The fortunate discovery by the first author and his son, R. W. Wright, in March 1963 of a third in the series of sewn boats from North Ferriby, making the fourth in the group from the Humber basin, if the Brigg ‘Raft’ is included, has provided a convenient starting point for a review of the whole subject in the light of new evidence as to age. This in turn has led to rather firmer conclusions about their possible affinities and origin than were possible when the report on the first two examples was prepared. There are reasonable grounds now for putting out speculations about the pattern which has resulted in the occurrence of related techniques of boat-building over a great span of time and distance.

The preliminary excavation and recovery were directed by Mr Bartlett and the first writer. Preservation is being carried out at the Hull Museum under Mr Bartlett's control. Such photographic recording as was attempted was largely done by Miss Isla McInnes of the Hull Museum Staff, Mr Derek Cutts and his wife (who also achieved a graphic motion picture record of the proceedings in colour) and Mr Allen Binns. Limitations on photography were accepted deliberately in the interests of speed since no attempt was made at detailed cleaning before removal of the remains. The weather seldom helped.

In the course of my work on Jade Axes from sites in the British Isles (PPS, XXIX, p. 133) I had occasion to consult descriptions of jade axes from Europe and to make notes on all those in publications available to me. I have now plotted on an outline map of Europe (fig. 1) the sites of recorded jade axes and have added also the locations of the few jade axes from France in the British Museum, Ashmolean Museum, and in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, which I have examined.

This map is far less complete than that showing the distribution of jade axes in the British Isles, op. cit., fig. 4, which shows the location of every jade axe known in museums or in private hands as well as a few mentioned in the literature but not traced.

The new records of British axes, recorded at the end of this paper, have been shown on the outline of the British Isles, included on the present map which reveals a large increase in the concentration in East Anglia.

As regards Europe, apart from the few jade axes from France mentioned above, the records plotted are confined to those known to me from publications and I have had to rely on the authors' identifications of the materials used. These are confirmed by density determinations for a great many of the axes from Germany and for a few of those from Italy.

In the thirty-mile stretch of the valley of the Tay, between its exit from Loch Tay and its entry into the more low-lying regions near Dunkeld, is a remarkable concentration of prehistoric monuments (fig. 1) which can be matched in Scotland only in the Crinan district of Argyll. The majority of sites lie on the flood plain and alluvial gravels of the valley floor, and comprise a series of standing stones, stone circles and round barrows. Until recently, little field work or excavation had been carried out on these sites, although all appeared to be characteristic of monuments of the second millennium B.C. The barrows in particular were of interest in that they appear superficially to be of earthen construction and form a distinctive group of monuments largely confined to this area. Although several had been disturbed, none had been excavated. The majority of them are tree-covered, or had originally supported trees, and many are of very great size, up to 130 feet in diameter and 30 feet in height. In an attempt to ascertain the date and cultural affinities of this group, it was decided to excavate one of these sites in 1964. The site selected was at Pitnacree, five miles east of Aberfeldy (Nat. Grid Reference NN928533). Although the barrow was covered by trees, their arrangement made it possible to excavate a considerable portion of the site, and the comparatively small size of the mound allowed a fairly full excavation. During the six-week season of excavation, a survey of analogous barrows, standing stones and stone circles in Strathtay was carried out. Details of these sites will be found in Appendix I.

The pursuit of radiocarbon dating is one of those elegant exercises in pure science that is fully justified as an end in itself and has justly brought world renown to its inventor. The purpose of this communication is merely to examine one of its many applications, namely the light it has thrown on the westward spread of farming from the ecologically focal regions of south-west Asia to Europe and north Africa. Because of its impact on the evolving ecosystem the spread of farming is of special concern to botanists. Even more so is it a preoccupation of students of man, since it symbolizes a transformation of human society of which the effects are still being felt. The evidence for this phenomenon itself falls into two broad and partly overlapping categories: first there is the indirect evidence afforded by plant ‘indicators’, notably fossil pollen, and second, the direct evidence gained through the investigation of materials from the actual settlements of the prehistoric cultivators themselves.

The occurrence of submerged forests in places along the British coast has long attracted attention, and led to speculation on the relative displacement in land and sea levels that enabled such forests to grow. Many of these forest beds are only visible between high and low water of the spring tides; others, not so readily seen, are known to occur in beds to a depth 60 feet below present sea level. The melting of the ice sheets after the last glaciation and the consequent rise of sea level accounts for the submergence of many of these forest beds, although the actual height at which they are found, may be affected by displacement from the contemporary level by subsequent compaction of sediments and tectonic movement. The submerged forest at Westward Ho! rests on consolidated sediments and is not subject to change in level due to compaction. The tectonic factor is discussed in relation to analogous deposits of comparable age elsewhere in southern Britain.

The presence of the submerged forest in Bideford Bay (Barnstaple Bay) at Westward Ho!, was recorded in a survey published by De la Beche in 1839, and in 1866 Ellis called attention to the presence of flints in the submerged forest bed. The peat was found in patches between a pebble ridge and low water mark and in places for about 200 yards along the beach.

The Iping Mesolithic site, found by Mr O. Knowles of Iping, lies on undulating Lower Greensand near the edge of a marsh which extends down to a pond and permanent spring (Sheet 181 O.S. 1″. 8485–2221). The site was totally excavated in 1960–61, by the West Sussex Excavation Group, following its accidental discovery. It consisted of a roughly circular area, about 25 feet across, of stained sand (Layer C) stratified between white sands (Layers B and D), all underlying the topmost deposit of heather on peat (Layer A). The white sand occurs as wind-blown material intermittently over the Lower Greensand of west Sussex, south Surrey and Hampshire. The darker stained layer was less than 6 inches thick and contained an abundant flint industry of cores, waste flakes and finished tools. The industry is of Maglemosian aspect and is important for its association with a well-preserved pollen which has yielded information about the contemporary environment.

The first account of the Scottish Iron Age which attempted to set its monuments and material cultures in their British and North European context was that published by V. G. Childe in 1935. Childe suggested that the brochs, which had hitherto been at best discussed in a purely local context, might be understood better if regarded as only one aspect of the more widespread phenomenon of the hundreds of tiny stone fortlets, or duns, of the highlands and islands, termed by him the Castle Complex to distinguish them from the larger forts of the lowlands. He also suggested that parallels between the bone weaving equipment found on broch sites and in the Glastonbury lake village provided a clue to the origins of their immigrant builders.

Eighteen years ago Sir Lindsay Scott, following Childe's lead, published in these Proceedings two long papers on the brochs and wheelhouses of the Scottish Atlantic Iron Age and the fact that subsequent discoveries have disproved some of his ideas does not detract from the great service that he rendered with them to British archaeology. He was the first to undertake a comprehensive and detailed survey of the available evidence—both excavated and from surface fieldwork—about two classes of drystone structures which had previously all too frequently been treated as a peculiarly Scottish phenomenon having few clear relationships with Iron Age cultures further south.

History came late to Lethbridge Pocket, on Mt. Moffatt's northern boundary, just over the crest of the Great Dividing Range, source of the extensive Maranoa, Warrego and Fitzroy river systems. Explorer Major Thomas Mitchell skirted the area to the westward in 1846, observing (Mitchell, 1848, 208) that the prospect towards the dominating, massive table-lands ‘was very grand’; the name of Dean Buckland, geologist and antiquarian, was bestowed upon the loftiest table-land, at the foot of which Lethbridge Pocket lay concealed. Ludwig Leichhardt had passed to the north-east, a year previously, but he too preferred to avoid the rugged mountains, now termed the Carnarvon and Chesterton Ranges. Both the journals of Mitchell and Leichhardt testify, on many pages, to the abundant material traces of a populous aboriginal community in the region. Leichhardt commented (1847, 45) that ‘appearances indicated that the commencement of the (Carnarvon) ranges was a favourite resort of the “blackfellows”. The remains of recent repasts of mussels were strewed about the larger water-holes’.

The mountainous region, which became Mt. Moffatt cattle station, was traversed first in the late 1870's, when the route across the ridge was located (Cameron, 1964, 372). The rugged Pocket was probably entered at the same time, perhaps by a member of the Lethbridge family, pioneers on Forest Vale station, 80 miles to the south.

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.

This paper is concerned with the nature of the relationship that existed between Central Europe and the Aegean area in the early 1st millennium B.C. Interest in Aegean-continental connections has been strong for a considerable time, but has been intensified, particularly from the continental standpoint, in the past fifteen years. Although some of these studies have been concerned with the contacts between 2nd millennium (Late Bronze Age) Greece and the north, others have examined in detail the evidence for the links between the Urnfield culture and Greece during the 10th, 9th and 8th centuries. For Greece, this is an utterly different period from the preceding one; the evidence for foreign contacts suddenly becomes scarce and that for military disasters is virtually non-existent. Yet some scholars have reached very similar conclusions, involving the transmission of objects and of the people who carried them from Central Europe into Greece, for this period as for the preceding Late Bronze Age. Such arguments have a recent exponent in Professor W. Kimmig, whose paper Seevölkerbewegung und Urnenfelderkultur ranges over the whole period from about 1200 to 700. His list of objects and practices in this period, which he considers to have been donated by the Danube-Balkan peoples to the Mediterranean world, is comprehensive indeed: it would include bronze shields and body armour, the equipment of Goliath, the knobbed ware of Troy VII B, the practice of cremation in the Iron Age, the ritual spoliation of weapons in graves, iron swords, spears, knives, bits, lugged axes, spits, fire-dogs, bronze personal objects generally, clay idols, the maeander pattern and the swans of Apollo.

Until the discovery of the Aylesford urnfield seventy-five years ago, the Belgae were still no more than dramatis personae in Caesar's Gallic War. It was Sir Arthur Evans who first identified the users of the Aylesford cemetery with the invaders ex Belgio referred to by Caesar. Reginald Smith's publication of the Welwyn grave-groups (1912) and then Bushe-Fox's excavation of the Swarling urnfield (1925) were followed, in 1930, by Hawkes' and Dunning's account of the history of the British and Continental Belgic tribes, which has remained the standard work on the subject ever since.

Thus, it has been accepted that the archaeological material of Aylesford-Swarling type represents the introduction of Belgic culture into Britain. Its continental origins were traced to northern Gaul, the area occupied by the historical Belgae, where a similar series of cremation burials of Late La Tène date is known. This continental series, thought to mark a change from what seemed to be the universal practice of inhumation as mode of burial to cremation, was interpreted as representative of a fusion of inhuming Galli with cremating Germani from across the Rhine. This fusion, leading to the formation of the Belgae, who, as Caesar records, boasted of their ‘Germanic’ origin, was thought to have taken place in the latter half of the 2nd century B.C. The date for the first Belgic invasion of Britain was put at about 75 B.C.