In this article, an attempt will be made to review briefly the relative significance of surviving Mycenaean and intrusive elements on the Greek Mainland south of Macedonia during the late 12th and the 11th centuries B.C. Not all the area has been thoroughly investigated. Indeed there is no district that would not repay further exploration and excavation, but certain regions such as Arcadia, North Elis, the Megarid, Phocis and Locris, much of Boeotia, Phocis and Locris, and even parts of Attica, Corinthia and the Argolid need basic surveys. This irregularity of our knowledge should be borne in mind.

The century immediately preceding the period under discussion appears to be characterized by extensive depopulation in many areas, and by the destruction of a number of major Mycenaean sites. Invasion would seem at least in part to have been responsible for the upheaval, though that upheaval was so great that the side effects of some climatic change are perhaps not to be ruled out as a contributory cause. So far as one can tell, an increase of population was registered only in Achaea, and in the relatively secluded Aegean-facing coasts of the Peloponnese and Attica. It would not be incorrect to say that the whole fabric of Mycenaean civilization on the Mainland, with the possible exception of Thessaly, had suffered a fatal blow in the period shortly before 1200 B.C. The course of Mycenaean history faltered and then (at different times in different areas) ceased, a phenomenon observable partly in the further abandonment of sites, but perhaps more in the discontinuation of the characteristic chamber tomb and tholos cemeteries.

How hunter-gatherers manipulated and utilised their natural surroundings is a widely studied topic among anthropologists and archaeologists alike. This focuses on the Natufian culture of the Late Epipalaeolithic period (c. 15–11.7 kyr), the last Levantine hunter-gatherer population, and specifically on the earliest composite tools designed for harvesting. These tools are widely referred to as sickles. They consisted of a haft into which a groove was cut and flint inserts affixed. This revolutionised harvesting and established it on new grounds. While the plants manipulated by these tools are yet to be identified with certainty, it is evident that these implements were rapidly integrated and dispersed throughout the Natufian interaction sphere, suggesting that they provided a significant advantage, which probably constituted a critical step toward agriculture. At the same time, the Natufian haft assemblage demonstrates high morphometric variability. We review the available data concerning Natufian hafts and offer three possible models to explain the noted variability. We conclude that while these models are not mutually exclusive, this varied technological pattern is best understood as deriving from a protracted formative phase of technological development, progressing through incremental processes of trial and error.

An increasing number of buildings are coming to light on prehistoric sites in Scandinavia that seem to be related to ritual, cult, or religious activities. This paper documents examples of such buildings from the Mesolithic to the Viking Period. The Late Meolithic cemetery at Skateholm provides evidence for structures associated with materials only otherwise found in grave contexts. Certain aspects of Early Neolithic long barrows and palisaded enclosures may infer ritual practices not directly of a funerary nature. The later Neolithic was marked in the cultural groupings of various regions by the construction of palisaded enclosures, wooden structures associated with graves, or pile dwellings, each often associated with a rich finds assemblage and frequent evidence for burning. These structures and their contents show obvious distinctions from the contemporary domestic settlement and burial sites with which they were associated. Bronze Age examples include rectangular stone walled and D- and C-shaped wooden structures placed beside burial areas and facing cairns. The latter forms continue into the Iron Age, for which few other clear examples of ritual structures are apparent, in spite of historical references. Those that have been identified seem to be associated with important central places. The site of Uppåkra, in southernmost Sweden, has produced an unusual small building set beside a hall around and within which were deposited hundreds of weapons and gold and glass objects. This relationship bears a striking resemblance to the description of the hall of Wodan at Valhalla in Norse mythology.

This paper explores how geophysical survey, undertaken in conjunction with landscape and historical analysis, is contributing to a deeper understanding of prehistoric focal centres and landscape organisation in the wider ‘hinterland’ of the Hill of Tara, Co. Meath. Arising out of the Discovery Programme’s ‘Late Iron Age and ‘Roman’ Ireland’ (LIARI) Project, the present investigations targeted a number of prominent hilltop sites in the Meath–north Dublin region suspected, on the basis of archaeological, topographical, and early documentary evidence, to have been important ceremonial/political centres in later prehistory. Foremost among these are the Hill of Lloyd (Co. Meath), the location of a prehistoric enclosure overlooking the early monastic foundation at Kells; Faughan Hill (Co. Meath), the traditional burial place of Niall of the Nine Hostages; and Knockbrack (Co. Dublin), whose summit is crowned by a large, internally-ditched enclosure with central burial mound. The discovery through this multi-disciplinary study of additional large-scale enclosures, burial monuments, and other significant archaeological features serves to further corroborate the deep historical importance of these sites, and opens up new avenues for exploring such themes as territoriality, social organisation, and identity in the wider Tara region.

Banjo enclosures are an important archaeological site type within British Iron Age studies, particularly for southern England. Significant numbers of these sites have been discovered through aerial survey but only a comparatively small number have been explored through additional survey and excavation. Chronologically these sites wholly exist within the Middle and Late Iron Age periods, c. 400 bc to ad 43. As yet there has been no standard interpretive framework for these sites and our understanding and discussion has often been based on the theoretical model most popular at the time of investigation. A key aim of his paper is to question this piecemeal approach and incorporate more recent interpretations from a much-expanded dataset. Since the 1990s large-scale landscape surveys have increased considerably the numbers of sites identified and subsequently the regions in which they are located. Tying this in with recent excavations, we have begun to redefine our understanding of banjo enclosures as more complex in their site development and function, while also providing a simplified framework which accounts for the diversity of forms, locations, and relative associations. Ultimately these enclosures are more complex than previously realised, potentially serving a multiplicity of functions with different phases of use throughout a period of significant change at the end of prehistory.

The paper discusses the Garboldisham macehead: an unusual decorated macehead carved from red deer antler. The macehead was found in the 1960s deposited in a tributary of the river Little Ouse, Norfolk and is decorated with three spirals, making it especially significant. This paper reports on the analysis of the decoration using digital imaging, discusses a new radiocarbon date recently obtained for the artefact, and discusses its significance alongside other dated antler maceheads.

An Upper Palaeolithic engraving of a female figure has recently been discovered on the base of a naturally hollowed limestone slab possibly used as a bowl or lamp, found in the cave of Courbet (Penne-Tarn, France) and preserved in the British Museum. The slab, decorated on the dished side with linear incisions, and the female figure are described in detail. The occurrence of a female engraving on a utilised slab is found to be unique to date but the relationship of the figure to the support is questioned and discussed. The female engraving is compared with others known from Germany, as well as Quercy and Périgord, France. On the basis of these comparisons and radiocarbon age estimates, the engraved slab is attributed to Magdalenian VI.

During the past decade, archaeological research in north-east Thailand has concentrated on the excavation of individual sites. Of these, the best known are Non Nok Tha (Bayard 1971) and Ban Chiang (Gorman and Charoenwongsa 1976). Both are relatively small occupation and burial sites, covering c. 1 ha and 3.5 ha respectively.

There have been several claims for an unexpectedly early bronze-working tradition in the area, and of the inception of iron technology during the second millennium BC. Biological remains from these sites reveal cultivation of rice and maintenance of domestic herds of cattle, pig and water buffalo (Gorman and Charoenwongsa 1976). While the recent surge of prehistoric research here and in adjacent areas has clearly demonstrated the presence of a south-east Asian bronze working tradition of some antiquity (Ha Van Tan 1980), the establishment of a chronological framework and of the settlement pattern in the area are in their infancy.

As part of the Thai Government's North-east Thailand Archaeological Project, steps were taken in 1980–81 to expand our knowledge of the Ban Chiang culture. During the 1980 dry season, Higham and Kijngam co-directed two intensive field surveys.

The average person knows very little about British Somaliland, hardly indeed where it is situated; yet archaeologically speaking it seems likely that it will prove of considerable importance. Although up to the present no systematic investigations have been undertaken, enough material in the way of stone implements has been unearthed by amateur collectors to show that there are great possibilities of important finds being made in the country; and, now, a very interesting rock shelter art has been discovered. Clearly the archaeological importance of the country merits investigation by a competent archaeologist, and it seems possible that such an expedition may eventuate at a not too distant date. The article that follows, therefore, is primarily intended to bring these discoveries and the possibilities of the subject in general to the notice of the public in a preliminary way.

Some little time ago Major Glover, Chief Pasture Officer in the country, sent me some, implements that he had collected, together with an intimation that he had been studying some rock shelter paintings. Frankly, the implements, though interesting, yielded little more information as to the cultures present than was already known from the work of previous investigators, and which had been in part epitomised by Burkitt and Barrington Brown in an article in Man for 1934, No. 164.

This paper presents new AMS dating of organic finds from the Shigir (Shigirsky) peat bog, located in the Sverdlovsk Province, Kirovgrad District of the Urals. The bog is located immediately south of the river Severnaya Shuraly, with the Urals to the west. Intermittent survey and excavation has been undertaken at this location since 1879, resulting in the recovery of in excess of 3000 cultural artefacts, including oars, sculptures of birds, snake figurines, wooden skis, arrowheads, and fish hooks. The dates presented here indicate that not only is there a long duration of human use of the wetlands at Shigir, but that the artefact forms also appear to have a significant duration of use throughout the earlier prehistoric periods considered here.

It is thirty years since the first publication (Wright and Wright 1947) of the collection of artifacts found over a period of years from the site at North Ferriby, which yielded the three boat-relics now identified as of the Early or Middle Bronze Age. With the increasing recognition of the importance of the boat finds themselves, the latest information on which has recently been published in a National Maritime Museum Monograph (Wright 1976), it is timely to review and, where necessary, revise the descriptions and attributions of the other artifacts obtained from the clays in which the boats were sealed, and also a small number of finds from the underlying fen-woodland peat. The customary and essential caveat needs to be entered that in beds of this kind propinquity of one find to another, whether in the horizontal or vertical plane, is no guarantee of association. Nevertheless, as will be seen, revised identifications and attributions of some of the objects have resulted in a pattern which is much more consistent both in itself and also with the recent evidence for the age of the boats than the somewhat confusing picture which emerged from what seemed to be reasonable deductions in 1946–7.

This paper attempts to bring together all the figurines of Syrian and Anatolian character that have been recorded from Bronze Age Europe. Several groups are distinguished, Syrian figurines from south Russia, Hittite and Syrian figurines from Mycenaean Greece, figurines from northern Europe, and post-Mycenaean forms in Greece.

Notes to the text appear at the end of the paper.

Recent radiocarbon dates obtained from two soil cores taken through the Marlborough Castle mound, Wiltshire, show the main body of it to be a contemporaneous monument to Silbury Hill, dating to the second half of the 3rd millennium cal bc. In light of these dates, this paper considers the sequence identified within the cores, which includes two possible flood events early in the construction of the mound. It also describes four cores taken through the surrounding ditch, as well as small-scale work to the north-east of the mound. The topographic location of the mound in a low-lying area and close to rivers and springs is discussed, and the potential for Late Neolithic sites nearby is set out, with the land to the south of the mound identified as an area for future research. The paper ends with the prospect that other apparent mottes in Wiltshire and beyond may well also have prehistoric origins

The settlements in Western Britain and Ireland which are earliest known to us from the chamber tombs have been ascribed to movements up Atlantic trade routes from the Mediterranean before the middle of the 2nd millennium. Such movements at so early a date must be conceded to be surprising; but the broad case for believing in them is a cogent one, and earlier suggestions that the chamber tomb cult implied only missionary settlers, or even that the cult was transmitted without movement of population at all, have rightly been discarded. None the less it is far from easy to visualise precisely the processes of settlement and trade, and the thesis has hardly yet been critically tested. It is the purpose of this paper to attempt as precise an account as can be given of the settlements established in Scotland in the 2nd millennium, and of the trade which these settlements developed. As a preliminary, attention will be called to certain conditions of primitive trade, settlement and transport as a help in judging the conditions likely to have applied in Northwest Europe in the 2nd millennium. Since the level of culture to be inferred for the early settlements is one of the questions which this paper must discuss, these considerations can be no more than suggestive, yet they should at least help to free us from presumptions which we might otherwise too readily import from the conditions of trade, settlement and transport with which we are immediately familiar.

A shelter in the Tassili shows many rock-pictures which are all executed in the same style, the style of the Iheren-Tahilahi group. It is therefore possible to confirm the characteristic features of this very distinct and lively group, which is mainly distributed throughout the central and the northern Tassili. The physical type of the figures it represents is exclusively europoid. The distribution area, the age of the group and its position on the general climatic oscillation curve are specified.

Within sight of the Neolithic axe quarries on the Langdale Pikes is a group of massive boulders at Copt Howe. The two largest command a direct view of the stone source where the sun sets into the mountainside at the midsummer solstice. Both are decorated by pecked motifs which resemble features of Irish passage tomb art. Small-scale excavation in 2018 showed that a rubble platform had been built at the foot of the main decorated surface and sealed two further motifs of similar character. New work has established an important sequence in Great Langdale. Recently obtained radiocarbon dates indicate that the main period of axe production was between 3800 and 3300 bc, whilst Irish megalithic art is later and was made between about 3300 and 2900 bc, suggesting that Copt Howe achieved its importance after axe-making had ceased or was in decline. That is consistent with an increasing emphasis on relations between northern Britain and Ireland during the Late Neolithic period. Perhaps Copt Howe itself was treated as a ‘natural’ passage tomb.

The site of Le Pinacle, Jersey, is an important multi-phase site with horizons dating to the Early Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Gallo-Roman periods. Recent reassessment of the material from the site suggests the existence of a stone axe production centre at Le Pinacle during the Early Neolithic period. Petrological studies have resulted in the identification of a group of dolerite axes, for which Le Pinacle is the probable source. Axes belonging to this group have been identified in assemblages from Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark.

Zu den eindrucksvollsten Geländedenkmälern der keltischen Zeit zählen nebst den grossen Stadtanlagen (oppida) die sog. Viereckschanzen. Ihre Hauptverbreitung (fig. 1) liegt im süddeutschen Raum, zwischen Main im Norden, dem Alpenrand im Süden, dem östlichen Schwarzwaldrand im Westen und dem Inn im Osten (Schwarz, 1959). Einige Schanzen finden sich auch in Frankreich (Schwarz, 1962, 74). Die Geschichte der Erforschung dieser Denkmälergruppe geht bis in das Jahr 1885 zurück und die im Laufe der folgenden Jahrzehnte ausgesprochenen Deutungen bewegen sich zwischen Befestigung, Gutshof, Viehpferch und Kultplatz (Schwarz, 1960, 7 ff., vgl. auch Berger, 1962, 26 ff.).

Eine dieser Schanzen konnte in den Jahren 1958 und 1959, dank der Unterstützung durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, zu einem grossen Teil untersucht werden. Sie liegt im östlichen Teil der Schwäbischen Alb bei dem Ort Tomerdingen (fig. 1), nordwestlich von Ulm an der Donau. Die bis jetzt noch nicht publizierten Ergebnisse sollen hier in einem Vorbericht bekannt gegeben werden. Sie gewinnen insofern an Bedeutung, als sie die aufsehenerregenden Grabungen von K. Schwarz (1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, [1968]) in der Schanze von Holzhausen südlich von München zu bestätigen vermögen und aufzeigen, dass die Situation in solchen Schanzen, auch wenn sie weit voneinander liegen (von Holzhausen bis Tomerdingen sind es rund 140 km) etwa dieselbe ist.