The earliest Christian churches of England must have been built‘while the Romans yet dwelt in Britain’. It is quite possible that some remains of them exist, unrecognized by modern eyes, and offering in their arrangements none of the conventions which have since so greatly influenced the development of the church plan. But we have at Silchester the plan of a building which has been claimed as a Christian church, probably of 4th century date, and of it we may say that if it be actually so—a matter which is not capable of definite proof,— it falls well enough into line with later churches of whose nature there can be no doubt. It is a little building with a rectangular nave flanked by side chambers or aisles and preceded by a porch. The nave ends in an apse, in this instance to the west, with transeptal chambers to north and south.

This essay in the historiography of Bronze Age studies traces their growth from the early 19th-century adoption of the Three Age system to the 1960s and their subsequent decline as a distinct field of endeavour with the retreat from period-based approaches.

We acknowledge the observations of Doppler et al. on our paper and we are grateful to Antiquity s editor for this opportunity to reply to their objections. Firstly it should be noted that we have not claimed that the Chiemsee once included the Tuttensee. We agree that the region in which both lakes lie was glacially formed. But while Lake Chiemsee is the result of the last Ice Age, the Tuttensee basin originates from a much later Holocene meteorite impact. We do not use the myth of Phaeton to date this event that is known as the Chiemgau impact. On the contrary, we estimate from archaeological evidence and OSL dating that the event occurred between 2200 and 800 BC i.e. the Bronze Age (Rappengluck et al. 2010: 436).We go on to discuss parallels between the independent dating of the Chiemgau impact and the possible time frame of the myth (Rappengluck et al. 2010: 435–37).

Profound books are always worthwhile. If we agree with them, their ideas become a direct contribution to our knowledge. If we disagree, they impel us to examine the basis of disagreement and to develop our own counter-ideas, and thus they make an indirect contribution to our knowledge. R. G. Collingwood's The Idea of History (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1946) is the most penetrating work on the foundations of historical method known to me, but I find it unacceptable. My major difficulties result from his ontological idealism and his dichotomy between mind and nature.

Thus the sum of things is ever being renewed, and mortals live dependent one upon another…and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and like runners hand on the torch of life.

Few places in the world have given rise to more fantastic speculation than this volcanic island, 70 square miles in area, lying in the Pacific Ocean, lat. 27° 10′ s., long. 109° 20′ w. Actually the so-called ‘mysteries of Easter Island’, or rather the explanations which have been offered, are not the work of trained men of science. It is natural that the huge statues, standing erect as they do in a naked landscape against a background of black and yellow, should have appealed to the poetical imagination. But those who wish to face with candour the problems presented by certain parts of the world may well be annoyed when the poets’ lyrical love of mystery becomes the starting-point of speculation. The best students of Easter Island have always told us that it was Polynesian and could only be explained by Polynesia. The evidence that we have now obtained is merely an addition to what was already a formidable pile. Nevertheless we expect that before long others will come forward again with tales of a lost continent of Lemuria, submerged beneath the waters of the Pacific; and that Easter Island is one of its peaks, peopled with Lemurian idols!