At the time when the type-sites of the Dordogne were being explored French archaeologists were equally active further south in their country. From caves and surface sites in the Mediterranean provinces local landowners, doctors and clergy were collecting material which not only matched most of the palaeolithic tool forms being distinguished in the south-west of France, but was later to provide Déchelette with many of his illustrations for the neolithic and metal ages. It was not uncommon for flints, pottery and metal all to come from the same cave.

These old collections, or such of them as can be traced, are the basis of what is known about the prehistory of the south of France. Unfortunately, much of the material has come down to us with very little information, apart from provenance, and although some details of excavation were carefully recorded it seems generally to have been considered that plans of caves were more informative than sections through them.

Topographically the south of France consists largely of a narrow alluvial plain, stretching right round the Gulf of Lions between the Italian and Spanish frontiers and broadening out in the delta of the Rhône. Today the region is distinguished from the rest of France by its Mediterranean climate. East of the Rhône, in Provence, this coastal climate is soon modified to the north by the high mountains, but in the old province of Languedoc between the Rhône and the Pyrenees the typical Mediterranean vegetation is carried up onto the rocky limestone plateau, or Garrigue, until it reaches the barren Causses of the Massif Central. In France, the western limit of this climatic zone falls between Carcassonne and Toulouse, but eastward and to the south the Mediterranean conditions continue, so that the south French plain forms a climatic unit with the coastlands of Italy and Spain.

This plain, shut in to the north by high land, is most easily accessible from the sea or coastwise from adjacent Mediterranean countries. Easy communication with the rest of France is confined to the great river valleys of the Rhône and Aude which cut through the mountains to the north and west.

Excavation of a small ring-ditch in advance of gravel extraction at Bromfield, Shropshire, produced rare evidence for an Iron Age inhumation burial associated with a barrow. The burial, identified from a soil stain, was associated with fragments of a La Tene I iron brooch and a penannular iron bracelet with adhering textiles, and a bronze pendant, suggesting a date in the 5th–4th century BC.

The estuarine peaty shale still to be seen in the cliff section below the Martello tower at Clacton has a thickness of 10 or 12 feet, and seems to pass gradually into a dark clay which we find as the top layer of the shore deposit. On the shore below the Martello, and east of the stone groyne, the following layers were observed:—

1. Dark, stiff clay, without shells. To be seen only on the upper part of the shore, near the sea-wall. Further down, it. has been denuded. Thickness, c. 9 in. from shore sand.

2. A shelly layer, containing much Unıo littoralis: more sandy than the last. c. 3 in.

3. A dark layer with occasional shells. Lower limit variable. c. 4 in.

4. Blue loam: one of the most characteristic features of the deposit. Shells of Unio occur. Helix was also found. There is also in some parts much wood. Partly embedded in this layer most of the bones are found on the shore surface. Eastwards the layer grows less homogeneous and comes to rest directly on the London Clay. I am not sure what is the full thickness of this layer, but, where it is covered by others, I have dug 18 in. into it without reaching anything else. Accumulation of water and return of the tide prevented deeper trenching, but I think if we gave 2 feet as the total thickness we should not be far wrong.

5. A very thin layer, made up almost wholly of fragments of Unio.

6. Sand, shells, and broken flints. Thickness varies; 3 in. and 5 in. were measured in two trenches.

7. Stony layer. Flint pebbles, broken flints, some sand, some shells. Astragalus of deer, horn core (probably of deer), tibia of deer were found in trenching this layer.

The writer of this article was lucky enough to find last August a large ovate implement of the Early Palæolithic period in Yorkshire, after many years of careful searching; he is indebted to Mr. E. T. Lingwood for the drawings of the same, for which help he offers his grateful thanks.

The site of this find is Upper Nidderdale, just within the boundary of the West Riding. At the far end of the dale, and some six and a half miles from its source, the river Nidd, which up to this point has run due East, makes a bend, practically a. right angle, to the South.

Some three hundred yards below this point an interesting geological phenomenon occurs in the shape of a triangular fault with its apex to the South, which has thrust up the Carboniferous Limestone on both sides of the valley.

Through this the river, with the help of the glaciers, has cut its way.

This strip of limestone is about half a mile long and below this the river continues its course for some distance through the Millstone Grit series, Nidderdale being, from a geological point of view, a Millstone Grit dale.

The remarkable specimen which forms the subject of this communication was presented to me by Mr. Reid Moir, who had extracted it with his own hands from the base of the Red Crag exposed in Messrs. Bolton & Laughlin's brick field, near Ipswich.

It is a fragment of a nodule of chalk flint, irregularly rhombic in outline, with nearly flat base and a rounded upper surface which slopes away on each side from a medium line (the shorter diameter) joining the two obtuse angles of the rhomb.

The upper rounded side formed part of the original surface of the nodule and retains the whitish weathered crust, 8 mm. or more in thickness, which was formed while the nodule lay embedded in the chalk. The exterior of this crust has since been traversed by solutions which have deposited in its pores some silica and ferric hydrate, thus forming a brown superficial layer which is now too hard to be scratched with a knife.

An International Institute of Anthropology was founded in 1920, with central offices in Paris. Each country has been invited to form a National Office which would act with and be in relation with this Central Office. A Congress of the members of this International Institute was held in Liège (Belgium) in 1921 (July 25-August 1st). Being in France during July the writer decided to run over to Liege and very glad he was that he did so. Not only were there a number of new facts (not to speak of theories) brought forward, but one met again such savants as MM. Cartailhac, Capitan, Breuil, Begouen, Lalanne, Franchet, Hamal-Nandrin, Pittard, etc., etc. (to only mention a few), and discussions over lunch with such folk are worth weeks of work. Before describing the Congress and some of the papers, the writer would like to bear tribute to the extraordinary kindness and efficiency of the Belgian hosts, who were Professors at the Liege University. Everywhere we were received with the utmost kindness and no trouble was too great, if something could be arranged for us. It is impossible to mention everybody, but if ever the Congress comes to England, one can only hope that we may equal (we could not excel) such hosts (to mention only a few with whom the writer had most contact), as MM. Fraipont, Hamal-Nandrin, Servais, Max Lohest, Stockis, etc., etc. Eighteen countries were represented. The congress was divided into two parts:—(1) Work; (2) Excursions. For (1) Anthropology was divided into 8 sections, (a) What we should call Human Palæontology; (b) Prehistory; (c) Ethnography; (d) Criminology; (e) Eugenics; (f) Religions, later Archæology and Folk-lore; (g) Linguistic studies; (h) Sociology, etc. Of these the Prehistoric Section was one of the most important, there being nearly 50 people, on an average, at the Meetings.

This tumulus was first noticed by Mr. Sainty and myself in April, 1931, whilst on an expedition in search of implements of Cissbury type, of which we had found a considerable number in this locality. In appearance it did not seem to differ very much from the numerous mounds left bv warreners digging for rabbits, and, in fact, we had examined several such mounds showing almost the same elevation above the surrounding heath; but as this contained no rabbit workings and such parts as were not covered by gorse showed a thick covering of turf, it appeared interesting, and we marked it down for further examination at the next possible opportunity.

We were not able to visit the spot again till August 27th, when after a short time spent in searching for implements in the neighbouring field, we commenced digging, removing turf about five inches thick and opening a narrow trench. It was not long before we came across flakes, and threw out some 15 or 20, all showing signs of human workmanship, some with facetted bulbs of percussion, and finally a good chopper of Cissbury type.

As similar flakes had been found by us in the side of an old stone pit about 120 yards distant, we were very doubtful if it could be a tumulus after all, but decided to settle the matter by excavating till undisturbed earth was reached. At a depth of about three feet a tiny fragment of charcoal was turned up, so we at once enlarged the trench to allow for more careful working.

The absence of earth-filled structural features or easily identifiable graves precluded any systematic sampling programme for environmental evidence. However, two samples for the analysis of carbonised plant remains were collected from each of the two insitu inhumations (SF55 and SF73). The samples consisted of the sediment associated with the burials which included the matrix of the overlying cairn (context 002), and were processed using manual flotation into an 0.5 mm mesh sieve. The sample sizes and results are given in Table 1.

The evidence was minimal: only three fragments were found, none of which could be adequately identified. In sample 1, one grass seed was found, but it was badly preserved and could not be identified to genus. In sample 2, one cereal grain was found, again too badly preserved to distinguish it as either wheat or barley. The Polygonumsp. seed from sample 4 again is too fragmented to allow an identification to species level.

The Blacks nowadays are tame, but when Fortescue came up in about 1856 exploring, he had considerable bother with them, and even now in the Kimberley district, some 500 miles away, they are still in the Stone Age, and cannot be trusted. To-day at Millstream, stone implements are only used for circumcision and cutting out spears. The spears are made of hard wood and barbed both ways so that it is impossible to pull or push them out, and the blacks cut them out with a hot flake. The fire in which the flake is heated must not be lighted with a match but with a fire stick. By using a stone and not a knife they maintain that they do not get blood poisoning, and that the wound heals sooner. I showed one of my large black flakes to a native woman, and she said, “He good fella stone, he cut'em out spear, he borrow Ian.” Whether she meant a flake was called “borrow Ian,” or the kind of stone upon which the flake was made was “borrow Ian” I could not make out, but on showing her another, a yellow coloured scraper, she said, “He bad fella, he poison.”

My first paper on flint implements in Cornwall dealt with those of Booby Bay and Dinas Head, adjoining Trevose Head, near the famous cemetery at Harlyn Bay. Mention was made of the fact that prisms and cones of regular shape, and long thin flakes, occur there, and also at the inland site on the shore of Dozmare Pool. In both cases, pygmy flints are found with the flakes and cores. On the coast sites, however, scrapers are rare (at Booby Bay they are absent); whilst at Dozmare Pool they are numerous. They are both short and long at this site. The latter are sometimes formed on quite narrow blades. The facets are almost always grey. On the coast the chipped flints are sometimes grey, but are more often white, owing to exposure by the weathering away of the superincumbent soil.

Both on the coast sites and at Dozmare Pool the flint tools are made from shore pebbles. Local ideas sometimes attribute the presence of these pebbles on the shore to the casting out of ballast from coasting ships. It is evident that they are in reality remains from the Tertiary beds of West Cornwall, which have now almost vanished, though a section may still be seen near S. Erth.

This paper looks at two previously under-studied artefacts: the Newark and Netherurd Later Iron Age gold torcs. Close analysis of tooling and other attributes has established a relationship between these torcs, which suggests they were possibly manufactured in an area beyond the East Anglian location argued for in previous studies. This paper also explores the possibility they could have been produced by the same maker.

It is a commonplace that of all the mobile art-forms of prehistoric times pottery is the least mobile and the most domestic. It would be wrong to assert categorically that never before the Roman period or the years immediately preceding it was pottery the subject of trade and transport; but the traffic was at least on a limited scale. Unlike objects of metal, therefore, which may wander far from their place of origin in the course of trade or other movement, pottery closely reflects in its distribution the relationship between culture and geography.

Pot-making, too, is a comparatively lowly, if an expressive, craft. In a wealthy community, or in a community with varying levels of wealth, pottery takes second place to metal or (where it exists) glass: usually, therefore, pottery is the borrower both of form and of ornament. And while with an inventive people the result may in due course be something new and significant in itself, in less fortunate circumstances—as for instance under the mass-production methods of Roman times—the potter's debt becomes a lifeless imitation of, or a negative development from, the forms and motifs of the superior materials.

Anthropomorphic stone stelae of monumental dimensions dated to the 4th and 3rd millennia BC have been found in southern Europe between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caucasus. They are understood as symbolic human representations the size of which arises out of a new self-awareness of humankind in the world. Anthropomorphic stelae are one of many innovations appearing during this epoch. Other innovations are copper metallurgy and tools, in particular weapons and jewellery, as well as the wheel, the wagon, and the plough drawn by animals. These innovations are depicted on stelae; what is more, the stele itself is an innovation in which the other changes are bundled. Comparable stylistic features of stelae in different areas demonstrate far-reaching contacts. Often the origin of anthropomorphic stelae is seen in the Russian steppes, with the archaeogenetically proven migration from east to west being the cause for the building of stelae in central and western Europe. However, the oldest known stelae apparently originate in western Europe. The impulses behind the dissemination of innovations must have emanated from continuous exchange relations, but the migration in the 3rd millennium bce did not bring with it the idea itself of anthropomorphic stelae. Nowadays the question about the function of stelae is usually answered with the representation of ancestors. When anthropomorphic stones keep the memory of common roots alive, they serve the building of identity.

It may seem a paradox, but it is nevertheless true, that more is known of the remote Palæolithic period than of the later Stone Age that ended about 4000 years ago. This applies to the Continent as well as to Britain, but Scandinavia is exceptional, and for our present purpose the best subject of investigation. The accepted view is that the three Baltic kingdoms were uninhabited in Quaternary times, and could only be approached by man after the last, or Baltic, glaciation had come to an end. There are certain facts inexplicable on that hypothesis, but all will agree that the Neolithic period in that area can be divided into early and late divisions; and so rich are the prehistoric remains and so advanced is this study, that the Scandinavian system can be used as a touch-stone by which to test the facts and theories of our own later Stone Age. I propose, therefore, on the present occasion to deal in some detail with the latest results of Scandinavian research, and then to proceed in order with the districts that face us across the North Sea and the Channel—North-west Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Northern France. It is hoped that such a survey will enable a more rigid classification to be made of the large amount of British material referred to the Neolithic period. In this country one has to rely mainly on form, but in Scandinavia that element is combined with others, such as habitation-sites, shell-mounds, and megalithic remains that furnish proof of the succession of forms, and open up the question of relations with Britain at that early date. If the claims already made on that head be valid, then comparisons become possible, and certain stages at least of the period in question can be arranged on scientific lines.