The discovery of Floor 85, in 1920, with its definite three period stratification, for the first time demonstrated what some people had long suspected, viz., that the Grimes' Graves industry was not confined to any one period exclusively, but was the outcome of a practically continuous local development from an early stage in the pre-historic period down to the end of Neolithic times, and the exploration of this Floor established three important facts:—

(1) That an early industry had existed on the site characterised by the practice of naturalistic engraving on flint crust and the production of flint implements of certain distinctive types from mined flint of the variety known as Floor-stone.

(2) That that industry was the earliest so far recognised at Grimes' Graves and was clearly not contemporary with any of the 366 visible mine shafts on the site, but ante-dated them so considerably that the implements of the lowest level, F.85c, had become patinated and buried beneath accumulations of humus, etc., before mining operations commenced at that place.

Recent research has led to a re-evaluation of the defensive role formerly assigned to the Late Neolithic enclosures of western France. Excavation of the distinctive pince de crabe entrances which are a feature of many of these enclosures has suggested that these were not single but multi-phase structures, with a purpose which must have been monumental or ceremonial rather than protective. Human remains in the enclosure ditches underline their significance as symbolic as well as physical boundaries. The chronology of the elaborated entrances indicates that they belong to a period of social competition in which decorated pottery had a particular importance. This phase came to an end early in the 3rd millennium BC when the enclosure ditches were backfilled, and western France became integrated into a wider world of social and raw material exchange.

Excavation of a small ring-ditch in advance of gravel extraction at Bromfield, Shropshire, produced rare evidence for an Iron Age inhumation burial associated with a barrow. The burial, identified from a soil stain, was associated with fragments of a La Tene I iron brooch and a penannular iron bracelet with adhering textiles, and a bronze pendant, suggesting a date in the 5th–4th century BC.

Ten years ago the prehistoric soil of Europe was literally riddled with ‘pit dwellings’ in which our ancestors slept and cooked, huddled together like soldiers in a bell tent. I suppose it was wraithes from Tacitus and Xiphilinus combining in the minds of 16th century antiquaries with more exact travellers' tales of the earth lodges of the Red Indians that caused this overcrowding of the pits. For the holes in the ground are there right enough: it is only in the last ten years that Bersu and Paret have evicted their human occupants to make room for the pigs and weevils these would properly accommodate. Thanks to them we realize that neither Stone Age Danubians nor Iron Age Britons were housed in subterranean silos or semi-subterranean sties. But it is only fair to remark that Laszlo and Marton in Hungary and Schuchhardt in Germany before the first world war had identified commodious houses built above the ground on a frame of stout posts. Today it is plain that such farm houses were normal from the beginning of the new stone age wherever excavators' technique is adequate for their recognition, and it is to their description that I must devote most of this sketch.

In his important study of early wheeled vehicles from the Caucasus region, S. Piggott briefly considered two terracotta models of wagons with arched tilts from the Near East (Piggott 1968, 273). Following Speiser (1934), he argued that the actual wagons represented by these models had been introduced into the Near East from the Caucasus by the later 3rd millennium B.C. The present article aims at a more comprehensive review of the Near-Eastern evidence. It will be almost exclusively concerned with terracotta models of both four-wheeled wagons and two-wheeled carts, because these constitute practically all the documentation we have of vehicles with tilts. This material undoubtedly will be incomplete, since there must be more examples among the many models that have not been published, or published only inadequately. A full description will be possible only in the one case where we have personally examined the model (wagon A1).

The Italian School of Archaeology in Athens, under the direction of Prof. Alessandro Della Seta, carried out excavations between 1930–36 on the small hill of Poliokhni near Kaminia on the east coast of the Island of Lemnos. The site was a vast Bronze Age town, without doubt one of the most important and significant that excavation has brought to light in the Aegean. Owing to the premature death of Prof. Della Seta during the war and to the fact that his successor, Professor Doro Levi was fully occupied with the activities of the School and the excavations in Crete, the results of these excavations have remained unpublished.

From the Summer of 1951, with the much valued collaboration of my colleagues in the Syracuse Museum, I have worked through the enormous amount of material recovered and have verified the facts by test excavations. In order to unify the various zones of excavation which had been made, and to fill up the lacunae still existing in our knowledge of the main outlines of the topography of the sites, I carried out further excavations in the summer of 1953, with the collaboration of Dr Giovanni Rizza. The excavations were made in the remaining untouched area near the centre of the town and brought to light the house now to be described.

This paper looks at two previously under-studied artefacts: the Newark and Netherurd Later Iron Age gold torcs. Close analysis of tooling and other attributes has established a relationship between these torcs, which suggests they were possibly manufactured in an area beyond the East Anglian location argued for in previous studies. This paper also explores the possibility they could have been produced by the same maker.