Recent archaeological and botanical studies of a number of major food plants throughout the world have clearly shown that thle initial domestication of each of them was a slow and laborious process, carried out by generations of experimentalists familiar with the total ecosystem of which the plant was a part (Darlington, 1963; Harris, 1967, 1969; Ucko and Dimbleby 1969b). Therefore, any pronouncement about the who, where, how, and when of the domestication of a food plant must be based not on general preconceptions but on local facts.

The ‘faience’ beads of the British Bronze Age have since the last century been appreciated as the product of a somewhat sophisticated technology. Although the possibility of local manufacture was seriously considered by earlier antiquaries, especially for the Scottish beads, in more recent years-since the writings of Childe and Piggott-a Mycenaean or Egyptian origin has been widely assumed for them.

Over the last few decades, much interest has centred on the use of spectrographic analyses of Bronze Age objects as a means of classification to produce groups for subsequent archaeological assessment. Separate research teams have used differing systems to classify their results, the most comprehensive work being that of the Stuttgart school, published in two volumes, SAM I and SAM 2 by Junghans, Sangmeister and Schroder (1960; 1968).