This is an excellent and tightly written argument against the indiscriminate and essentialist extension of invented anthropological typologies, such as ‘the San’, back into the Pleistocene. While analogical arguments that relate similarities in excavated tools, poisons and so on to the repertoire of items used by extant peoples in order to interpret their function is a common approach in archaeology, as the authors rightly point out, the extension of these analogies to include particular cultural and linguistic forms is ‘a theoretically flawed exercise’.

The occurrence of designs cut on the stone walling slabs of certain prehistoric tombs in Central Germany has led from time to time to a search for comparisons, even prototypes, in the mural art of megalithic tombs in Atlantic Europe. Within recent years, some new observations and discoveries of considerable interest have been made principally as a result of a re-excavation at the well-known Lohne (Züschen) megalithic tomb near Fritzlar, and through the excavation of a tumulus on the Dölauer Heide near HallelSaale (FIG. I).

The first of these monuments is a large, megalithically constructed, collective tomb with a long rectangular chamber entered through a port-hole slab which is set between the main chamber and a short ante-chamber. The whole monument is set in a trench so that the roof was approximately at ground level. This is one of a group of such tombs in Hesse; there is a neighbouring group in Westphalia, and these are related both to a group in Sweden, and, more particularly, to the classic tombs of this type in the Paris Basin (SOM). The Dölau tumulus is something quite different, for in it, amongst other things, has been found a stone-constructed grave for only one individual. The wall and cap-stones are of moderate size but not megalithic, and the grave can be likened in various respects to some three other stone-built graves, all in the Halle district, and of which the best known was that found at Göhlitzsch with its representations of bow, quiver, and battle-axe, cut, with other decoration, on the wall faces.

In order to obtain a good site chronology the radiocarbon measurements must be carried out on samples having a firm archaeological basis and high probability of association with the event or structure the date of which is required. Patently the radiocarbon date can be no better than the sample provided for measurements, and any missassociation at this stage cannot subsequently be rectified. Often discordant radiocarbon dates are explained away by supposing that the sample was ‘contaminated’ with earlier or later material. Calculations based on these surmises may often disclose that excessively large amounts of contaminants must be postulated to secure a given result.

Up to a century ago there still stood on the farm Li in Bstre Gausdal, near Lifossen, Gausa, a stone bearing this runic inscription from the days of Olaf the Holy : ‘Eiliv Elg carried fish in Rausjøen’.

In ancient times, as in our own, to carry fish meant to transfer fry in the lakes and waters—to stock as ova and allow to spawn, All fish in our mountain tarns has been carried up by folk in this manner; the Gausdal inscription has commemorized this remarkable and, technically, very difficult chapter in the conquest and cultivation of the country. Eilif is merely one of a thousand and he had this inscription incised not as any memorial, nor in self-glorification, but to proclaim juridically that now the fishing rights of Rausjøen were his.

In ANTIQUITY for 1993 Barber & Crone reported their excavations at Buiston, one of the crannogs of southwestern Scotland, whose archaeology was in a remarkable good state despite the draining of its watery site. This further account, in reporting on botanical materials from the site, is able to develop a better knowledge of the plants around the crannog, and of their human uses.

Antiquity is pleased to present a preliminary report on the stone statue of a Celtic warrior recently discovered at the celebrated excavation at Lattes, southern France, and dating to around 500 BC.

The present dispute over the date of the of the Linear B tablets found at Knossos has been, for the most part, concerned with the question whether they belong to an LM II/IIIA I destruction of the Palace, which Evans dated about 1400 B.c., or to the end of the LM IIIB period, some 150 or more years later, when Evans believed that the Palace ruins were only partly reoccupied [I]. To many archaeologists, however, the problem is a different one. For them the evidence of the pottery and of the sealings associated with the burning of the Palace and with the baking of its clay archives makes the later dating of the tablets impossible. Their concern is rather to determine more exactly when in the 14th century the destruction took place.

The greatest help towards answering this question will come from a closer definition of the style of pottery in use at the time of the catastrophe. The author has been working on this problem over the last three years by studying the considerable amount of unpublished sherd material in the Stratigraphical Museum established by Evans at Knossos. A comprehensive publication of this material will of necessity take some time to complete. Meanwhile it is hoped that it would be generally helpful to illustrate some eight of the pots which the author has been able to have reconstructed from these sherds; at the same time it is proposed briefly to outline the circumstances in which they were originally found according to the excavation reports.

The silver plate in the Sutton Hoo treasure is not as uniform in technique and style as the gold ornaments. While the latter can be claimed as the work of a special ‘Sutton Hoo School ’ the silver is a haphazard collection of pieces differing in date and origin, and can only be discussed by taking each item separately.

It is widely recognized that a knowledge and understanding of the origins and development of human societies is of fundamental importance to humanity in identifying its cultural and social roots.

The famous Celtic site of Entremont, well known for its head cult and warrior statues, is a heritage gem of southern France. This naturally inhibits further excavation there, but the authors show just how much can be achieved through an integrated package of remote mapping techniques. Their exemplary methodology produced more than a high resolution plan of the unexcavated part of the site; this type of integrated procedure generates ground-breaking research, without breaking any ground. Here the investigation mobilised arguments for pre-urban monuments, and the activities, enclosures, entrances and circulation of the oppidum.

At the end of the last war it became known to archaeologists in this country that there had been published in Germany in 1943 the first part, itself in two massivevolumes, of a monumental survey of the Spanish chambered tombs by Dr and Frau Leisner. Die Megalithgraber der Iberischen Halbinsel-I Der Suden was sponsored and produced by the Romisch-Germanische Kommission, and for the first time the results of the excavations of Siret, Bonsor and others were presented to scholars in a manner which set a new standard in the publication of such material. The work is noteworthy not only for its detailed and informed discussion of the tombs and their contents, but for its scheme of total presentation of the evidence in visual form and to uniform conventions of scale and draughtsmanship, supported by photographs where necessary.

Most readers of ANTIQUITYw ill have heard of the Pergamon Museum at Berlin; its opening was the chief event of the centenary celebrations of the German Archaeological Institute (see Mr R. G. Collingwood's note in ANTIQUITY, 1929, III, 339). Those, however, who have not actually seen it can hardly realize what an outstanding achievement that museum already is, even in its present unfinished state; nor perhaps do they know that the Pergamon reconstitutions do not stand alone. There are similar reconstitutions of other classical buildings and also of Middle Eastern remains. About five large rooms are at present opened, and their contents represent the high-water-mark of museum-craft in Europe, and are an objectlesson to the world ; but to me their significance seemed even deeper, marking the triumphal emergence of a new craft. I have seen many museums, but here for the first time in my life I felt completely satisfied. The ideal aimed at seemed to have been achieved; there was nothing to find fault with. Here at last was a thoroughly honest attempt to reconstruct ancient masterpieces of architecture, and to exhibit them without irrelevant distractions. The technique of exhibition achieves its end through simplicity and common sense. The lighting is admirable ; the floors of marble slabs (pink in the Altar-room and white or grey elsewhere) are thoroughly pleasing ; the walls are delightfully bare, with nothing but the briefest of labels carved in admirable lettering. The effect of the whole is over-whelming .