The Swedish archaeological expedition in Cyprus worked last year at Lapithos on the north and at Karavostassi, the ancient Soli, on the north-west.

At Lapithos 23 tombs from the early and middle Copper Age and zo tombs from the early Iron Age were opened and examined. The former cover a period from the end of early Cypriote I to the beginning of middle Cypriote 11. The main part of the finds consists of a very representative series of pottery : red polished I-IV ware, black polished ware, black slip 1-11 ware, white painted I-IV ware. The later tombs have yielded a rich collection of tools and weapons, bracelets and rings of copper, finger-rings of silver and gold, 8 necklaces of paste beads, idols of terra cotta and one marble idol, etc. The gold rings (early Cypriote III) represent the first gold found in Cvprus of the early Copper Age. One necklace (early Cypriote III), coniists of 156 globular beads of various sizes arranged in 8 rhythmic series, with one large bead in the middle of each series. Another necklace (middle Cypriote I) consists of 64 large globular beads and more than 500 small cylindrical beads inserted between the large ones. A third is of round, fluted and double-conical beads in symmetrical arrangement. The idols are of the plank-shaped type. One represents a mother holding a baby in her arms, another a mother and a baby in a bed, and a third a man and a woman in a bed.

Hacienda Zuleta in the northern sierra province of Imbabura, Ecuador is the location of the largest 'ramp-mound' site of the Caranqui culture dated to the Late Period in the highlands chronological sequence (c. AD 1250-1525) and also of a large 17th-century Colonial period hacienda of Jesuit foundation. The Late Period is characterised by the construction of very large hemispherical or quadrilateral 'pyramid tolos, sometimes with a ramp or a long 'walkway' and up to 22 of these ramp-tola sites have been identified in the northern sierra provinces of northern Pichincha and Imbabura (Gondard & L6pez 1983; Knapp 1992). They are thought to have been the political centres of the region's paramount chiefs and the ceremonial foci for their scattered communities (Salomon 1986). Studies suggest they are contemporary with one another, originating from about the 8th to loth centuries AD (Athens 1978; 1992; Oberem 1975), although the phases of occupation associated with the creation of the large quadrilateral ramp mounds seem to be later, linked to socio-economic and political trends of agricultural intensification and increasing population densities which are also taken to characterize the Late Period.

In January 2001, a team of researchers from the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland) conducted an innovative maritime archaeology project on the East African coast in partnership with the British Institute in Eastern Africa and the National Museums of Kenya. Its focus was Mombasa Island on the southern Kenyan coast, a historical settlement and port for nearly 2000 years (Berg 1968; Sassoon 1980; 1982). The East African seaboard, stretching from Somalia in the north to Madagascar and Mozambique in the south, was culturally dynamic throughout the historical period. This area, traditionally known as the Swahili coast, is culturally defined as a maritime zone extending 2000 km from north to south, but reaching a mere 15 hi inland. The origins of ‘Swahili’ cultural identity originated during the middle of the 1st millennium AD, following consolidation of earlier farming and metalusing Bantu-speaking communities along the coast and emergence of a distinctive ‘maritime’ orientation and set of cultural traditions (eg Allen 1993; Chami 1998; Helm 2000; Horton & Middelton 2000). Previous research produced evidence of exploitation of marine resources for food and an early engagement in longdistance exchange networks, linking parts ofthis coast with the Classical world by at least the BC/AD transition.

This monumental volume consists of eighty-six separate papers (including an ‘Introduction’ and a ‘Conclusion’) and represents the work of about that many individual authors. (Some participants presented more than one paper, but this is balanced by a few instances of joint authorship.)

The find was made in June 1963 at a alongside a steep path which climbs from the valley floor near Tal-y-llyn on the west side of Nant Cader through part of the Cader Idris Estate of Idris Ltd., the soft drink manufacturers, which has lately been made over to the Nature Conservancy to preserve its natural beauties and prevent flooding of the country around Tal-y-llyn. The finders were Mr and Mrs Arthur Jones of Llanbadarn Fawr, Aberystwyth, who were picnicking alongside the path and happened to notice some pieces of sheet-bronze which were only half-buried in a shallow deposit of silt in a small cavity beneath a large boulder which projects from the mountainside, propped up by two small boulders. Through their good offices, the pieces were examined first by members of the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales at Aberystwyth, and finally at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. The owners of the land, Idris Ltd., have now consented to place the find on permanent loan in the National Museum of Wales.

A note on Long Meg and her Daughters, the monolith and stone circle in Cumberland,

provides excuse to quote both Stukeiey on the whole: ‘A great Celtic temple’; and Wordsworth on Long Meg herself: Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn The power of years - pre-eminent, and placed Apart, to overlook the circle vast Speak, Giant-Mother!

More to the point, these new findings from air photography report new field monuments to with the standing circle and the second circle that Stukeley drew, and require a reappraisal of the Neolithic to Eariy Bronze Age monuments in Cumbria.

St Kilda, the little group of islands far offshore from northwest Scotland, was known for its seabird subsistence in the period before its evacuation in 1930. Recent discoveries suggest that the importance of agriculture in the prehistoric period (before the 16th century AD) may have been underestimated.

Much has been written about the extraordinary impact of Darwinism during the mid- to late nineteenth century, expressed in the scholarship of 'reception studies' (see for example Ellegård 1958; Glick 1988; Numbers & Stenhouse 1999). A significant focus has been on developing an understanding of the impact of Darwinian thinking on just about every aspect of Victorian society, particularly on literature, science, politics and social relations (see for example Beer 1983; Frayter 1997; Lorimer 1997; Moore 1997; Paradis 1997; Browne 2001). A great deal of attention has also been paid (by historians and philosophers of science) into the specifics of how the Darwinian message was disseminated so quickly and so broadly. Here the interest lies in the links between the rhetoric of scientific naturalism and the politics of the day, be it Whig-Liberal or Tory (see for example Clark 1997; Barton 1998, 2004; Clifford et al. 2006). A consequent interest lies in the ways in which science was popularised in Victorian Britain (see especially Lightman 1997, 2007).

Introduction

During the Yayoi Period of Japan (approximately 300 BC to 300 AD) tropical shell bracelets appear in elite burials in Kyushu (FIGURE 1) .In this paper I discuss recent investigations which indicate that these shells were produced in Okinawa, some 500 km. to the southwest of Kyushu, and were exchanged for Yayoi pottery vessels and possibly other artefacts. The context of this exchange system and the implications for Japanese prehistory are also considered.

Another proposal is made as to why there often are ard marks under barrows.

The great cultural unit of the Hallstatt (A–;B) Period in southern Germany and its neighbourhood is now considered to be the cradle of the Celts. The latest discussion of the problem is that by P. Bosch-Gimpera. A special variety of this culture seems to be represented in the country lying between the Alps and the Jura, extending from the lake of Constance to the lakes of Savoy. It is found in the lake-dwellings which came to an abrupt end somewhere about 700–650 B.C. The top layer in many of these is marked by evidence of burning, indicating a catastrophe that must have been wide-spread and general. This type of habitation, once so prevalent, was never revived; there are no signs of it in the following period (Hallstatt C–D). From the Late Bronze Age onwards there was a continuous development in the lake-dwellings, whose last stage is called in Switzerland the Latest Bronze Age (contemporary with the Rhenish Hallstatt B).