Viewed from the south Devon littoral with its series of good harbours the dark bulk of Dartmoor is clearly visible across the flat coastal plain. It is the largest of the five granite masses that provide a spine to the south-west English peninsula (Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor, Hensbarrow, Carnmenellis and Penwith) that were formed by the consolidation of molten material. The 500 square kilometres of the Moor form an undulating upland up to 600 m OD on the north-east side, where the greatest elevations occur. In the southern parts of the Moor the rolling tableland is 300 m to 420 m high—modern cultivation tends to cease at the 300 m contour, that is broken by numerous upland valleys and the eroded remains of tors. Today this expanse of moorland is bleak and treeless except in river valleys at the rim of the granite escarpment, although patches of contorted oak woodland survive at Piles' Wood on the River Erme, Wistman's Wood on the West Dart and Black Tor Beare on the West Okement. Pollen analyses have shown, however, that up to a height of about 360 m Dartmoor was probably covered by a deciduous forest dominated by oak that was gradually eroded by climatic trends and human activity (e.g. Simmons, 1969). It is from this central mass that the rivers of south Devon diverge. The wide upland valleys of the Tavy, Plym, Yealm, Erme, Avon and Dart plunge through characteristic deep wooded gorges near the southern granite escarpment into the South Hams and around this border modern settlement—numerous villages and a few towns are situated.

It is now generally recognised that the activity known as hunting is a complex but predictable adaptation of small social units to the variable structure of the environment. In the last decade we have passed from the model of the hunter as a ‘catch-as-catch-can’ opportunist to an appreciation of his ability to exploit resources in both a systematic and efficient manner (Wilmsen 1973; Williams 1974; Jochim 1976). The investigation of how hunting decisions are made has led to a fuller appreciation of the component parts of this particular lifestyle, with the result that attention has shifted from technology, as the principal interest, to considerations of resource exploitation, demography, settlement location, interaction, and mating networks (Higgs 1976; Wobst 1974, 1976). In particular the differing adaptations of hunter-gatherer groups have been examined in relation to variations in the global ecosystem which shows a spatial succession of habitat types, grading from generalised to specialised, between the equatorial tropics and the arctic poles (Harris 1969; Yellen and Harpending 1972). While this is a most convenient framework for predicting many variable features of hunter-gatherer organisation, e.g. territory size and cultural patterning, its extreme generality obscures the options that exist within ecosystems at the smaller scale of local adaptation. Thus, far from confining hunting outcomes to broad eco-determinism, decisions made by hunting bands will be influenced by immediate features of the environment such as the location of grazing areas and the configurations of relief. The outcomes as seen in settlement patterns and demographic arrangements may well resemble, at a local level, the expected pattern as influenced by generalised environmental conditions, while viewed at a wider scale the prevailing environment might be highly specialised (Gamble 1978b, 181). The purpose of this paper is to examine, by means of a case study, a comparative structure for palaeolithic hunting strategies that involved the exploitation of large mammals.

The Nympsfield chambered tomb or long barrow (NGR SO 79390132) is situated to the north-west of Nympsfield village, in the parish of Frocester, and occupies a position on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment. The tomb is at 237 m (777 ft) above Ordnance Datum, on a slight eminence, and lies on a bedrock of Inferior Oolite limestone. The site overlooks the Severn Valley, though the view in this direction is currently obscured by the trees of the wooded scarp slope, which in turn prevents an assessment of whether or not the tomb could be seen from the Vale (Note 1, following Appendices).

Ethnographic data has been used to show that ‘most differences between hunters and farmers are a matter of degree, and there is no sharp dividing line between the two means of subsistence’ (Orme 1977, 46). The early Neolithic of southern England, as defined from the archaeological record, is likely to reflect the adaptations of a mature techno-economic system to an environment already much altered by the activities of late Mesolithic groups and immigrant pioneer ‘agriculturalists’. Case has shown the need for a long period of pioneer activity during which contact with indigenous groups would have taken place and hunting and gathering provided an essential supplementary means of subsistence (1969). By the later Mesolithic, internal population growth and the spread of closed forest, which affected the availability of food resources, may have created internal pressures on the mobile hunter-gatherer subsistence base (Jacobi 1978, Evans 1975). Zones of particularly rich resources, such as the Kennet and Thames valley, may have provided conditions which allowed a reduction in group mobility. Attempts may also have been made in other areas to increase the resources available by limited forest clearance, more controlled use of plant resources, and an increase in the exploitation of coastal environments (Jacobi 1973 and 1978, Mellars 1976, Clarke 1976). Thus, during the crucial period of contact both systems were under stress, and it is no longer valid to attempt to identify a Late Mesolithic with a purely hunter-gatherer economy which was rapidly replaced by a homogeneous group of sedentary agriculturalists with a distinct artifact assemblage.

Through lack of data, knowledge of primary copper mining has remained for a long time unclear (Bognár-Kutzián 1976, 75; Sherratt 1975, 577). For the same reason, comparisons with the mining of flint, well known in Central and Western Europe, were not possible. This lack of direct knowledge of copper mining has meant that theories concerning the origins of copper metallurgy have been based largely on the results of examination of various copper objects (Tylecote 1976, 5; Rowlands 1971, 210).

Recent excavations carried out in SE Europe underline the importance of mining as a new element in the investigation of the beginning of copper metallurgy. Two sites are foremost: Ai Bunar in South Bulgaria and Rudna Glava in North-East Yugoslavia (fig. 1). Mining works of considerable size, attested at Ai Bunar, have not been completely examined (see now Cernych 1978, not available when this report was prepared). According to the published results, it seems to be a combination of open-cast and shaft extraction; the places of exploitation are numerous—eleven of them have been investigated—but this may not be the final total. An ore bed of copper carbonate minerals, mainly malachite and to a lesser extent azurite, has been exposed for a distance of 1·5 km (Cernych 1975, 133; Cernych 1978).

In the course of research on Bronze Age metalwork from Surrey 1972–4, the writer's attention was drawn to an unpublished bronze shield in Chertsey Museum found locally at Mixnam's Pit several years earlier. The find obviously did not fall into any known British type, and closer parallels evident amongst the continental Nipperweise class made this, potentially, the first recognised import of a Bronze Age shield to Britain. With the aid of the Sir Cyril Fox Memorial Award for 1974, it was possible to study continental bronze shields in West Germany and Denmark, in particular three of the five known examples of Nipperweise type. Subsequently, in June 1977, by curious chance, a second British Nipperweise-like shield was recovered at Long Wittenham, and this has amplified the need for a detailed consideration of relationships within the class. First, however, it is necessary to describe the two British shields and their find circumstances, and to give descriptions of the relevant continental examples.

The last volumes of the report on the excavations at Jericho have been delayed owing to the death of Dame Kathleen Kenyon. This article was written in 1977 as a specialist contribution to the final report but, in view of the delay, Dr Clutton-Brock wishes to present the evidence here so that any observations by her colleagues may be considered before the final publication. The provenance of the material has been correlated with the system designed for the final reports.

The recent paper by Coles et al. (1978) on the use and character of prehistoric timber is a most timely reminder that the study of wooden artifacts can make a significant contribution to our understanding of early man. This potential may never be realised, however, unless full records are compiled on site whilst the artifacts are maintained in a stable state by ‘passive’ conservation techniques, and samples of the timber are recovered for post-excavation research. In the past much information has been irretrievably lost because these actions were not taken. It is also necessary to be cautious before accepting that wooden artifacts excavated or found before, say, 1960 are necessarily from the period ascribed to them. Not all simple artifacts are prehistoric.

Torcs made from the gold/silver alloy known as electrum are among the most striking features of British Iron Age craftsmanship; yet despite the interest they generate, little effort has been directed towards unravelling the problems of their development. This paper seeks to correct this neglect by considering the reasons for the decline of electrum torc art, with particular reference to those found in East Anglia.

In January 1974 I started my doctoral thesis supervised by Prof. O.-H. Frey (Marburg an der Lahn) at the University of Hamburg, on the subject: ‘Arms, armour and warfare in Central Italy during the Iron Age, ninth to sixth century B.C.’. During the work on this subject, it soon became evident that a detailed treatment would not be possible if the work were restricted to the geographical region of Italy. Many questions and problems appeared, the answers to which could not be found in Italy only, but in other geographical areas, surrounding more or less the whole Mediterranean and the foothills of the Alps. These connections and influences in Etruria determined to a great extent the historical development of the Central Italian military systems. Of course these military influences came at different times and from different sources, with Etruria taking a key position because of its extraordinarily favourable geographical, topographical and other natural conditions. Therefore Etruria had a special importance in the taking up and passing on of foreign elements of warfare from the Iron Age onwards, which influenced and even determined the military history of this region during the whole first millennium B.C. On the other hand the new military technology, which mostly reached Etruria first, was passed on after a delay from Etruria to Latium in the south and to Umbria in the east, then to the Adriatic Coast and to northern Italy and finally in a modified and selected form also beyond the Alps, to the under-developed peoples of Central Europe.

The three long barrows described in this report were totally excavated between 1959 and 1967. They have been presented in a single report because they had several features in common: they were in close proximity; they were built as single phase monuments; two conformed to a common specification which required elaborate internal structures; and they produced no evidence of funerary function or intent. There are four sections: I. The Horslip (or Windmill Hill) Long Barrow (P. A.). II. The Beckhampton Road Long Barrow (I.F.S.). III. The South Street Long Barrow (J.G.E.). The fourth section (IV) deals with the environmental history of the area as revealed in the long barrow soils and sediments (J.G.E.).

More than twenty years have elapsed since Stuart Piggott suggested the possibility of a connection between the primary Neolithic cultures of Britain and the early phases of the Funnel necked Beaker (TRB) Culture of northern Europe (Piggott 1956). What appeared at that time to many scholars, not least in Denmark, to be a very far fetched idea, must today in the light of the many new Danish excavations be considered seriously. Piggott pointed to three categories of finds which could possibly be advanced as indicators of contact: Pottery, causewayed camps and ‘unchambered’ earthen long barrows. In all three areas decisive new results have been obtained, and although this paper deals with the earthen long barrows, both the pottery and the causewayed camps will be briefly commented upon.

C. J. Becker's division of the Danish early Neolithic pottery into four major classes, the A, B, non-megalithic and megalithic C types of pottery, is still useable for the general categorization of site inventories (Becker 1948). The neat derivative system that he built, with A originating somewhere in eastern Europe, followed by B, and terminating with two contemporary C-groups, is however no longer warranted, and especially not with reference to the radiocarbon dates. Nor can the clear-cut typological division of the pottery into the four groups be maintained, since many types of pots and ornamentation occur in more than one group. For instance the B type beaker, with lines of twisted cord beneath the rim, is an integral part of the inventory of non-megalithic C sites, and also occurs in connection with megalithic C pottery.