A manuscript scroll preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, proves to be the log from the first in a series of flights undertaken by O.G.S. Crawford (1886–1957) in association with Alexander Keiller (1889–1955), which ultimately resulted in publication of their classic volume, Wessex from the Air (1928), a key work in the history of archaeological aerial photography. The roller-board on which the scroll is mounted proves equally interesting, being a cavalryman's mapping board of a type in use from the 1870s to the late 1920s. These items are placed in their respective historical contexts and an explanation is offered for their seemingly improbable conjunction.

Thirty years ago, the finding of a single hand-axe in Greece was remarkable enough to have its own note in ANTIQUITY. A recent conference is occasion to review the regional picture, now broad as well as deep enough for patterns to emerge which look more like early prehistoric realities than the chance consequence of where the pioneers have been looking.

In this, the eighth contribution to our archaeological retrospect series, Professor Carl Johan Becker describes the development of Danish archaeology in the last fifty years, how it affected him and how he affected it, since his first excavation in 1932. He retired this year as Professor of Nordic Archaeology in the University of Copenhagen: in this wide-ranging and most informative article he says that a ‘new survey of Danish prehistory… will not be forthcoming’ from him, but we have good reason to believe that he is mistaken.

N works on the evolution of plank-built boats attention has never been directed sufficiently to the technique of the methods followed in their construction. The universal habit has been to take the vessels as they are in their completed state and to apply morphological methods to their study from this limited aspect; precisely as the oldfashioned conchologist studied and classified his shells by outward form without regard to the soft parts—the essential criteria, as we now know. It is true nevertheless that in respect both of mollusca and boats, the study of the outward form has led, generally, to an approximation to the truth, but conclusions so reached are not to be accepted as correct without correlated verification dependent upon study of the kernel within the husk. Thus it is that nearly the same conclusions to which I come in this paper, have already been suggested tentatively by Brindley; but, owing to the fact that he did not utilize the internal evidence now brought forward, his suggestions were controversial hypotheses which he could not prove conclusively; nor was he able to state definitely whether the divergent forms noted were reached by means of diffusion and local variation, or whether they arose through independent invention, or by a combination of the two factors.

So Caistor-by-Norwich is to be excavated. It has long been known that in the 30-acre field adjoining the little church of St. Edmund a ghost of the Roman town shows dimly from time to time as a net-work of lines in the sun-dried corn. Last year on the 20th of July, during the midsummer heat-wave, a Royal Air Force aeroplane, flying at a height of 2400 feet over the ripening barley, took a series of photographs which were first published (as a single plate) in the Times of 4th March 1929. These photographs show, within the circuit of the existing Roman town-walls, the main street-plan of Venta Icenorum. With them appeared an appeal for funds for the purpose of excavation.

The Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP) provided vast quantities of invaluable data to our understanding of this famous ancient city. The ‘Documenting, Disseminating, and Archiving Data from the Teotihuacan Mapping Project’ aims to analyse, re-examine and ultimately coalesce TMP data for entry into The Digital Archaeological Record.

This is a story that will appeal to all scholars involved with the interpretation of rock art. Figures depicted on rock surfaces in jungle terrain patrolled by soldier ants were thought in the nineteenth century to record an otherwise unknown early episode of invasion and resistance – and were widely published as such. A recent survey by a Myanmar-Australian team has made more correct records of the earlier forms and now offers fresh interpretations: the carvings are due to fifteenth-nineteenth century artisans working at quarries producing objects for the town of Mrauk-U, and they evoke local creatures and architectural echoes of the town and temples on which they worked.

During and immediately after the 1939-45 war archaeology in China was practically at a standstill. With the world quietening down once more, the study of the human past began again to make a tremendous spurt forward. From Siberia through Western Asia and Africa to Central America excavation began everywhere. China, where the culture of Eastern Asia was born, was no exception. Before the war there was only a handful of archaeologists in the Chinese field. They were either enthusiasts from abroad or graduates of Harvard or London who worked on a few limited sites or some ancient tombs which had been discovered by accident. In the last fifteen years the situation has been greatly altered. Hundreds of young archaeologists have been trained in the universities as well as in permanent quarters erected close to the important sites under the direction of the Institute of Archaeology. They are organized into field teams that can be sent to any part of the country to co-operate with local workers. They work in the field and produce their reports by group discussion.

One of the outstanding problems of British archaeology and perhaps the most important of those which still await solution, is that involved in the revival of Celtic and La T h e motives in 7th century art. This question has been discussed in various recent publications by Dr Mahr, Mr Kendrick and Dr Wheeler. So far however there is no sign of ultimate agreement. With this question is bound up the origins of that Irish Christian art which had so spectacular a blooming in such objects as the Books of Durrow and Kells, the high crosses of Monasterbois and Clonmacnoise and the Tara brooch.