage, however, of mutually related, idiosyncratic, and uncommon forms can readily be identified, and their position examined. The material consists of two interlocking groups together comprising fourteen swords (or hilts) from ten finds; and a third, closely akin to the second group, represented by three daggers, distinguished alike by a highly specialized form and an uncommonly scattered distribution.

All but one of the swords come from hoards, but I cannot detect that this material significantly differs from the general run of hoards in which Carp's-Tongue swords are commonly found all over Atlantic Europe. In broad terms they may on current views be assigned to Late Bronze 2 or 3; for the strikingly devolved forms found at Monte Sa Idda need be no more than provincialisms. So far as is known all the daggers are unassociated finds.

Parallelopiped bone dice form a small but important group in the bonework of the Scottish Iron Age. The overwhelming mass of this material has been produced by excavations in which the stratigraphy has not, save in exceptional circumstances, been recorded. Moreover, the large assemblages are from sites which give every indication of being multi-period, notably the brochs and wheelhouses of the Atlantic Province (the Province is defined in Piggott, 1966, 5, 4, fig. 1). This lack of meaningful cultural or chronological groups has been an open invitation to select those objects, with parallels in the supposedly better defined and dated groups to the south, in order to draw wide-ranging inferences concerning the pre-history of Scotland. Such a procedure enables the bulk of the material to be ignored as sui generis. It is not the writer's intention to produce another study of the might-have-beens of the Scottish Iron Age, but rather to present a corpus of the dice and to consider the previous interpretations in which these dice have formed part of the evidence.

In approaching the subject of the patination of flint implements, I am profoundly impressed with the very great difficulties of the subject; so much so indeed that I feel that some initial apology is called for. It requires some courage, nay, one may say temerity, to attack a series of problems that bristle with difficulties of a most formidable kind, about which nothing is known; and for a solution of which chemical and physical knowledge of a very high order, backed up by the aid of full laboratory equipment, is required. All this is wanting in my own case; but on the other hand I have a large first-hand acquaintance with the flints in question; for many years I have devoted much attention to the conditions in which patination is found, jand to its manifold varieties—it has been my constant endeavour to co-ordinate given patinations with other factors more or less ascertainable in connection with the flints. In this way I think I have arrived at conclusions which, though by ao means complete in themselves, may at any rate serve as points of departure or of support in the further investigations which are urgently required. I propose to divide my paper into three sections—(1) General considerations bearing on the study of patina, (2) The conditions under which patina is produced, (3) The changes in flint associated with the production of patina.

Some years ago the late Mr. Arthur Gordon, of Ellon, showed the writer several “anvils” found on his property on Skelmuir Hill, 7 miles north of Ellon, in Aberdeenshire. In 1914 the writer visited this place and found numerous specimens, and noticed at the same time many circular depressions in the ground. At that time it was impossible to investigate the matter further, but Mr. Gordon very kindly granted permission to excavate the depressions when the opportunity occurred. With the very kind permission of Mrs. Gordon, Mr. J. Reid Dean, trustee of the estate, and Mr. Walter Gordon, on whose farm the site is situated, some excavations were made in 1918, the results of which are described here.

Excavations at Tinney's Lane, Sherborne in 2002 uncovered extensive evidence for Late Bronze Age settlement and pottery production, dating from a short time period probably within the 12th or 11th century cal bc. Well-preserved deposits of burnt stone, broken vessels, and burnt sherds, together with resulting debris redeposited in associated pits, were accompanied by a series of post-hole structures interpreted as round-houses and four-post settings. Environmental evidence in the form of charcoal, charred plant remains, and molluscs has provided important information concerning sources of fuel and water for pottery production as well as allowing a reconstruction of the local vegetation. Finds of fired clay, metal, stone, shale, flint, and bone include items from distant sources, informing topics such as site status and exchange, and include many categories of tools and equipment that would have been used within the pottery-making processes. Analysis of the spatial distribution of these finds amongst the structures and surviving layers of burning has allowed the definition of a series of industrial activity areas, each comprising one or more round-houses, a four-post structure, bonfire bases or pits used for firing, and other pits with specific related functions. Altogether the site has provided some of the best evidence for pottery production within prehistoric Britain.

Reappraisal of an early 20th century excavation at the Cronk yn How round barrow near Ramsey in the Isle of Man suggests that a stone pair was demolished during the 3rd millennium BC to make way for a round barrow with a single central burial. It is suggested that one of the stones from the original pair was decorated with a series of motifs before being incorporated into the barrow. Some of the motifs used find parallels amongst later Neolithic incised rock art on the walls of tombs and houses, and on stone plaques. Other motifs, including what appear to be representations of deer, serve to expand the repertoire of known designs and highlight the potential of this kind of this rather understudied category of rock art. Parallels for the zoomorphic motifs can be found in Scandinavia. A review of other rock art within the Isle of Man revealed more than 70 recorded panels at 55 individual sites making this one of the more densely populated rock art landscapes in the west of Britain. Two main styles are represented, the passage-grave style, which includes the Cronk yn How Stone, and the cup-mark dominated style, or Galician Style. The latter accounts for more than 95% of recorded sites which accords well with what is known of the Isle of Man's cultural relationships during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC.

Cremated remains, usually interred in urns, most commonly occur in cemeteries dating from the latter part of the Bronze Age, the closing phase of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Pagan Saxon period. Although such remains are fragmentary, they are now recognized as providing a basis, after appropriate treatment and anatomical study, for assessing the numbers of individuals cremated, together with their age and sex (Gejvall, 1947). Sometimes, additional information can be gleaned about endemic pathological conditions (Lisowski, 1955).

The physical characteristics of the cremated remains vary from site to site, depending, as discussed by Gejvall (1963), on such factors as the method used in cremation, the firing temperature, and the extent of any subsequent pulverisation—natural or artificial. But despite the fact that there is always a large proportion of unidentifiable fragments, there are invariably certain parts, often of appreciable size, which can be recognized. It is from these fragments, when separated, that information about the number of individuals present, together with their sex and age can be obtained.

The aim of this paper is to present a summary of material relating to the earliest use of copper in an area of south-east Europe which is today partly within Romanian territory and partly within the USSR.

For more than ten years, Russian scholars, notably E. N. Chernykh and N. V. Ryndina, have been publishing work on Tripolye metal, but much of this is not readily available to archaeologists who do not read Russian, and it is hoped that this paper will in some measure redress this situation. In addition, considerable use has been made of Romanian material.

Probably at least a millennium is covered by this study, ranging from approximately 4000–3000 ± 500 years bc. Approximately 750 objects of copper can, with some degree of certainty, be attributed to all but the last phase of the Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture. There are also numerous chance finds, especially of axe-adzes and related objects, but these are not being considered here (see Căpitanu 1971; Monah 1969; Mataşa 1964; Nestor 1935–6; Szekely 1967; Vulpe, A. 1964; 1973; Zbenovich 1969; etc.).

This paper examines the sources of the hammerstones imported to the Neolithic axe quarries on Pike o' Stickle. Two basic groups are identified, and these probably originated in separate areas of Cumbria. They have largely distinct distributions among the quarries, raising the possibility that different parts of the stone source could have been used by people coming from different areas of the surrounding lowlands. This has implications for the social importance of axe production on these sites.

The morphology of a group of settlement sites in North West Wales is used to demonstrate an application of Numerical Taxonomy. Using average link cluster analysis 83 out of a total of 285 known sites are grouped into seven morphological classes which provide a basis for further analysis and interpretation.