Trevisker pottery is a common Bronze Age type in Cornwall and the southwest of England. It is often well-made and with a distinct petrology. It was, however, traded in prehistory with some petrologically similar vessels being found in Brittany and northern France. Recently, a Cornish-style vessel made from Cornish clays has been located in eastern Kent, almost 500 km from its source.

We owe Professor Tikhonov warmest thanks for this brief history of academic archaeology at St Petersburg. As well as applauding the department's many achievements, readers of our Debate section will no doubt take note of a bleak period in its eventful history, one marked by a tendency to ‘substitute socio-political subjects for specialist courses’ and ‘the growing disparagement of highly skilled researchers and teachers’. If suitably candid authors can be found, we look forward to receiving similarly instructive intellectual biographies of archaeology departments and institutes from around the world.

The Cerne Abbas Giant, most graphic of English hill-figures, is of uncertain date - arguably Roman or pre-Roman, but absent from all documentary records of its Dorset region before the mid 18th century. Previous ANTIQUITY contributors (Grinsell 1980: Bettey 1981) have set out its known early history anti lack of history. Here the story is told ofthe survival through this century of the Giant's remarkable genitals.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. ELIOT

Introduction

Think of Scotland. The chances are that what springs to mind is a picture of mountains, lochs, glens and coasts — an outstanding natural heritage which uplifts the spirit and overflows the pages of the tourist brochures. Paradoxically, though, modern Scotland has an urban heart, with its people, the lifeblood of its economy and its cultural centres all concentrated in the towns and cities. Scotland is fortunate in the quantity and quality of its historic towns, with a preponderance of small and medium-sized towns, many of which escaped the insensitive 1960s and 1970s redevelopment so eloquently lamented elsewhere. Even Scotland’s cities are small by English standards; the population of Glasgow, our largest city, was about 650,000 in the 1991 census, and Dundee, the smallest (before Inverness’s elevation), only about 165,000. Today some 80% of the total population of around 5,000,000 live and work in towns and cities.

The re-evaluation of artefacts sometimes reveals a long history of misinterpretation. Here Peter Woodman re-assesses stone tools from western Ireland which have important lessons for how our personal biases influence our interpretation of lithic assemblages.

Salvage archaeology in anticipation of destruction is an accepted response to a site in the way of a pipe-line or other development. But is it right in principle? — a ‘full and fair’ record is not quite the same as survival of the actual site. And if techniques to protect a site during construction work are well designed, may they not also be cheaper?

In this debate the authors tackle a problem fundamental to researchers and resource managers in the Mesolithic period: what sort of prehistory do flint scatters represent?

Rather than give very detailed descriptive accounts of the eight profiles examined, what follows is a summary of the main conclusions of the soil and sediment analyses undertaken on the Fengate fen-edge at the power station subsite (1989) and Cat’s Water (1990) sub-site. The sedimentological (geochemical and mineral magnetic) analyses have been done by D. Passmore and M. Macklin, both of the Department of Geography, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the buried soil and alluvial micromorphological analyses by the writer.

The summer of 1994 in Britain started cold and wet, with the spring growing season distinctly late, and then turned very hot. Each summer, with its own personality, makes for a different flavour to the air photography.

When, Where and How the Wild Goose was first domesticated are questions which offer a wide field for speculation, and an interesting subject, should the opportunity occur, for archaeological research, Our present tame geese differ, generally speaking, in so small a degree from their wild congeners that we hardly need Darwin’s authority to assure us that they are all descended from the Grey-Lag goose Answ anser (Linnaeus). The very small change they have suffered under domestication, which is rarely more than an increase in size, a diminution in the warmth and intensity of their coloration, and a tendency, partial or complete, towards albinism, would suggest that the domestication of the goose took place at a comparatively recent date. The most cursory examination of the available evidence shows this opinion to be untenable. For example it is probable that, when in 390 B.C. the tame geese in the Roman Capitol saved a critical situation by being more wakeful than the men on guard, their establishment there was already an ancient institution and that they either possessed then, or else acquired by this salutary action of theirs, a semi-sacred character. Contrary to expectation the Romans attributed a particular sanctity to those geese which were white.

The Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum sets out his view of where responsible museums and researchers should find a balance in the difficult matter of unprovenanced antiquities that may be the spoils of recent looting.