A contour map of part of the basin of the glacial Lake Pickering was constructed from surface and sub-surface levels. This map (figs 2, 3 and 4) gives a pictorial representation of the microtopography of the area and is amplified by an additional map (fig. 13) in which the margin of the organic deposits is given for the early Mesolithic period, based on evidence outlined below. A stratigraphical survey of the basin deposits shows that the infilling of the lake in the Devensian Late-glacial began largely with the deposition of calcareous muds. In the early Flandrian there followed a natural hydroseral development from open water to reedswamp and fen carr. Towards the end of the Boreal period and during the early Atlantic, a rise in water level was responsible for the replacement of fen carr by reedswamp. The rate of hydroseral development was affected by a progressive rise of water level. This has been determined (estimated) by radio-carbon dating the basal organic muds on the 23, 24 and 25 m OD sub-surface contours at eight sites within the study area. During the early Mesolithic (Godwin's pollen Zone IV, c.9600 BP)the water level in the basin was likely to have been in the range of 23–24.5 m OD. By reference to the dating evidence, including published pollen diagrams (Walker and Godwin 1954) and new data presented in Parts 2 and 3, the stratigraphical evidence is interpreted to show that there was considerable variation in the vegetation of the lake margin during the early Mesolithic period (pollen Zone IV). At Seamer Carr there was a large area of fen carr woodland with reedswamp fringing the open water. Star Carr had a much larger area of reedswamp, with open water close to the dry land in places, but with a narrow fringe of carr. The bed of the ancient River Hertford, which drained the basin, probably in the late Mesolithic, has been identified in two of the sections which traverse the basin.

An Upper Palaeolithic, uniserially barbed antler point, discovered during excavations of a Devensian Lateglacial sediment sequence in a quarry near Gransmoor, Yorkshire, England, is described. The stratigraphic context of the find is summarised, and the age of the implement can be confidently estimated to between 11,500 and 11,100 radiocarbon years BP on the basis of (i) a series of AMS radiocarbon dates, (ii) radiometric dating of the wood within which the barbed point was lodged, and (iii) biostratigraphic considerations. The barbed point from Gransmoor is probably unrivalled in Britain in terms of the stratigraphic and chronological context within which it can be assessed. Some suggestions are made concerning the manufacture and function of the barbed point on the basis of markings on the antler surface and remains of some of the original mastic, features which are extremely well preserved.

During the first quarter of this century, not much was known about the Indian Stone Ages and only two phases, Palaeolithic and Neolithic (including microliths), were recognized. Some of the earlier discoveries recorded by Robert Bruce Foote, Coggin Brown, Cammiade, Miles Burkitt, De Terra, Paterson and others gave an impetus for the later researchers and the Stone Age cultural sequence began to take a clear shape. The most significant among the later discoveries is the identification of a distinct culture by H. D. Sankalia, which is now designated as the Middle Stone Age, and the extent of its distribution is now well established. Prehistorians who launched a systematic survey unearthed the remnants of the stone using populations from different parts of the country, viz., the Panjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Mysore, Andhra Pradesh and Madras recognizing three phases, The Early Stone Age, the Middle Stone Age and the Late Stone Age, occupying the time span of Pleistocene and Early Holocene times.

The material culture that represents the Stone Age Communities in various parts of the country displays a homogeneous pattern of development. The Early Stone Age is followed by the Middle Stone Age which in most of the regions gave way to the Late Stone Age; however, a blade and burin industry with a discontinuous horizontal distribution is known in a few regions between the Middle and Late Stone Ages.

In recent discussions of the origins and process of animal domestication (Reed, 1961, Zeuner, 1963), both authors rely on two kinds of evidence: on the one hand, the present distributions and characteristics of the different breeds of whatever animal is being discussed, together with its feral and wild relatives, and, on the other hand, the past record, given by literary and pictorial sources and the bones from archaeological and geological sites. Increased recognition of the limitations of the past record, whether in the accuracy of the information it appears to give (as in the case of pictorial sources), or in the certainty of the deductions we are at present capable of drawing from it (this applies especially to the osteological record), has led these authors to argue mainly from the present situation, using the past record to confirm or amplify the existing picture.

Arguing from the present, many hypotheses about the origins and process of domestication are available. The only test we have, when attempting to choose between these, lies in the direct evidence of the past record. The past record, it is freely admitted, is very fragmentary: the information provided by the present situation is more exact, ranges over a much wider field, and is more open to test and control. Nevertheless, the past record, however imperfect it is, is the only direct evidence we have about the process of domestication.

In these Proceedings over 15 years ago Gordon Childe made a classic survey of the evidence for the earliest wagons and carts in the Near East and Europe, following it three years later with a similar treatment using some additional material which had become available by that time (Childe, 1951, 1954a, b). Since then much new primary archaeological evidence has been discovered or recognized for what it is, and there have been two recent important works of synthesis, that of Boná (1960) on vehicle models in the Middle Danube, and that of van der Waals (1964) of finds of actual disc wheels in the Netherlands. From 1956 a large number of actual vehicle finds have been made in excavations on the shores of Lake Sevan in Armenian SSR; an additional second find comes from Trialeti in Georgian SSR, and new vehicle-burials found near Elista in the Kalmyk steppe, so that we now have a total of nearly 30 wagons, carts and chariots surviving wholly or in part from southern Russia, mainly of the 2nd millennium B.C. In the last 10 years or so, too, new work on the Neolithic and earliest metal-using cultures of East Europe, and on the Kura-Araxes Culture of Transcaucasia and its counterpart in eastern Anatolia has thrown new light on early wheeled transport in such contexts. Despite the penetrating and far-reaching conclusions pursued by van der Waals only four years ago there still seems room for a survey reviewing these in connection with other aspects of this cardinal problem in Old World prehistory.

A pre-requisite for understanding the transition to the Neolithic in the Levant is the establishment of a robust chronology, most notably for the late Epi-Palaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) periods. In this contribution we undertake a dating analysis of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of WF16, southern Jordan, drawing on a sample of 46 AMS 14C dates. We utilise Bayesian methods to quantify an old wood effect to provide an offset that we factor into chronological models for a number of individual structures at WF16 and for the settlement as a whole. In doing so we address the influence of slope variations in the calibration curve and expose the significance of sediment and sample redeposition within sites of this nature. We conclude that for the excavated deposits at WF16 human activity is likely to have started by c. 11.84 ka cal bp and lasted for at least c. 1590 years, ceasing by c. 10.24 ka cal bp. This is marked by a particularly intensive period of activity lasting for c. 350 years centred on 11.25 ka cal bp followed by less intensive activity lasting a further c. 880 years. The study reveals the potential of WF16 as a laboratory to explore methodological issues concerning 14C dating of early Neolithic sites in arid, erosional environments.

For many years down to 1953, our knowledge of Maltese prehistory could be summed up succinctly if rather unkindly in the phrase—‘Neolithic 3,000 B.C., Bronze Age 2,000, Punic 1,000.’ In that year, J. D. Evans's researches were published in these Proceedings. These at last provided a framework for his Period I, no longer called ‘Neolithic’ because the overlap of its later phases with metal-using cultures in nearby Sicily made it unlikely that metal was quite unknown. It was assigned a duration from the mid-second to mid-first millennium B.C. The absolute chronology will need revision in the light of the C-14 dates not then available and the correlations with the Sicilian development have met with some criticism. In any case, the isolation of the different phases was an enormous advance on which all further work in Malta will have to be based, even if, as at the time of writing begins to seem likely, certain amendments to the sequence become necessary. The later prehistoric Period II, lasting down to the 9th century when the Phoenician settlement opened Period III, was described in much less detail.

Enormous quantities of material of the first period, megalithic buildings as well as pottery and small finds, were available for study: the material remains of Period II were much more scanty, there being in effect at that time only a single site known of each of its three phases, which were correspondingly named after the Tarxien Cemetery, Borġ in-Nadur and Baħrija. In 1956, Evans published a more detailed study of the first of these phases bringing forward evidence for attributing to it the local dolmens. Phases II B and C were not ready for such treatment as the only excavations were at Borġ in-Nadur in 1881 (a sketch plan found in a Valletta photographer's shop twenty years later being the only record) and 1921-7 (disturbed levels overlying a Period I temple); and at Baħrija in 1909 (three days' work). These two phases therefore remained the most urgent problem in the prehistory of Malta. Accordingly, further excavation was undertaken on their type sites by the Museum Department of the Maltese Government in the spring and autumn of 1959.

The Somerset Levels are the largest area of low-lying ground in south-west England, covering an extensive region between the highlands of Exmoor, the Brendon Hills and the Quantock Hills to the west, and the Cotswold and Mendip Hills to the east (Pl. XXIII, inset). The Quantock Hills and the Mendip Hills directly border the Levels themselves, and reach heights of over 250 metres above sea level. The valley between extends to 27 metres below sea level, but is filled to approximately the height of the present sea by a blue-grey clay. The Levels are bisected by the limestone hills of the Poldens, and both parts have other smaller areas of limestone and sand projecting above the peat deposits that cap the blue-grey clay filling. In this paper we are concerned with the northern part of the Levels, an area at present drained by the River Brue.

The flat, peat-covered floor of the Brue Valley is some six kilometres wide and is flanked on the north by the Wedmore Ridge, and on the south by the Polden Hills (Pl. XXIII). In the centre of the valley, surrounded by the peat, is a group of islands of higher ground, Meare, Westhay, and Burtle. These islands, which would always have provided relatively dry ground in the Levels, are linked together by Neolithic trackways of the third millennium B.C. Several of these trackways formed the basis of a paper in these Proceedings in 1968 (Coles and Hibbert, 1968), which continued the work of Godwin and others (Godwin, 1960; Dewar and Godwin, 1963).

The occurrence of submerged forests in places along the British coast has long attracted attention, and led to speculation on the relative displacement in land and sea levels that enabled such forests to grow. Many of these forest beds are only visible between high and low water of the spring tides; others, not so readily seen, are known to occur in beds to a depth 60 feet below present sea level. The melting of the ice sheets after the last glaciation and the consequent rise of sea level accounts for the submergence of many of these forest beds, although the actual height at which they are found, may be affected by displacement from the contemporary level by subsequent compaction of sediments and tectonic movement. The submerged forest at Westward Ho! rests on consolidated sediments and is not subject to change in level due to compaction. The tectonic factor is discussed in relation to analogous deposits of comparable age elsewhere in southern Britain.

The presence of the submerged forest in Bideford Bay (Barnstaple Bay) at Westward Ho!, was recorded in a survey published by De la Beche in 1839, and in 1866 Ellis called attention to the presence of flints in the submerged forest bed. The peat was found in patches between a pebble ridge and low water mark and in places for about 200 yards along the beach.

In the present paper it is intended to summarize the reasons why loess sections must be regarded as important for the chronology of the Palaeolithic, and to discuss an important problem to which loess sections have contributed in recent years, that of the chronological relations between the Mousterioid and the Upper Palaeolithic industries. This problem has received particular attention in the Geochronological Laboratory of the Institute since its formation by Sir Robert Mond in 1936. Several hundred analyses have been made, some of which will be published shortly in these Proceedings, from sites ranging from the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Hungary and Poland through France and Germany to southern England, as well as from India, Africa and northern Arabia. During the later stages, the work was supported by the Central Research Fund of London University, whose help is recorded with gratitude.

Loess analysis comprises the study of grain size by mechanical analysis, determination of calcium carbonate and organic matter, the study of its porosity and texture and of the shape and quality of its grains. Two years were spent in the laboratory on the testing and improvement of various methods in use, and especially of mechanical analysis, so that the laboriousness of the work has been much reduced and results can be obtained more quickly.

The aeolian origin of loess is no longer disputed. Loess is essentially rock dust blown about and deposited from an air current. This necessitates a dry environment due either to aridity or to frost, and scarcity of vegetation. Loess dust is thus picked up on bare surfaces and deposited mainly in the steppe, where low and sparse vegetation acts like a comb, slowing down the air current and compelling it to deposit its load. Any dust that reaches the humid forest zone is incorporated in the soil that is forming there, and it thus disappears.

The excavation of an oval crop mark close to the Abingdon causewayed enclosure showed a complex sequence of development, starting with a rectangular ditched enclosure and most probably ending with an oval barrow of a type with parallels elsewhere in lowland England. The site included the grave of two individuals associated with a polished knife, a belt slider and most probably a leaf shaped arrowhead, and produced a series of radiocarbon dates extending from the Earlier to the Later Neolithic. A number of formal deposits around one end of the site are matched by similar material from the inner ditch of the causewayed enclosure, suggesting a direct link between the two monuments.

One of the features of the Irish Late Bronze Age is the appearance of wind instruments, commonly called ‘Trumpets’, often found in groups and only rarely in association with other material. Being conical and curved, these are therefore members of the horn family, to which the other large musical group of the Bronze Age, the north European lurer, also belong.

The Irish horns have attracted the attention of antiquarians for over 100 years, with the principal collection and listing of these beginning in 1860. Evans devoted a section of his 1881 book to the ‘trumpets’, and was followed by Day, Allen and Coffey. The latest treatment, which brought together most of the previous lists of horns, was by MacWhite in 1945. All of these later works were primarily concerned with the typology of the horns, and attention was paid neither to their actual production nor to their music. In the present study, all previously published horns have been examined where possible, as well as a number of unpublished finds, and an attempt will be made not only (i) to describe the typological variations and dating of the horns, but also (ii) to discuss their production as objects from Late Bronze Age workshops and (iii) to consider for the first time their musical potential.

In descriptions in the archaeological literature of the marks of workmanship characteristic of certain bronze objects of the insular Iron Age, confusion exists concerning terminology and possibly (though the imprecision of wording makes it difficult to be sure without re-examination of individual pieces) concerning technology also. Macrophotographs are seldom provided to illustrate discussion of Iron Age bronzework, even when marks of workmanship or supposed techniques of manufacture are cited as chronological or cultural symptoms, so that the confusion has been able to multiply and is now endemic in work in English in the field; individual publications need not be listed in this connection. In the present paper we illustrate, describe and as far as possible distinguish one series of tool marks experimentally produced, with notes on the methods used to produce it, in the hope of making clear the need for further experimental studies and an agreed descriptive terminology. We have chosen as the subject of the study a set of marks which illustrate some ideas associated with the so-called ‘rocked graver’ technique which have been specially liable to confusion. Since our intention is not to offer any new analysis of Iron Age bronzework, but to point out in a few details criteria which may be found useful and to offer a terminology of them, the notes are mostly concerned with the experimentally produced type series; few ancient objects are cited (as examples only, not necessarily insular, and with no implication that other ancient examples of the use of the same technique do not exist) and only two are illustrated, though references to accessible illustrations of others are given.

Some time before 1845 a remarkable hoard of Early Iron Age metalwork, almost entirely in bronze, was accidentally discovered in the vicinity of the parish of Stanwick St John, North Riding of Yorkshire, and near the great earthworks of the same period later to be excavated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler. The hoard was presented to the British Museum in 1847, and though well known, has never been studied or published in its entirety, despite its importance in the history of Celtic art in Britain. The present paper essays such a full treatment, discussing first the complicated circumstances of the actual find-spot, the probable nature of the deposit, and its technological aspects. This is followed by a descriptive survey and analysis, and a catalogue with a full set of drawings by the writer. References in the text and footnotes are to the bibliography on pp. 55–8.

Recent radiocarbon dating of a skeleton from Balevullin, Tiree, excavated in the early twentieth century, demonstrates that it dates to the Neolithic period, rather than the Iron Age as originally expected. Osteological examination suggests that the individual was a young adult woman, exhibiting osteological deformities consistent with vitamin D deficiency, most likely deriving from childhood rickets; an exceptionally early identification of the disease in the UK with potentially significant social implications. Isotopic analysis supports the osteological evidence for physiological stress in childhood and further suggests that the woman was most probably local to the islands. Analysis of the surviving written archive reveals that the surviving skeleton was one of several originally recovered from the site, making Balevullin an exceptionally rare example of a British Neolithic inhumation cemetery.

The Magdalenian sites of Andernach and Gönnersdorf are located in the central Rhineland at the northwestern end of the Neuwied Basin (fig. 1). The first investigation of the Andernach-Martinsberg site was carried out in 1883 by H. Schaaffhausen (1888); between 1979 and 1983 a new campaign of excavations took place at the same site (Veil 1982a). The site of Gönnersdorf was investigated between 1968 and 1976 (Bosinski 1979). The two sites are located directly facing each other above the Rhine, which at the time of the occupation was much wider than at the present day; Andernach is sited on a Middle Pleistocene lava flow, while Gönnersdorf is on the Middle Terrace of the Rhine. Both sites are assigned by pollen analysis to the end of the Bølling interstadial; the great similarities in their archaeological material, down to individual details, suggest that the two sites were contemporary.

We present radiocarbon dates, stable isotope data, and osteological analysis of the remains of a minimum of 17 individuals deposited in the western part of the burial chamber at Coldrum, Kent. This is one of the Medway group of megalithic monuments – sites with shared architectural motifs and no very close parallels elsewhere in Britain – whose location has been seen as important in terms of the origins of Neolithic material culture and practices in Britain. The osteological analysis identified the largest assemblage of cut-marked human bone yet reported from a British early Neolithic chambered tomb; these modifications were probably undertaken as part of burial practices. The stable isotope dataset shows very enriched δ15N values, the causes of which are not entirely clear, but could include consumption of freshwater fish resources. Bayesian statistical modelling of the radiocarbon dates demonstrates that Coldrum is an early example of a British Neolithic burial monument, though the tomb was perhaps not part of the earliest Neolithic evidence in the Greater Thames Estuary. The site was probably initiated after the first appearance of other early Neolithic regional phenomena including an inhumation burial, early Neolithic pottery and a characteristic early Neolithic post-and-slot structure, and perhaps of Neolithic flint extraction in the Sussex mines. Coldrum is the only site in the Medway monument group to have samples which have been radiocarbon dated, and is important both for regional studies of the early Neolithic and wider narratives of the processes, timing, and tempo of Neolithisation across Britain

When, in 1935, Dr Grahame Clark rediscovered the unpublished finds from a site at Glencrutchery, near Douglas in the Isle of Man, he at once realised that he had come upon the relics of a culture that was new to British archaeology. Its age and affinities were quite unknown, and in his most useful pioneer study (Clark, 1935, pp. 85–91) of the material, Dr Clark suggested that it should be assigned to a period which he called the ‘Ultimate Bronze Age’ of the Island, perhaps contemporary with the Iron Age in Britain.

Investigation of material from other Manx sites subsequently made a much earlier dating seem likely, and this impression was confirmed in 1943 by the discovery of a richly-furnished dwelling site at Ronaldsway. Thanks to this chance discovery it is now apparent that we have to deal with a new facet of Neolithic civilisation in these Islands. So far it is known to us only in the Isle of Man.

The flint flakes from the Elephas antiquus bed of Clacton-on-Sea have been known for many years, and were collected by the Rev. J. W. Kenworthy. I obtained a large series between the years 1911 and 1916, but their affinities remained an enigma to me until they were examined by the Abbé N. Breuil, who denned them as Mesvinian. When once it had been suggested, one realized that this determination was obviously correct, and it has since been confirmed by several continental authorities who are intimately acquainted with the Mesvinian of Belgium.

Stratigraphy. Remnants of the High Terrace with Chellian implements occur in the district (at Frinton, Weeley, etc.) at levels of 70 to 85 feet O.D. These contain much Lower Greensand chert from the Wealden area, and I think they must be referred to the main river of the Thames basin.

The Clacton bed is the silting-up of a tributary channel which cuts across the High Terrace, and of which the base lies below the present level of low tide.