The site at Eldon's Seat (fig. 1) lies on the side of a shallow valley cut into the Kimmeridge clay bedrock. Occupation began probably in the 7th century B.C. or earlier, at a time when the ceramic assemblage was based upon Late Bronze Age traditions, and continued with interruptions until the 2nd century A.D. Three major periods have been isolated: during period I (Late Bronze Age style pottery) and period II (haematite-coated ware) a series of circular huts were built against the downhill side of a sporadically growing lynchet. The huts were occupied by farming communities who were also engaged in making armlets from the local Kimmeridge shale. Period III buildings have not been identified in the excavated area, but Durotrigan and Roman pottery, which typifies this phase, has been recovered from the uppermost layers of the lynchet.

The finds from the excavations will be deposited in the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, Dorset.

In late February and early March 2002, an archaeological watching brief at Lynford Quarry, Mundford, Norfolk revealed a palaeochannel with a dark organic fill containing in situ mammoth remains and associated Mousterian stone tools and debitage buried under 2–3 m of bedded sands and gravels. Well-preserved in situ Middle Palaeolithic open air sites are very unusal in Europe and exceedingly rare within a British context. As such, the site was identified as being of national and international importance, and was subsequently excavated by the Norfolk Archaeological Unit with funding provided by English Heritage through the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund.

This report presents some of the initial results of the excavation. It sets out how the site was excavated, outlines the stratigraphic sequence for the site, and presents some provisional findings of the excavation based on the results of the assessment work carried out by project specialists and Norfolk Archaeological Unit staff.

This opaque red glass occurs at an early date in Egypt in the decoration of glass vessels (Fossing, 1940) and other material has been found from excavations in the Near East at Nimrud, as circular cakes (Turner, 1954, 454), and at Persepolis, as a bead, a slab and a lump (Matson, 1957, 130). This ‘specialized’ glass continued to be made in Mediterranean countries down to the Roman era, and chemical analyses have been published of specimens from a number of sites including Pompeii and the Isle of Elephantine; these have been recorded by Caley (1962), who has conveniently collected many analyses previously published in various journals.

As a result of the present work it is clear that there are two distinct types of opaque red glass. In the type which occurs earlier and then continues in use the colour and opacity are due to metallic copper in a colloidal state; in the type which occurs later, for a more limited period, much lead oxide is present and the colour and opacity are caused by small particles of cuprous oxide. Previous authors have not always clearly distinguished between the two types and therefore the frequent identification of an opaque red glass as a cuprous oxide type must be treated with some caution unless supported by microscopic or chemical evidence.

For five years from 1976 to 1980 the archaeology and environment of a block of landscape centred around Shaugh Moor on south-west Dartmoor were analysed prior to the destruction of some of the evidence by china clay working. The investigations began in 1976 with a survey of the field monuments and the initiation of soil, vegetation, small mammal and phosphate studies in addition to the search for peat deposits of sufficient antiquity. From 1977 the programme was determined by the encroachment of the quarries and other works, so that early in that year a group of cairns were excavated (site 10) and subsequently the first of two seasons work on a walled enclosure (site 15) was initiated. The excavation of the enclosure was completed in 1978 and in that year it was also necessary to undertake a small investigation near the northern edge of the project area on the Trowlesworthy cross-dyke (site 202) and near its southern edge on Wotter Playground (site 201). Settlements and field systems were surveyed and excavated on Wotter Common in 1979 and these investigations were completed in 1980 when the Saddlesborough Reave, which crosses the centre of the project area from east to west was also surveyed in detail and sampled by excavation.

More field work could have been undertaken on threatened areas and indeed a limited operation was undertaken in 1981 on the Saddlesborough Reave to confirm some points of detail. Instead, it was thought best to conclude the project after five years, to complete the publication of the results and to allow mature consideration of these so as to generate a new set of questions.

At an early stage the decision was taken to publish the work as a series of annual reports in these Proceedings rather than as a single monograph. The first report (Wainwright et al. 1979) set out the simple research design for the project and contained accounts of the 1976 survey and of the excavation of the cairn group.

From 1946 to 1952. excavations were undertaken in advance of destruction by gravel workings of a series of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age monuments at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxon. These included a long enclosure, a cursus, a double ditched henge, pit circles and ring ditches with primary and secondary cremation burials and a notable Beaker burial. Sites I, II, IV, V and VI, all pit circles or ring ditches, were published in 1951. This report describes sites III, VIII, IX, XI, XII, XIII and XIV. By the early 1950s much of the Neolithic complex had been quarried for gravel, and other adjacent areas subsequently were dug away. In 1981 the construction of a bypass led to the excavation of further surviving parts of the complex: site 1, a long D-shaped enclosure incorporated in the southern end of the cursus, and sites 2, 3 and 4.

Both sets of sites are presented together, largely following the chronological scheme proposed for the complex by Bradley and Chambers (1988). Site VIII and site 1 are long enclosures of Earlier Neolithic date, with human remains. The latter site has a calibrated date of 3773–3378 BC. Site III is a cursus at least 1600 m long which cuts site VIII and incorporates site 1. A date of 3360–3040 BC was obtained from the primary fill of its ditch. Site XI is a three-phase ring ditch, perhaps successive enlargements of a barrow, but its innermost ditch is cut by a pit circle with cremations. There are Ebbsfleet sherds in the outermost ditch, and dates of 3037–2788 and 3024–2908 BC from the innermost, perhaps primary, ditch. Site XIV is a ring ditch succeeded by the Big Rings henge. Site 3 is a post circle between the ditches of the southern part of the cursus, with some secondary cremations. It has dates from the outer wood of its posts of 2890–2499, 2886–2491 and 2872–2470 BC; dates on charcoal associated with secondary cremations were 2880–2470, 2870–2460 and 2123–1740 BC. Site 2 is a penannular ring ditch with a primary date of 2912–2705 BC, and secondary cremations. Site XII is a notable Beaker burial within a two-phase ring ditch. An adult man was laid crouched on a bier and was accompanied by a fine W/MR beaker, a stone bracer, a tanged copper knife and a small riveted knife with at least one rivet of tin bronze. Traces of a stretcher-like feature were found in an adjacent pit which cuts the inner ring ditch. Site XIII, the Big Rings, is a large double ditched enclosure with central bank and opposed entrances. There was Beaker pottery in the primary fill of the inner ditch, but very little material was found in either ditch, and there were minimal features in the interior, part of which was stripped. Site 4 consists of two conjoined ring ditches within the southern end of the cursus. It encloses cremation burials. One, accompanied by an awl and Collared Urn, has a date of 2290–1910 BC. Traces of a ditched field system (originally referred to as a droveway, site IX) of later Bronze Age date were found cutting sites III, VIII and XIII, and paired ditches on site 1 may be related.

The complex is related to its local and regional context, and the sequence of development is discussed. A timescale measured in generations is advocated, with phases of continuity and episodes of little activity both represented. Several aspects of monuments are considered: their differing scales including the monumental, their ability to endure and create tradition, and finally the choice of designs, from the locally customary to the exotic.

The excavation of the earthwork and part of the interior of a C-shaped enclosure in south Norfolk produced evidence of a Neolithic occupation from the mid fourth to the late third millennium B.C. The earthwork was constructed at the end of the third millennium B.C. and palaeobotanical analyses of the fossil soil beneath it produced information concerning the environment of the time. Quantities of pot-sherds and stone tools were recorded from the earthwork and from clusters of pits, and a study of grain impressions on the pottery has given some indication of the crops cultivated in the third millennium B.C. in East Anglia. The report is concluded with a discussion of a system of fossil ice-wedge casts uncovered during the excavation and their relevance to archaeological investigations.

This paper considers some of the relationships between people and things. It develops a broadly-based model of the later life-histories of prehistoric stone axes in the south-central Mediterranean region, taking account of their production, circulation, and consumption, and their cumulative transformation by physical and conceptual processes, of which the latter may have included personification, sacralisation, and animation. Attention is focused upon the value, meanings, and uses of axe-pendants, and intepretations are placed within a dynamic historical and political context of changing social practices and strategies in central and southern Italy, Sicily Malta, and Sardinia.

A better understood chronological framework for the Middle Pleistocene of Britain has enabled archaeologists to detect a number of temporally-restricted assemblage-types, based not on ‘culture historical’ schemes of typological progression but on independent dating methods and secure stratigraphic frameworks, especially river-terrace sequences. This includes a consistent pattern in the timing of Clactonian and Levalloisian industries, as well as a number of handaxe assemblage types that belong to different interglacial cycles. In other words, Derek Roe’s hunch that the apparent lack of coherent ‘cultural’ patterning was due to an inaccurate and inadequate chronological framework was correct. Some variation in handaxe shape is culturally significant. Here we focus on twisted ovate handaxes, which we have previously argued to belong predominantly to MIS 11. Recent discoveries have enabled us to refine our correlations. Twisted ovate assemblages are found in different regions of Britain in different substages of MIS 11 (East Anglia in MIS 11c and south of the Thames in MIS 11a), the Thames, and the MIS 11b cold interval separating the two occurrences. These patterns have the potential to reveal much about hominin settlement patterns, behaviour, and social networks during the Middle Pleistocene.

The Coneybury ‘Anomaly’ is an Early Neolithic pit located just south-east of Stonehenge, Wiltshire. Excavations recovered a faunal assemblage unique in its composition, consisting of both wild and domestic species, as well as large quantities of ceramics and stone tools, including a substantial proportion of blades/bladelets. We present a suite of new isotope analyses of the faunal material, together with ancient DNA sex determination, and reconsider the published faunal data to ask: What took place at Coneybury, and who was involved? We argue on the basis of multiple lines of evidence that Coneybury represents the material remains of a gathering organised by a regional community, with participants coming from different areas. One group of attendees provided deer instead of, or in addition to, cattle. We conclude that the most likely scenario is that this group comprised local hunter-gatherers who survived alongside local farmers.

This paper is an exploration of the chronological development of a series of elaborate and architecturally distinctive chambered tombs on the Islands of Orkney. It begins with a short critique of the present views of the Orcadian Neolithic and highlights a failure to understand chronological developments as the most significant problem. Thus after a brief classification of the monuments there is a detailed discussion of the chronological evidence which consciously avoids typological assumptions. This is followed by an examination of the various uses the tombs were put to and involves an assessment of the location and architectural visibility of the monuments and the remains found in the chamber. When combined with the chronological evidence a series of changes in monument size, type, location and use can be hypothesized for the neolithic period. This culminates in a shift away from burial monuments to physically defined spaces, presumably used for ceremonial purposes. These changes can be interpreted as deliberate manipulation by groups within that society to change the ideological concepts which defined the role of the individual in relation to the other members of the society.

Levallois knapping debris is present beneath the sides of a disused tramway cutting connected to Lion Pit, West Thurrock, Essex. This occurrence, first recorded during the early 20th century, is in the basal gravel of the Taplow/Mucking Formation, which dates from the end of Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 8. The relatively undisturbed nature of this knapping debris is confirmed by the incidence of refitting material, although finer debitage is absent, presumably winnowed out. The Levallois character of the assemblage is demonstrated by the occurrence of characteristic ‘tortoise’ cores and flakes with faceted striking platforms. The artefact-bearing gravel is overlain by >10 m of predominantly fine-grained sediments, including fossiliferous sands and massive clayey silt, as well as laminated silts, clays, and sands of possible estuarine origin. These are attributed to deposition under temperate conditions during MIS 7. To the south, a younger fluvial gravel, attributed to MIS 6, has been incised into the interglacial sequence. The top of the estuarine sequence has been affected by pedogenesis, both before and after its burial by an unbedded solifluction gravel.

The site was first occupied in the Bronze Age by a small agricultural settlement, consisting of two circular timber houses with ancillary structures and ditches. One house was eventually replaced by a stone structure. A single radiocarbon determination suggests that the settlement is to be dated within the period 1700–1300 B.C. The Iron Age settlement of Trevisker Round was probably established in the second century B.C., if not earlier. An original inner enclosure, half an acre in area, housing a single defended farmstead, was later superseded by a larger defended enclosure, 3 acres in area, also with circular timber houses and occupation areas. This occupation was followed at the end of the first century A.D., by a Romano-British phase of occupation, which lasted until the middle of the second century.

It is the purpose of this article to analyze and discuss the flint industries characterized by the production of trapezes from blades that as a rule were broad and regular, industries which appeared in many parts of the continent during the closing phase of the local mesolithic. After a word on classification (fig. 1) the evidence for the occurrence of these industries will be summarized on a geographical basis (fig. 2). Finally, some discussion will be offered as to their significance, above all in relation to the spread of neolithic culture.

It is now nearly twenty years since the first radiocarbon dates for the neolithic cultures of Europe astonished and perplexed prehistoric archaeologists by falling a millennium earlier than the existing chronologies had suggested. Since that time most (but not all) archaeologists have become reconciled to radiocarbon dating, and to a chronology for Europe based, at least for the neolithic period, on the radiocarbon dates which have become so widely accepted as now to be conventional.

But a second radiocarbon revolution is now taking place. The calibration of radiocarbon by tree-ring dating indicates that the now conventional radiocarbon dates are not early enough. Dates for the neolithic, and this time for the early bronze age also, will have to be set earlier by several centuries. The consequences of this second revolution for the picture we have of prehistoric Europe are in many ways more radical than those of the first. For this reason, perhaps, there has been a marked reluctance among some archaeologists to face the consequences of the new calibration, although an emerging concensus of opinion among botanists and physicists seems to favour it. The present article sets out to identify the three principal points of difference between the conventional chronology and that suggested by the tree-ring calibration of radiocarbon. It is argued that on independent archaeological evidence the new, calibrated, chronology can be seen to yield a plausible and coherent general picture. While many problems have yet to be clarified, there seems no reason why the new dating should not be welcomed as offering a stimulatingly fresh view of the prehistory of Europe.

Recent discoveries on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish Border have shown that it is now possible to identify the surface remains of prehistoric cultivation without recourse to excavation. Numerous sites of very narrow ridged cultivation, generally no more than 1.4 m between the centre of the furrows and now known as cord rig, are associated with prehistoric settlements of various types. When taken in conjunction with the many examples of demonstrably pre-Roman cultivation terraces, this has finally destroyed the concept of a predominantly pastoral economy believed to have been practised in much of the Tyne-Forth area. It is now apparent that arable regimes formed a significant part of the local economy and that the currency of the myth of the footloose Celtic cowboy is at an end. This paper concentrates upon Northumberland. A more complete description of the Scottish material will be produced by S. Halliday.

Since 1922, when Peake and Crawford, first described a flint factory from Thatcham in Berkshire, the area has become increasingly important for comparative studies of the British Mesolithic, and more specifically the Thames Valley, Clark 1932, 1936, Rankine 1956.

At Thatcham, a number of Mesolithic camping sites occur along the edge of a gravel terrace which borders a reed swamp at the junction of the Moor Brook and the Kennet river. The valley of the Kennet joins the Thames at Reading nearly fifteen miles downstream. The early excavations of Peake and Crawford and the more recent ones of Wymer (1959), were confined to the occupation site on the terrace. However from these scattered terrace hearths it was not possible to estimate the commencement of the occupation, its duration or cultural development. With the prospect of recovering a stratified sequence of artefacts, a coffer dam was therefore sunk into the swamp sediments at the foot of the terrace bluff. Inside the dam it was then possible to excavate (pl. XLIX) below the water level of the swamp (Site V).

A stratified sequence of artefacts, animal and plant remains was found, and sufficient fossil pollen and wood were preserved to enable pollen zonation and radiocarbon dating of the profile. It was apparent from the C14 dates that the algal marl accumulated for a period of the order of 500 to 1000 years.

Microlithic industries have been known from the Pennines for several generations, and their stratigraphical position at the base of the peat was established by Dr H. Colley March in the Marsden area as long ago as 1883. Although many collections have been made, however, it must be confessed that much less scientific information has been gained from detailed observation than might have been. An outstanding exception to the general rule was the work of Francis Buckley of Greenfield on upland sites, mainly between 1250–1500 feet above sea level on the high ground west of Marsden, during the years immediately following the first world war. Of special relevance to the subject of the present paper was his recognition of concentrations of microlithic material in conjunction with remains of fire-places and his distinction of a basic typological division between ‘Broad-Blade’ and ‘Narrow-Blade’ microlithic industries in the Pennines. The first part of the present paper is concerned with the excavation of a settlement structure and with the description of the flint industry associated with it and the second deals specifically with the affinities of the Broad-Blade industry.

It is now more than a decade since Avery & Close-Brooks (1969) and Musson (1970) recognized that some roundhouses which, at first sight, appeared in the archaeological record to have been single-ring buildings were most probably of double-ring construction. Using the excavation-plans of timber roundhouses at the Bronze Age settlements on Shearplace Hill in Dorset and Itford Hill in Sussex as the mainstays of their arguments, these writers gave reasons for believing that the ring of postholes, which constituted the principal archaeological evidence for the buildings in question, had held the uprights of an internal roof-supporting structure, while a separate, concentric, external wall, set some distance outside that post-ring, had received a more meagre earth-cut foundation, which in some cases had either ‘disappeared’ or ‘escaped detection’. These particular roundhouses had each stood on a terraced platform, and it is likely that this had afforded their ground-plans a measure of protection against at least mechanical weathering, with the result that ‘tenuous traces’ of an outer wall-groove survived in the chalk-bedrock of the House A platform at Shearplace Hill, while at Itford Hill the extent of the ‘trodden chalk’ areas of some of the floors supplied a vital clue.

This study presents a survey of the long-term dynamics with regard to settlement and landscape in the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt region (south Netherlands/north Belgium), thereby using the results of several decades of intensive archaeological fieldwork. In a theoretical sense, this study is inspired by the work of historians from the French Annales school. We use a model of long-term agricultural cycles, set against demographic fluctuations, in an attempt to understand developments within the study region. At the same time, however, we aim to incorporate the social and ideational dimensions of these changes, which are linked to a specific ordering and arrangement of the landscape. Our particular focus is the radical transformation that occurred around the Middle and Late Iron Age, as this had a major impact on the ordering and arrangement of the landscape in later periods.

This paper presents the results of the first investigation of vegetation change and human activity from a river valley west of the Somerset Levels. The record is contrasted with the pollen and archaeological record from south-west uplands (Dartmoor and Exmoor) and the Somerset Levels. Vegetation change and archaeological evidence are shown to be generally consistent, with evidence from the middle valley of Mesolithic vegetation disturbance (with nearby lithics), Neolithic clearance of terraces and slopes in the lower valley and Neolithic–Bronze Age ceremonial and domestic activity, but in the upper reach the maintenance of wooded valley floor conditions probably with management until historic times. The valley floor and surrounding slope vegetation history is found to be significantly different to that of the uplands with lime and elm being significant components of the prehistoric woodland record. The data suggest that lime is restricted to terraces and lowlands below 200 m OD throughout the prehistoric period. The pollen data from the valley suggest the lowlands had a rich and mixed ecology providing a wide range of resources and that, despite less visible archaeological remains, human activity is manifest through palynological evidence from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. The largest expanse of valley-floor terrace, the Nether Exe Basin, which was at least partially deforested in the early Neolithic contains a rich assemblage of Neolithic–Bronze Age ceremonial, funerary and domestic archaeology associated with an early and clear palynological record of woodland clearance, arable and pastoral activity.