In my article published in the Proceedings for 1950, I mentioned the settlement at Nowosiółka Kostiukowa in West Podolia belonging to the final period of the Tripolye culture. Recently, during my visit to Poland, I was able to recover some of my pre-war notes which escaped destruction, thanks to Professor R. Jamka, Cracow; among these was also a short report on investigation of the settlement above and a sketch plan.

A field known as ‘Petrynskie’ lay c. 3 kilometres east of the village of Nowosiółka Kostiukowa, over 4 kilometres from the river Seret, a tributary of the Dniester, in the valley of a small stream which ultimately joins the river. On the southern slopes of this valley, north of a narrow lane cut deep in the loess and on the surface of the field lay a large mass of potsherds, lumps of fired clay plaster (of ‘ploščadka’ huts), stones, flints, etc. This was mostly Tripolyan painted ware of Koszyłowce type, belonging to T. S. Passek's period C-1, although wrongly considered to be of period C-2. However, many black, highly polished potsherds were also found, of what is known as the ‘Thracian Hallstatt’ ware, mainly in the lower part of the field. All these remains formed small concentrations marking the sites of ancient huts situated at a small distance from each other.

The renewed controversy over the question of Mycenaean trade with ‘barbarian’ Europe (Renfrew 1968; Branigan 1970, 1972; etc.) has emphasised the need for a thorough study of the various classes of evidence involved. Recent work on the faience beads of Early Bronze Age Europe (Harding 1971; Harding and Warren 1973) has tended to show that local production is likely, at any rate in continental Europe, while a study of the amber trade to Mycenaean Greece (Harding and Hughes-Brock 1974) has shown that two main periods of trade with the Baltic are likely, the first, via Wessex, in the sixteenth/fifteenth centuries B.C., the second around 1200, down the Adriatic. Here I should like to tackle another group of material, bronze tools and implements, some of which have been used (or mis-used) in the current debate. I include here agricultural, wood-working, metallurgical and general-purpose tools; razors and tweezers are omitted, and will be discussed elsewhere, as will ornaments and objects of personal use. Knives are included, but daggers await examination together with other weapons.

Tools and implements have not often been found as items of trade in the Bronze Age Aegean. They have intrinsic value as metal, it is true, but they are usually heavy and bulky, and most easily susceptible of adaptation to local needs by local smiths. Accidental loss and intentional imitation are correspondingly less likely.

Vessey Ponds are a pair of irregularly-shaped hollows high on the Chalk Wolds of East Yorkshire at about 220 m OD (Fig. 1). Recent fieldwalking recovered a large flint scatter in the vicinity of these hollows. Mesolithic activity was represented by worked flint displaying soft hammer technology whereas hard hammer technologies indicate Neolithic and Bronze Age tool production and usage. The presence of large numbers of cores and a vast quantity of industrial waste indicates on-site preparation of tools. Statistical analysis of the fieldwalking data implies that the flints are concentrated around the hollows. Auger sampling across the ponds revealed natural clay deposits that still hold water close to the pond surface. Consideration of exploitation of mineral resources on the Wold top and possible mechanisms of formation of Vessey Ponds highlights the complex effects of glacial activities on the local surface geology. Karstic origins for some features of surface geology are suggested. The nature of the ‘prehistoric’ economies represented by the flint scatter is considered along with ethnoarchaeological evidence to support the assumption that the ponds at Vessey were a potential water supply during the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages. Evidence from Vessey Ponds and elsewhere in Yorkshire implies an association between areas of ‘prehistoric’ activity and the availability of surface water. Above all else, this work highlights the impact of water supply on settlement pattern and land use on the Chalk of the Yorkshire Wolds.

Prehistoric hammerstones, sometimes known as mullers, pounders, or mauls, are supposed, as the name implies, to have been used as hammers. In the case of those made from flint nodules they present an unmistakable surface which consists of the heads of hundreds of small cones of percussion, and of angular fragments of broken, intersecting, cones, the whole being the result of a long, and continuous rain of blows, each of which affected but a small spot of the surface, and caused by the nodule coming into sharp contact with a surface nearly as hard, or of equal hardness, to the flint itself.

The flint implements which are the subject of this paper were found near Mundford in Norfolk in 1918-19, and the work is still being continued on this area.

Although when thrown out by the plough the tools may be described as surface finds, strictly speaking, they belong to the red gravelly sands which immediately over-lie the chalk in this district, and which are covered by one to two feet of brown sandy loam.

The large number of true implements found in a comparatively limited space, warrants the belief that this must have been a settlement, where work had been carried on for a considerable time.

Having hitherto escaped the eye of the wandering collector, an unusually complete series has been secured.

The object of this paper is to describe and illustrate a series of heavily mineralised bone implements of a primitive type which (in the case of the Red Crag) have been found associated with numerous humanly-fashioned flints during diggings conducted in the detritusbed below the base of the Red and Coralline “Crags” of Suffolk.

The author is fully aware of his heterodoxy in claiming that bone was utilised in implement-making at such a remote period as that to which any pre-Crag remains must be referred, but having conducted a number of experiments in which mineralised and unmineralised bones were subjected to the effects of fortuitous blows and pressure, and after having fractured numerous modern shank bones of the bullock by striking and cutting them with flints and other stones held in the hand with a view of thus shaping them to the forms of the sub-Crag examples, he is compelled to regard these latter specimens as undoubted works of man.

No Sardinian domestic site has yet produced Beaker remains, but complete or fragmentary vessels have been found in eleven funerary deposits (fig. 1). Of these, San Bartolomeo in the extreme south of the island is a burial cave, and Nuraxinieddu is a trench grave. The remaining nine sites are all rock-cut tombs (domus de janas) and are grouped together in the zone of sedimentary rocks in the north-west of the island.

This paper deals with a period of transition from prehistory to history. This age of transition is one which the Prehistoric Society cannot overlook, for its very title implies an interest in the historical method. But the transition raises special problems. History, starting from the written record, is largely occupied with political questions and political entities. Man, as we learnt from Aristotle, is a political animal and no-one, who studies the archaeology of the historical ages, would wish to deny the profound influence of political factors on the development of cultures. But prehistory, based on the natural sciences and on archaeology, focuses attention primarily on material phenomena, though the growing interest in the sociological implications of these phenomena points the way to a better appreciation of the political factors, which were operative in prehistoric as in later times.

Ancient fingerprints preserved in clay artefacts can provide demographic information about the people who handled and manufactured them, leaving their marks as an accidental record of a moment’s interaction with material culture. The information extracted from these ancient impressions can shed light on the composition of communities of practice engaged in pottery manufacture. A key component of the process is a comparator dataset of fingerprints reflecting as closely as possible the population being studied. This paper describes the creation of a bespoke reference collection of modern data, the establishment of an interpretive framework for prehistoric fingerprints, and its application to assemblages of Iron Age briquetage from coastal salterns in eastern England. The results demonstrate that briquetage manufacture was constrained by age and sex.

The Source of the Douix in Châtillon-sur-Seine, France, has been visited by local inhabitants for over 2000 years and served as a watery focal point for the ritual deposition of various types of offerings. While water deposits are by no means uncommon across Europe, the continued use of a single space over multiple millennia is. An examination of the preserved offerings at the Douix indicate there are three phases of depositional activity: late Hallstatt to early La Tène periods, late La Tène to Gallo-Roman periods, and the early modern period. Despite being separated by hundreds of years there are similarities across depositional phases including the importance of modified metallic objects, personal ornamentation, and possible connections to women. Could the persistence of these ritual practices be the result of behavioural and ideological continuities? If not, how can we interpret this complex record of intermittent deposition? We examine the deposits from each phase in their wider social and ritual contexts, including the Douix’s connection to the Hallstatt princely centre of Mont Lassois, Gallo-Roman ritual traditions, and the historic folklore surrounding springs. We then explore the inter-depositional phases and discuss the conditions that could lead to the persistence of ideas despite the dearth of material evidence and summarise what these patterns mean for the history of ritual activity at the Source of the Douix.

The cairn at Mount Stewart has attracted wide attention as the alleged find-site of one of the very small group of Irish beakers. Since the ‘beaker’ and another bowl-shaped food-vessel from the cairn have now been rediscovered in the Belfast Municipal Museum—and the last relic of the cairn recently removed—we feel the time has come for a review of the available data.