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The Mutual Relations of the British Neolithic Ceramics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

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Extract

In 1932 the writer published a catalogue of and a commentary on the Neolithic Pottery of the British Isles, in which emphasis was laid on the essential division, first distinguished by Kendrick nearly ten years ago, into the Windmill Hill (Neolithic A) and Peterborough (Neolithic B) groups, and it was claimed that “evidence is consistent in pointing to a late date for Peterborough ware, with constant contacts with the beakers, while the Windmill Hill antedates this.” Since the publication of this paper, however, re-examination of the material, certain new evidence, and above all a most valuable discussion with Mr. E. Thurlow Leeds have made it clear that this claim for a difference of date all over Britain was unfounded. The most convincing, and indeed almost startling evidence was in the form of certain sherds from the recent excavations by Dr. Cecil Curwen in the causewayed camp of Whitehawk, near Brighton. Dr. Curwen invited the writer to examine and describe the pottery, and a brief commentary was contributed to the report on the excavations. Owing to the exigencies of space and other considerations it was thought advisable to omit from this report any discussion of the wider implications suggested, and to deal with them in a separate paper.

Since the Whitehawk sherds form the real basis of the revised views presented in this paper, it is well to consider them in some detail, at the risk of partial repetition of the account already published elsewhere. (Fig. 1.)

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1934

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References

page 373 note 1 Arch. Journ. LXXXVIII, 67 ff.Google Scholar

page 373 note 2 Loc. cit. 73.

page 373 note 3 Antiq. Journ. XIV, 99133Google Scholar.

page 375 note 1 Antiq. Journ. VII, 438–64Google Scholar.

page 375 note 2 Antiquity, VIII, 2442Google Scholar.

page 375 note 3 e.g. at Selmeston, (Antiq. Journ. XIV, 138140)Google Scholar and at Bill, Selsey (Sussex Notes and Queries IV, 217Google Scholar; Antiq. Journ. XIV, 4142.)Google Scholar

page 375 note 4 Antiquity, VII, 166183Google Scholar.

page 375 note 5 Wilts. Arch. Mag. XLVI, 225242Google Scholar. Fig. 2 is from a new drawing by Dr. Stone, to whom the writer is indebted for permission to republish the bowl.

page 377 note 1 Loc. cit.

page 379 note 1 A possible exception is the recently published sherd, No. P.254, illustrated in Third Season's Report in D.A.E.S., 1933, pl. XVIII, but its presence in isolation merely emphasizes its abnormality.

page 379 note 2 The ultimate origin of the European tulip-beaker has been seen by some in the remarkably similar vessels of predynastic Egypt. Cf. Childe, V. G., The Most Ancient East (1934), 60 ff.Google Scholar, and also his remarks on the Merimdian culture and its possible connexions with the “Western” Neolithic cultures of Europe, op. cit. 300.

page 379 note 3 Arch. Journ. LXXXVIII, 46Google Scholar.

page 379 note 4 Attention should however be drawn to a small causewayed earthwork at Kothingeichendorf, Bavaria, which was apparently Danubian—at all events it is stated to have yielded “Spiral-ceramic.” Antiquity, II, 44Google Scholar.

page 379 note 5 One might also compare certain bone burnishers from the Michelsberg culture at Spiennes (Loë, De, La Belgique Ancienne, IGoogle Scholar, figs. 73, 74) with similar objects found in Neolithic contexts in England—e.g. at Windmill Hill, the Avebury Ditch, Temple Bottom Long Barrow, Wilts. (Proc. Soc. Ant. 2 S. III (1866), 213Google Scholar), Bown Hill Long Barrow, Glos. (Crawford, , Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, 85Google Scholar) and elsewhere. But it is more likely that these have a common Mesolithic ancestry.

page 380 note 1 Arch. Journ. LXXXVIII, 8285Google Scholar.

page 380 note 2 Loc. cit.

page 381 note 1 Antiq. Journ., VIII, pl. LXXIV, fig. 3a. Identified as bird-bone (magpie digit) by Liddell, Dorothy in Antiquity, III, 289Google Scholar.

page 381 note 2 Arch. Journ. LXXXVIII, 92Google Scholar.

page 381 note 3 As at Abingdon, (Ant. Journ. VIIIGoogle Scholar, pl. LXXIV, fig. 2e) and at Whitehawk (op. cit. XIV, fig. 41, p. 118).