Much has been written about the revival of Celtic art in Britain during the last century of the Roman occupation, but so far evidence for similar movements in other parts of the Roman Empire has received but little attention from British archaeologists. Yet it is now nearly half a century since M. P. Gavault, a French archi- tect, excavated a 4th-5th century Christian church at Tigzirt on the Mediterranean coast west of Port Gueydon, and drew attention to the unclassical character of the ornamentation of the supports to the clerestory arches in the church. His suggestion was that the ornamentation was inspired by pre-Roman, Carthaginian originals, and implied a popular movement away from classical design.

In his article on ‘The Strategy of Anglo-Saxon Invasion’ in the March number of ANTIQUITY,1 Mr K. D. M. Dauncey discusses the cremation cemeteries of Norfolk and Lincolnshire, and endeavours to draw from their distribution and their supposed relationship to the inhumation and the mixed cemeteries of the same and neighbouring areas certain conclusions which, if justified by the available evidence, would be of considerable historical importance. His claim is that the pure (or nearly pure) cremation cemeteries of this region can be regarded as ‘ primary’, not only from the chronological standpoint, compared With the inhumation or mixed cemeteries, but also socially, as indicative of military rather than civilian settlement. Their distribution is thus held to reflect certain strategic conceptions determining the course and the character of the earliest Anglo-Saxon occupation of the eastern Midlands.

In its original form this paper was prefaced with an account, painfully extracted from the somewhat unsatisfactory descriptions in the Historical Monuments Commission’s volumes for Herts and South Bucks and in the Victoria County History, of the existing portions of the earthwork with which I proposed to deal. For the South Oxfordshire Grimsditch, which I ventured to associate with the continuous work which runs through Herts and Bucks, I relied upon Plot and Burn, and some of the original documents used by the latter.

As readers of ANTIQUITY are already aware, the Editor, moved by the conviction that the earnest seeker after truth in this field at least deserved to be supplied with the facts, has during the past two years personally investigated the whole of the remaining fragments of earthworks in the district, and I am therefore able to refer to his paper in the June number, and to the map which he has compiled to illustrate this paper as well as his own, as furnishing a succinct and authoritative statement of the main features of the Chiltern Grimsditch, by which my arguments stand or fall.

Until modern cultivation invaded even the permanent pasture-land, the ubiquitous trace of medieval farming in the lowland English landscape was ridge-and-furrow. A record in themselves, the undulating slopes are now seen to act as a device to preserve older features underneath.

For its importance in throwing light upon a dark period of history, and for the intrinsic beauty and archaeological significance of its contents the Sutton Hoo Ship burial has been rightly described as the greatest find ever made in England. The Ship was fully excavated in July and August 1939, and the treasures found therein were taken to the British Museum, where the most urgent preservative measures were immediately undertaken. During the War these valuable finds were hidden underground. Recently they were returned to the British Museum, where they are now being unpacked, cleaned, and made ready for exhibition. In anticipation of their full publication it has been decided to make a report upon some individual pieces when, from time to time, they become available for exhibition.

In the 15 years since the decipherment of the so-called ‘Linear B’ script as Greek, I have often been asked what was the most important resulting gain in our knowledge of ancient Greece. I have always put first the final and conclusive proof that the Mycenaeans, the people who produced a brilliant civilization in Greece between the 16th and 12th centuries BC, were Greeks. Previously there had always been room for argument, and although most people accepted this as a fact, it was always just possible to assert that the Mycenaeans were a non-Greek people, whose deeds and legends had been appropriated by the Greeks as their own.