The dictum of Clark Wissler that ‘New World culture is [thus] a kind of pyramid whose base is as broad as the two Americas and whose apex rests over Middle America’ is one of those brilliant generalizations which at once sum up the conclusions already reached, and point the way to further progress.

From the vantage of today one may agree with A. V. Kidder (22, p. 145) that American archaeologists have been unduly neglectful of the broad base of their pyramid. Yet itwould be churlish to blame them when the apex was so enticing, so rich, so bizarre and above all so enigmatic. Indeed, when men first descried the peaks of Maya, Mexican and Peruvian achievement, it seemed hard to connect them with the lowly foot- hills of cultural attainment familiar in the temperate latitudes of the western hemisphere. Until the underlying unity of civilization in the New World was recognized, its pyramidal structure could hardly be appreciated; in default of this it is easy to understand how archaeologists tended to neglect cultures, which, however interesting they may appear to us from the historical angle, must have appeared to them as intrinsically poor and dull. Then again it was only on the edges of the pyramid that the foundation layer was visible; elsewhere it was buried under a superstructure, massive in proportion to its attractiveness.

The ability to recognize the traces of ancient cultivation is essential to all students of earthworks and field-workers. The scope of our study is being widened, so that we are interested not merely in fortifications but in any kind of interference with the surface soil resulting from man’s activities in the past. It would be purely an arbitrary distinction to be interested in a hill-fort and not in the surface traces of an agricultural village of the same date, and these same surface traces consist very largely in lynchets, or cultivation terraces, the presence of which is often the sole clue to the site of the settlement.

It is a matter of observation that agricultural processes at different periods may leave quite distinct and separate kinds of traces on the ground. This depends on the kind of plough used, and on different habits with regard to the shape, size, and outlay of the fields. The one feature that is common to most ancient fields is the tendency to form terraces on sloping ground, due to the way in which the soil creeps downhill under the influence of ploughing and rain-wash, forming an accumulation along the lower edges of the plot.

Peculiar to the red clay plain of northwest Syria are the ‘beehive’ villages called ‘Campo di Melle’ by the early Venetian and Genoese traders. The characteristic beehive name and shape is a purely Western concept as the local beehive is a small mud cube. These village houses, built of mud brick, are ideally adapted to their environment ; they are warm in winter and cool in summer. The villages cluster about ancient ‘tells’ or dot the plains from Aleppo south to Homs, occupying a total area of roughly thirty by one hundred and fifty miles (PLATES v and VI). To the north and east this distinctive type of building gives way to the square mud brick house with flat mud roof supported on poles and brush, while to the west the rocky outcrops of the Lebanon range provide an easily worked stone for houses and barns.

New archaeological evidence, principally from rural settlements, questions previous conceptions of the economic background to the transition from the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages. In particular, finds from the Balkans, a geographical ‘hinge’ between North and South and East and West, is discussed. The major periods of change are both the 5th and the 7th centuries AD.

Our dictionaries tell us that ‘Philistine’ denotes ‘an uncouth or uncultured person’. Archaeologically, this definition is quite unjustified for the Philistines were the main civilizing influence on the Hebrews during the critical period when Israel emerged from rude tribalism to forge a cultured empire. The magnitude of the Philistine impact is reflected in the name of ‘Palestine’ (= Hebrew peléšet ‘Philistia’) which clings to the country after more than three millennia.

The discovery of Mesolithic arrowheads on the Isles of Scilly with clearly continental European roots challenges the most deeply embedded ideas of Mesolithic specialists. While the disturbed stratigraphic context prevents a full understanding of the complete technical system, we must draw some conclusions regarding the Neolithic transition, and the ways and means of prehistoric navigation. At a more methodological level, this important discovery raises questions about our reading of features of technology, such as the nature of the transfers and whether they were exchanges or copies.

During The Present Century There Has Appeared A New Kind Of History, Concerned Not With Parts But With The Whole Of Human History. There Were, Of Course, Before This, Many Attempts To Write' Universal History'; But They Consisted Merely In Lumping Together In A Single Continuous Narrative Condensed Histories Of The Chief Countries Of The Old World. This Synthetic Or Accretive Method Has The Same Defects When Concerned With The Sequence Of Time As It Has When Concerned With Space. You Cannot Make A Correct Map Of The World Or Of Any Part Of It Simply By Sticking Together On A Single Sheet The Plans Of Separate Portions Surveyed Independently By Different People, With No Comprehensive Framework Binding Together The Whole Area. Nor, To Vary The Metaphor, Is A Cathedral Constructed By Putting Several Parish Churches Together Beneath One Roof. The New History Is Related To The Old Universal Histories Exactly As Is A Modern Map Of The World To Such Medieval Concoctions As The Hereford Map.