In a previous communication (Afshar, 1978) historical and topographical notes on Persepolis and the site of the present study were briefly outlined. Among the animals represented on the eastern staircase of the Apadana palace, the horse is the most common. In the royal procession, on the left wing of this staircase, seven horses dominate the scene, while on the right wing, horses are brought by eight of the 21 delegations that bring animals. Six delegations have riding horses, and two have chariots, each drawn by two horses; one other delegation, the Indian, brings another member of the equid family, the onager or wild ass. Not all the horses are represented in a uniform manner. Differences in proportion, configuration and individual features are apparent. This, and the careful depiction of all the figures on the reliefs, suggest that different breeds of horses were represented.

Mr A. R. Wilmott, the author of this note, graduated from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1977 and directed excavations at Kenchester in 1978 for Hereford and Worcester County Museum, who are still employing him to write up the excavation. A dissertation on Kenchester will form a part of his MA course at Birmingham University.

Dr Marshall McKusick is Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology, University of Iowa, USA. He and others have been concerned with the rise of antiquarian speculation in the United States, which is historically comparable to mound-builder theories of a century ago that gained great popular currency. Professor McKusick's book on the subject of the various speculations Atlantic voyages to prehistoric America, will be published early next year by the Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.

In 1966 [Sir] Fred Hoyle published two papers on the possible use of Stonehenge as an eclipse predictor (1966a,b). He has now (Hoyle, 1977) returned to this theme with a very clearly written and well-illustrated book that is essentially an expansion of the material in the two 1966 papers. In brief, Hoyle proposes that the extant features of Stonehenge I provide the necessary means systematically to observe the sun and moon and to keep track of the nodes of the lunar orbit. This would provide sufficient information to allow eclipses of the moon to be predicted. He also proposes that by the time of Stonehenge III this method was superseded by the use of the Saros cycle of 18 years 11 days to predict eclipses. This last method almost certainly implies that written records of events at full moon were kept. Since there is no evidence from the British Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age of writing or numeracy this proposal is purely speculative.

Mrs Mary Aiken Littauer, a valued contributor to ‘Antiquity’ over some years, has a few bones to pick with Dr Ahmad Afshar and Dr Judith Lerner about their Note in our March 1979 issue.

Dr James H. Dickson and Mrs Camilla A. Dickson, Department of Botany, University of Glasgow, and Dr David J. Breeze, Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments, Scottish Development Department, Edinburgh, examine the possibility that cereal debris found in a Roman military ditch at Bearsden may be wholemeal flour or even bread.

Mrs Mary Aiken Littauer, a valued contributor to ‘Antiquity’ over some years, has a few bones to pick with Dr Ahmad Afshar and Dr Judith Lerner about their Note in our March 1979 issue.

This note by D. N. Hall, Fenland Field Officer, Cambridgeshire Archaeological Committee, is to report recent findings that will be discussed in detail in a future article.

Since taking his PhD at the University of Sheffield Dr Stephen Pierpoint has been working as ‘Archaeologist’ for the North Derbyshire Archaeological Committee. During his research he obtained three radiocarbon determinations (financed by Shffield University) for the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Yorkshire of considerable interest.

We published in our July issue (LIII, I48–9) comments by Dr Talbot of the University of Leeds challenging Robert Raikes's views on this subject, and we now print comments from Dr Sutton, Department of Archaeology, University of Ghana. We think that perhaps this discussion on the environmental history of the Sahara and Sahel has, by now, been sufficiently aired in our pages.

The conventional radiocarbon dating method relies on the accurate measurement of a sample's beta-ray decay rate in order to determine the age of the sample. The new method instead counts the individual C14 atoms in a sample using an ultra-sensitive mass spectrometer. There are numerous advantages to this approach. The problem of cosmic ray background does not arise. Shorter counting times on samples a thousand times smaller may be possible. We might also expect the production of more accurate age determinations. The new method will permit a great expansion in the variety of archaeological materials which can be dated because only milligram samples will be required. Research on the design of a dedicated C14 atom-counting machine is now in progress. This note is by E. B. Banning, Department of Near Eastern Studies and Department of Physics Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Toronto, Canada, and L. A. Pavlish, Department of Anthropology and Department of Physics Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Toronto, Canada.