A recent monograph written by three prominent Korean archaeologists reports on the results of the past 20 years of research on Korean palaeolithic sites. Discussed are tasks completed, projects underway, and suggestions for future work to be done on palaeolithic remains in the Korean Peninsula. Particularly significant is the chapter on the archaeology of the Jǒngok-ni site which has produced many palaeolithic artefacts; among these the excavators find a high percentage of handaxes and other core bifaces, a cultural phenomenon claimed to be unique in East Asian prehistoric technology.

In recent decades some archaeologists have come to doubt key components and properties of the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (EBA) Avebury monument complex. By site excavation of the Beckhampton Avenue, Silbury Hill, and the West Kennet Palisades the idea of an integrated group of contemporaneous monuments has been thrown into doubt. In this paper these critiques are themselves critiqued and further tested by an inter-disciplinary exercise integrating archaeology, landscape phenomenology, and archaeoastronomy. It is suggested that the emergent properties of this procedure reveal that these recent doubts are unfounded and that this monument complex was designed for rituals to initiate neophytes by simulating journeys through a virtual underworld.

Petrological and chemical analyses of stone, bronze and iron implements are playing an increasingly important role in the study of prehistoric economies. Their contributions, long familiar to students of European prehistory, were recently discussed in a paper which also reviewed the evidence from Polynesia, Melanesia and Australia (Clark, 1965). Apart from some studies limited to stone artefacts from individual archaeological sites, these techniques have not previously been applied to material from Australian prehistory (Gutsche in McBryde, 1966; Branagan and Megaw, 1969). In this brief communication we present some of the results of a petrological analysis of ground-edge artefacts from north-eastern New South Wales.

The widespread dispersal of stone for axe-making based on organized exploitation of definite quarry sites is well documented in the historical and anthropological literature for eastern Australia at the time of European settlement. Unfortunately few of these historical records are sufficiently detailed, so even for the recent past as well as for prehistory, techniques of petrological analysis may make vital contributions to our knowledge both of quarry sites in eastern Australia and of the distribution of their products. Our preliminary discussion here is based on an investigation of some 200 axes mainly taken from the archaeological collections in the History Department of the University of New England and various local museum and private collections, but also including axes from northern New South Wales in the Australian collections of the British Museum, the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and the Anthropological Museum of Aberdeen University.

The purpose of this brief article is to review the evidence concerning stone ‘maceheads’ with hour-glass perforation found in apparently Mesolithic associations in south-eastern England.

‘He lifted a large boulder and discovered five hundred Armorican coins. For countless years a large boulder had lain undisturbed in the corner of a field belonging to Miss Amy. … Time and again it had been scraped and chipped by ploughs, but nobody had ever thought of moving it. But on Tuesday morning it fouled the plough once too often and seventeen-year old Peter Langlois decided that it was time to remove it’. This passage, quoted from the Evening Post of 25th January last, records one of the most important discoveries ever made in the island; it was made on 22nd January 1957, at Le Catillon de Haut, in the parish of Grouville.

Jersey has the distinction of being the home of a very active learned society with a Museum that forms a true centre of archaeological research; it is well known to its citizens and has a reputation reaching far beyond its borders. My friends Father Burdo, Major Rybot, the learned numismatist, and Mr Emile Guiton, the Curator, were so kind as to invite me to examine this latest discovery, of which I made a preliminary inventory in February. Its interest is very great.… But before proceeding to an examination of the hoard I should like to place it in its proper perspective and to give a short summary of earlier discoveries, in so far as these are known. Mrs Jacquetta Hawkes has already listed these finds in her Archaeology of the Channel Islands. Here I shall confine myself to the numismatic details that characterize them.

Parc Le Breos House stands in the south and centre of the Gower peninsula in West Glamorgan, about a mile north-west of Parkmill and a mile north of Penmaen, two small villages on the main road from Swansea westwards to Port Eynon and Rhossili. In the extensive woods surrounding the house is a small valley leading from Llethrid in the north to Parkmill in the south, and variously known as Parc le Breos Cwm, Parc Cwm, Green Cwm, and Happy Valley. A rough track leads up this valley from Parkmill to Green Cwm cottage, and, immediately to the west of this track and a little over half-a-mile north-west of Parkmill is the chambered barrow which forms the subject of this paper. Iron railings run round the greater part of the barrow, and inside these railings the barrow is covered with a heavy growth of trees. The sides of the Cwm are heavily wooded but the valley bottom is free from trees and the barrow thus stands out very clearly. It lies about a mile and a half from the sea at Oxwich Bay, and a little over fifty feet above sea-level. It is in the parish of Penmaen and is marked as ‘Tumulus’ on the current 6 inch (Glam. 22 S.W.) and 1 inch (100 G 11) maps; it is number IOI on the recently published Map of South Wales showing the distribution of Long Barrows and Megaliths, and number 122 in Mr Grimes's recent paper in these Proceedings.

Responding to recent advances in knowledge about the first arrival of woollen sheep in Europe and linked investigations of textile remains on the Continent, this paper argues that our insight into the role of wool in the English Bronze Age needs rethinking. We argue that the relevant questions are: when did the procurement of and working with wool become a routine aspect of settlement life, and did the change from plant fibres to wool affect communities differently? The paper outlines some of the core research questions we need to consider and points to the necessity of triangulating between the evidence provided by textiles, faunal remains, and textile working tools to reach more comprehensive insights. The paper ends by indicating a further research question – namely whether the apparent differences in the ‘wool economy’ in different parts of Bronze Age Europe may suggest differences in ‘body politics’.

The Bronze Age in Britain is now a term often used to include both the first use of copper c. 2400 bc and also tin-bronze from c. 2100 bc, all of which required the extensive use of copper. Prehistoric mining for this metal has been identified in surface and underground workings in Parys Mine, Mynydd Parys, Anglesey, although almost all of the surface workings are now obscured by the extensive deep spoil from more recent mining in the industrial period. These copper-bearing ores are in bedded lodes, together with some intruded vein deposits. The Bronze Age workings have been exposed underground where they have been intersected by the early 19th century industrial workings on and above the 16 fathom and 20 fathom levels in the Parys Mine. Spoil exposures contain stone hammers (‘mauls’), wood fragments, and charcoal; samples of the latter have been radiocarbon dated with chronological modelling suggesting activity took place in the first half of the 2nd millennium cal bc. Although relatively limited in extent, these important prehistoric mining sites are among the earliest found in the UK. They have survived due to their protection from surface erosion and limited accessibility.

Highly as I feel the honour of having been asked to occupy this Presidential chair, I accepted that honour with some diffidence, for I recognise that my studies in Pre-history.have not been carried very far. As, however, these studies have convinced me that the application of geology to prehistoric problems is even yet fraught with many difficulties, it appears to me desirable in this address to call special attention to some of these difficulties.

Having devoted nearly half a century to geological researches of various kinds, I can state with confidence that those geological problems with which we are concerned are among the most difficult with which the geologist is confronted, and their investigation cannot be lightly undertaken.

At present, what we above all require is the collection of facts, and I therefore hailed with pleasure the foundation of this Society, and congratulate its members upon the amount of valuable work which they have already performed. Among these members the name of Dr. Allen Sturge stands out pre-eminent. He may be regarded as the Father of the Society, and all members must deeply deplore the loss which the Society has sustained by his death.

The sub-Crag detritus-bed, sometimes called the nodule bed, or the Suffolk bone bed, was first brought to the notice of geologists by the late Prof. Henslow, who, in 1843, discovered that the Crag contained many nodules rich in lime phosphates, of great agricultural and commercial value—mostly known as “Coprolites,” though not of coprolitic origin, unless the spirally-formed bodies are the coprolitic rejectamenta of sharks or other animals having a spiral intestine.

The detrital bed is principally made up of the following constituents:—(1) Phosphatic nodules (the so-called Coprolites). (2) Sandstone nodules or box-stones. (3) Rocks of various ages earlier than the Crag. (4) Large chalk flints, many unrolled. (5) Rolled and waterworn bones, usually much mineralised. (6) Cetacean beaks, and other bones. (7) Bones and teeth of land mammalia. (8) Wood and other items, chiefly of uncertain age.

The above groups are of very different periods, and I propose treating each one separately, their origin and mode of occurrence as far as is known, or suggested.

In discussing the points of contact between Neolithic Britain and the Continent, it is desirable from many points of view to begin at the beginning, and to conclude with the introduction of metal. I prefer this to the method adopted in our leading text-book, even though it brings us at once into an area of conflict, where nothing should be taken for granted, and general agreement is not yet in sight. In Scandinavia there seems to be a definite terminus a quo, though even there some elements of doubt can be detected. It is generally assumed that human life began in the peninsula soon after the last or Baltic glaciation came to an end; and the first question is whether the same holds good for Britain, and if so, to what extent, for an ice-free area in the south of England is recognised by most authorities even during the severe glaciation that accounted for boulder-clay at Finchley, only three miles north of the Thames.

As will be seen later, intercourse with Scandinavia was lively during two phases of the Megalithic period, but there is nothing to shew that the Neolithic civilisations east and west of the North Sea had a common origin or began at the same date.

On the 3rd of October, 1909, I found on a stone heap in Messrs. Bolton and Laughlin's brickfield near Ipswich a large flint implement fashioned from a cylindrical nodule and flaked to a cutting edge at one end. This implement, which is obviously very massive, weight 8¾lbs., is deeply patinated on its worked surfaces a yellowish-brown colour, and has a very hard ferruginous deposit attached to portions of its crust.

Following on this discovery I commenced, searching for others, and eventually found them lying on the London Clay under a seam of decalcified crag, and associated with many bones and phosphatic nodules such as are met with at other ordinary bases of the Red Crag. This decalcified crag occurs in two basin-shaped hollows, one 56 yards wide and the other 45 yards, in the London Clay. The general arrangement of the beds (Plate I.) in the hollows is as follows:—

1. Top sand and gravel, in places up to 9 feet in thickness.

2. Middle Glacial Sands, with sarsen stones, maximum thickness 12 feet to 15 feet.

3. Decalcified crag, with casts of shells up to 3 feet. This is very hard in the eastern hollow, and rests upon an uneven floor of London Clay, containing pockets filled with pebbles, and boulders of flint and micaceous sandstone.

The excavations described in the Preliminary Report were, through the generosity of the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund, and with the co-operation of Dr. R. V. Favell, resumed in 1924 and further efforts made to discover evidence of the earliest mining activities at Grimes' Graves. Summarised briefly the work of 1923 had already established the following facts:—

(1) The existence on the southern slope of the valley, north of the Graves, of primitive flint mines roughly circular in shape and sunk to the Floor-stone, at that point 12 feet 6 inches deep.

(2) That the two pits examined were devoid of galleries, the shafts being belled out at the base to obtain as much flint as possible.

(3) That Hand Picks of a form not hitherto recognised and formed of the long bones of animals, had been used for excavation purposes assisted by wedges and choppers of flint.

(4) That Deer-antler picks, or fragments of deer antler were entirely absent.

(5) That access had been gained to the pits by rude staircases cut in the shaft walls.

(6) The nature of the valley deposits was established by a series of sections and the almost complete erosion there of the Floor-stone, by glacial agencies, proved.

(7) The limits within which Floor-stone exists in situ on the south side of the valley was defined and an outcrop of contorted Floor-stone discovered.

I have been asked to explain the circumstances under which certain flint implements of the Le Moustier period were found near the trenches at Coigneux. And this with special reference to geological strata. Between the 1st April and the 14th August, 1918, Coigneux, a small village about 16 miles S.W. of Arras, lay some 6 miles behind the British front line. At the commencement of the German offensive in 1918 the ground on three sides of the village was hastily prepared for defence, and a triple line of trenches with many branches (known as the “Red Line”) was constructed. At first these trenches were only about 4 feet deep, but in June and July some of them were further excavated to a total depth of 6 feet. They were never manned by the infantry, and the parapets of the trenches were never disturbed. As officer in charge of the 42nd Division Observers, I lived in the neighbourhood of Coigneux from the middle of April till the middle of August, 1918. I had, therefore ample opportunity in the intervals of military duty to inspect the excavations, especially during the period of their extension. I had already searched for flint implements in different parts of France. And in June 1918, a kind suggestion from Reginald A. Smith, Esq., F.S.A., made me pay special attention to this excavated ground.