When, in 1948, Childe reviewed in these Proceedings the later phases of the European Bronze Age he expounded a series of new views on the causation and chronology of episodes apprehended in archaeology by the spread of cremation urn cemeteries, and by advances in bronze technology. He also put forward proposals for changes in terminology, for he was well aware of the haphazard and casual way in which archaeological nomenclature had come about. Childe's interpretation of the origins of the urnfield cremation rite was valuable as a stimulus to a reassessment of the problem, but research in the years that have followed has produced so much new information that a very different story can now be told. Nor has the terminological reform seen much progress. The grounds on which Childe has been opposed as regards the nomenclature of subdivisions of the later Bronze Age have carried weight because it has been generally agreed that at least for the zone of the North Alpine foreland, a genuine cultural break should be recognized in and after the phase that Reinecke originally defined and nominated: Bronze D. This phase is the ‘End Bronze Age’ of many scholars, and what comes after is either ‘Hallstatt’ or ‘Urnfield’, appropriately subdivided and so Childe's Bronze phases E and F have not been accepted.

Although a number of specimens of Combe-Capelle type are recorded for the Gipping Valley above Ipswich few have so far been recognised in Norfolk. Fig. 1 shows the various aspects of a beautiful specimen found by Mr J. H. Capon in a shallow working for gravel on Mousehold Heath, on the northern border of Norwich. Dr. J. D. Solomon examined the section and reports:— ‘The deposit in which Mr Capon found the implement is a portion of the upper gravel of Mousehold Heath, which contains outwash from the Chalky Boulder Clay and is clearly of Great Eastern date. But the actual portion, in which the implement was found, has clearly been disturbed and re-arranged by solifluxion, perhaps of Little Eastern date. The implement is therefore, not to be considered as in situ in the main mass of the gravel.’

It is of fine quality flint. The flatter face (fig. 1 c) is white and porcellanous, highly lustred, and showing two small patches of cortex. The flaking is flat in the extreme, only two of the scars showing resolved flaking. The upper face (fig. 1A) shows grey flint with distinct bluish patina, particularly towards the edges, fine white lines meandering over the whole surface, giving a typical criss-cross effect; some of the flaking is heavily resolved whilst the edges show a rather nibbling re-touch.

The purpose of this paper is to present an adequate record of the Iron Age pottery found in 1922–23 at a site on the left bank of the river Wey, at a point east of Wisley Church, of which only a small, and not fully representative selection has yet been published. The pieces hitherto recorded were selected from material presented to the British Museum, but a larger quantity has been kindly made available by Dr Eric Gardner, F.S.A., and is here published, together with pottery from the same site, now in Weybridge Museum. Account has also been taken of the sherds in the British Museum.

The pottery is stated to have been found in a series of pits, among which were some containing neolithic B rim sherds proving earlier occupation of the site, but no plans or sections or other adequate information about the site was published, though the report states that ‘four large kilns were uncovered and one small one, made expressly for firing the largest urn.’ It is also recorded that ‘a few loom-weights were found and wattle-and-daub was abundant.’

The most recent views on the origin of the Windmill Hill culture have been set out by Mr Stuart Piggott in the last Proceedings of this Society. The point he stresses significantly is that the origin of the Windmill Hill, or Neolithic A culture cannot any longer be regarded as a single one; already in the earlier, A1 phase, there are at least two distinct elements present, which when combined and influenced by the Peterborough culture produced the later A2 phase. He is willing tentatively to accept the possibility of the close relationship that I suggested last year between the A1 element represented by the plain, baggy pots of the lowest levels at the type station, Hembury, and elsewhere, and the néolithique ancien, or Cortaillod culture, of the Swiss Lakes. The second element is represented by carinated bowls of his form D and G with lip diameter greater than that of the shoulder, but apparently by nothing else. If it is agreed to accept a distinct origin for the simple ‘baggy’ A1 pottery, which carries with it the associated interrupted ditch camps and antler combs, the D–G bowls are clearly left alone. Piggott demonstrates how these bowls can be derived by an admirable typological sequence directly from the tulip-beaker of the well-known Michelsberg culture centred on Switzerland and the Rhine. The tulip-beaker grows more sharply shouldered and shallower, and, therefore, more nearly conforming to the D–G bowls as one passes down the Rhine from south to north. But for this typological and geographical series Piggott claims absolutely no chronological significance. Surely such a denial must make the whole story meaningless ? Either the low carinated form developed from the tall tulip-beaker as the culture extended northwards and is therefore appreciably later in beginning than the tall form, although this persisted along side it, or else it did not, and the two forms need have no connection with one another–a reductio ad absurdum.

In 1937, in a series in honour of Sir John Myres, Professor Childe wrote an essay entitled ‘Neolithic Black Ware in Greece and on the Danube’. Childe made two major points. He clarified his position that the major direction of diffusion in the spread of the village-farming community was from south-western Asia towards Europe. Secondly, he considered the then available south-west Asiatic evidence—mainly ceramic—which seemed antecedent to similar elements in Greece and subsequently on the Danube.

In this essay in Professor Childe's honour, I propose to bring his second consideration up to date, informally, and with main emphasis on the south-west Asiatic end. Weinberg has recently covered the ground from the Greek point of view with much greater perception than I could do.

It is a bit unfortunate, in relation to Childe's first point, that this essay cannot be postponed for a year or two. During the 1954–5 field season of the Iraq-Jarmo project, we secured a series of fifty-two radioactive carbon samples. Included are specimens from the Halaf levels of Arpachiyah and Tell Halaf itself and from the basal levels of Hassuna, Mersin, and Byblos, as well as further samples from Jarmo and from several of our test excavations. Professor Zeuner has samples in hand from early Jericho, Dr Milojčić has some from Otzaki-Magula, and there may well be other pertinent samples of which I am unaware. It does seem that presently, within the range of reliability of the radioactive carbon dating process, we shall know where we stand chronologically in somewhat more precise terms. Present indications are that the whole dating system, prehistoric, as well as early historic, customarily given for south-western Asia will be depressed. In the chronological study cited, Weinberg finds this tendency will make the equations with Greece all the more reasonable.

Childe's essay implies that the early dark-faced burnished ceramic of south-western Asia must be a manifestation of a discrete assemblage, but at the time he wrote, it was impossible to speak of anything but pottery. In his Grundzüge … Kleinasiens in 1945, Kurt Bittel could do little more than suggest the antecedent rôle of the early Syro-Cilician dark-faced burnished ware to the general burnished sequence of Anatolia. Veronica Seton Williams gave further definition to the pottery and its distribution, as against Christian's rather amorphous ‘Saktschegözü- Stufe’, in her brief catalogue and map of the occurrences of the burnished ware. In 1952, my wife and I prepared a study in which we attempted to delineate what seemed to us to be the separate and distinct ‘essential’ assemblages of the earliest village range in south-western Asia.

The theory of pile-dwellings, first put forward by the Swiss, Ferdinand Keller, is now 100 years old. According to this theory, there existed in prehistoric times buildings erected, not on dry land, but on artificial platforms raised on piles above the surface of the water.

This theory was based on well authenticated discoveries of the remains of settlements along the modern lake shores, in the first place on evidence from the south German, Swiss, French and Italian lakes. The very large number of piles found in connection with organic substances (wooden vessels, textiles, food stuffs and seeds) provided a basis for belief in the existence of such settlements. Moreover, the knowledge of modern pile-dwellings, especially in the South Seas, was cited in support of Keller's theory. So well was it grounded, that for over 70 years no one questioned the existence of prehistoric pile-dwellings.

The excavation of this pit was commenced in 1928, continued in 1930 and 1932 and completed in 1933. A brief account of the work up to the end of 1932 is included in the Interim Report of the Percy Sladen Trust Excavations 1927–1932 published in Proceedings, viii. 5. p. 60.

Pit 12 is situated at the extreme eastern end of the West Field the boundary fence of which intersected a segment of the shaft and was removed during the excavations. Consequently, the pit is only a few yards distant from the nearest pit of the visible series and within the zone which in my Presidential Address, in 1926, (Proceedings v, 13, p. 125) it is postulated that the type of mining represented by the deep visible pits commenced. In the same Address, (p.95), it was indicated on the evidence of the polished stone celts and the methods adopted in mining, that the visible pits were clearly of Neolithic date, therefore the fortunate discovery of typical Neolithic pottery in Pit 12, is not surprising, though of first class importance for dating purposes in the light of our fuller knowledge of Neolithic pottery. It also confirms and definitely establishes the conclusions arrived at in 1926 relative to the age of the deep pits and furnishes for the first time a datable horizon for the commencement of this mining phase.

A new engraving of a horse head has been discovered during a recent re-examination of the Magdalenian osseous projectile point assemblage from La Madeleine curated in the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale (St-Germain-en-Laye, France). Found on one side of an unmodified tip of reindeer tine, this piece was uncovered in amongst a collection of distal (tip) fragments of antler sagaies. While this piece is not unique to La Madeleine – a number of similar pieces having been recovered in early excavations at this site – it nonetheless contributes another small piece of information regarding Magdalenian mobiliary art. The horse engraving is compared with other known finds from La Madeleine, as well as several additional Magdalenian sites in order to outline its place in the current state of knowledge regarding these enigmatic artefacts.

Landscape studies offer the archaeologist a way to move towards the holistic integration of disparate aspects of research, such as excavation, survey, and specialist analysis. Because landscape perception is socially constructed, like other forms of material culture, it is possible to approach social behaviour in a way which previously was only argued for portable artefacts. Memory studies have allowed historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists to link observable human behaviour with long-term human thought. Memory is also being used as a way of linking the otherwise invisible mind with the material by-products of society, such as monumental architecture. This paper will investigate how two contemporaneous settlements of Late Iron Age peoples, situated on the northern shores of Lake Ullswater, in the Lake District, Cumbria, manipulated their material landscapes as part of the process of transmitting cultural memories. Further, this information will be used in order to find a way of approaching the similarities of their cultural practices with each other and with the wider Iron Age community of Britain.

In the present state of our knowledge of the Neolithic period in England, and especially as regards its pottery, any light that can be thrown upon it is welcome, and it is on that account that I have brought before the Society a report on two discoveries of Neolithic remains: at Pangbourne, Berks., and Caversham, Oxon.

It is greatly to be regretted that owing to the circumstances of the discovery accurate observations could not be made. In May, 1928, workmen were engaged in levelling ground to make a tennis court, at “Farmhili,” Courtlands Hill, Pangbourne, and in doing so came upon, and, as is unhappily so often the case, disturbed and partly smashed a human skeleton, other animal bones, of which a few only survive, and a large bowl of coarse pottery, definitely of Neolithic type. It would seem that when found the bowl was imore or less complete, but Mr. G. W. Smith, of Reading, who visited the spot the day after the discovery, was only able to find about two-thirds of the vessel, in fragments, on the rubbish heaps of excavated material. These fragments, together with the other remains, were presented by the owner of the land, Lt.-Com. W. S. Macilwaine, R.N., to the Reading Museum, where the writer had the opportunity of examining them.

Not only is Grimes' Graves an essentially East Anglian site, but it is also one of the most interesting, and most perplexing, prehistoric sites of Britain, presenting many controversial problems which only persistent research and careful observation will solve.

Recent work upon the site has marked a distinct advance in this direction, notably by the fortunate discovery in 1920 of Floor 85 with its definite stratification, and evidences of successive occupation during at least five widely separated intervals of time. With Dr. R. V. Favell as a co-worker, excavations were resumed upon this floor in August, 1921, and continued for six days. An additional 40 square yards was carefully and systematically explored down to the level of the boulder clay, resulting in the recovery of a further series of important flint implements and examples of engraving. Owing to the favourable nature of the site with its stratified chipping and occupation levels, each sealed and separated by sterile layers of humus, and closely compacted chalk debris, it has thrown important light upon some of the problems of the Grimes' Graves industry, and should enable not only certain definite conclusions to be arrived at, but materially assist in the ultimate classification of the various cultural forms of the implements from the Graves generally.

In the summer of 1986 a mass grave was discovered along the bank of the river Tryggevælde Å where it empties into Køge Bugt, the bay south of modern Copenhagen, Denmark. The human remains, dating to the late Mesolithic Ertebølle culture, consisted of eight individuals of multiple ages, ranging c. 35–45 years old to newborn children. Four were arranged on one side of the grave, with four on the other, placed head to foot. How they were related and what befell them is a mystery. Herein, we present a bioarchaeological assessment of these individuals for the first time and apply an acid etch-based analysis of dimorphic sex chromosome-linked tooth enamel peptides to confirm their biological sex. Our results allow a direct connection between engendered grave treatment and biological sex in non-adult individuals as young as c. 4 years of age. We conclude with a discussion of the possible circumstances of their deaths and their possible relationships to one another.

In this paper we present a three-stranded investigation of all ‘archaeological islands’ (including crannogs) across Scotland, with a particular focus on the Outer Hebrides. The first strand is a synthesis and critical review of the archaeological record relating to 582 ‘archaeological island’ sites. This research enabled us to characterise the nature of any previous work (including dating evidence) undertaken on each, and thus to establish the first ever open access, holistic, accurate dataset of these sites. The second strand is new underwater survey carried out at 30 archaeological islands across the southern Outer Hebrides. This enabled us to acquire further information about and dating evidence for these sites; notably, this included new evidence for Neolithic occupation on three, increasing the total of known Neolithic islets in the region to 11. The third strand involved a thorough re-assessment of a wide body of archaeological literature relating to early excavations and finds. This research identified potential Neolithic material culture on a further 15 archaeological islands across the rest of Scotland. We conclude by discussing the potentially very significant implications of this early material, considering the possibility that crannogs could have been constructed in the Neolithic beyond the Outer Hebrides.