The Linear Pottery Culture (LPC), dated from the mid-fifth millennium bc, is generally held to have originated to the north of the Hungarian Plain (Case 1976, 48) and has a distribution stretching westwards to the Netherlands. One of its distinctive type fossils resides in the consistent forms of its houses (fig. 1).

The archaeological evidence for reconstruction consists almost entirely of ground plans (examples in Modderman 1958–9, 1970) although we can also consider house models of ancestral and derivative cultures. Modderman (1970, fig. 12) has shown that LPC houses in the Netherlands can be divided into single-unit, bipartite, and tripartite structures (fig. 1). Their alignment is generally consistent so that in the case of tripartite structures we can speak of northwest, central, and southeast sections. The ground plans are made up of five longitudinal rows of postholes. We may define wallposts (rows 1 and 5) and inner posts (rows 2–4). The end sections were more heavily constructed than the central unit; although the number of posts decreased in later periods a tripartite division was often maintained. Transverse lines of posts were frequently slightly offset and the inner postholes in the central unit of earlier structures often form a Y-configuration, with the top of the Y invariably on the northern side.

Winklebury Camp (SU61355290), an Iron Age 'plateau fort’, now of some 7.6 hectares (19 acres), is situated in the parish of Basingstoke, approximately 1 mile north-west of the town centre of Basingstoke, (fig. 1), though it is now surrounded by housing estates. It occupies a hill of Upper Chalk which has been isolated from the main mass of the North Hampshire Downs by two dry river valleys, one trending south-east, the other north-east. Both are tributary to the R. Loddon. The hill rises to a maximum height of 126 m a.s.l., near the projected line of the western rampart and slopes off gradually to north and south, and more steeply to the south-east. About half a mile to the south of the fort, a tributary of the R. Loddon, now culverted, would have provided the nearest source of water.

Winklebury Camp has suffered from gradual encroachment by the surrounding housing estates, losing the ditch and rampart face to the north and east, and ditch, rampart and a small part of the interior, to the west. Only to the south does any of the bank and ditch survive. In the south-west corner of the fort, in an area protected by the remains of a small copse, a 90 m length of eroded rampart remains to an approximate height of 2 m. There is no ditch fronting this rampart now, but immediately east of the end of the stretch of rampart is the only remaining length of ditch. This extends for some 200 m along the remainder of the south side of the fort, averaging 2 m deep and 5 m wide. It rises in the south-east corner at a causeway, beyond which is another short stretch of ditch which is rapidly lost in house gardens. This causeway is faced by rampart, but there are indications, for example a slight change in the direction of the rampart at this point, that this is in fact a blocked entrance.

This barrow was excavated by the author for the Ancient Monuments Inspectorate of the then Ministry of Public Buildings and Works (now the Department of the Environment) in August and September 1965. The barrow was scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Acts by the Department of the Environment as Wiltshire 563, and all finds were accordingly thus marked at the time of excavation. In 1958 the barrow was observed by the Ancient Monuments Inspectorate as being 4½ ft high and the mound was spread by agricultural activity to a diameter of 75 ft. In 1965 this bowl barrow stood barely 18 in. high, having suffered much from the effects of ploughing. The barrow had been disturbed mainly in the centre of the mound by early, possibly nineteenth century, excavations. At least one slit trench had been dug into the side of the mound during the 1939–45 war and much other disturbance had been caused by rabbits.

Residual finds from this site caused a particular problem. Where they seem to be dateable they have been inserted in their appropriate section, otherwise where there is a possible alternative date they have been cross referenced. All ranging rods and scales shown in the photographs of the site are marked in feet and inches, except where otherwise obvious.

The excavation of the Wattendorf-Motzenstein Corded Ware settlement in Franconia (Germany) has yielded new information with regard to the architecture, economy, and ritual activities, as well as the social organisation of Final Neolithic groups in Central Europe. The settlement is dated to 2660–2470 cal BC and was an agrarian community. Detailed analyses of the material culture combined with biological and pedological parameters allowed new interpretations regarding Corded Ware economies as well as domestic and ritual spheres. The settlement contained about 35 individuals at most, who were organised in fewer than eight households. The exceptional results obtained call for further research strategies to be developed.

In this article the evidence of pig exploitation in the prehistory of the Italian peninsula and Sicily is presented. Though some differences in pig morphology seem to have existed between different parts of the country, a broadly consistent diachronic pattern of change has emerged. In the Mesolithic fairly small wild boars (with bones quite large in relation to the teeth) lived in Italy. For most of the Neolithic pigs of a similar size and shape could be found across the peninsula but signs that a few changes in systems of pig exploitation had started occurring can be found at several sites. This is interpreted as most probably indicating the beginning of a slow and gradual process of domestication of local animals. The hypothesis that early and middle Neolithic pig husbandry relied mainly on imported animals can be fairly confidently refuted. Sometime during the late Neolithic and/or the early Bronze Age, practices of pig husbandry seem to have changed throughout the country, and a much clearer separation appears between the wild and domestic populations. The average size of domestic pigs decreased, probably as a consequence of a closer confinement of domestic herds, but wild boar size seems to have increased, possibly as a consequence of climatic change or of a release in hunting pressure. Recent Italian wild boars (of the traditional Maremman type) are, however, as small as their Mesolithic counterparts, a possible indication that habitat fragmentation caused by human demographic pressure brought about a further change in wild boar size.

The last twelve years have seen a new impetus given to prehistoric studies by the multiplication of researches outside Europe. Excavations in Africa, the Near East, Asiatic Russia and China have opened up a new field for speculation, and at the same time have revealed the unsuspected complexity of many problems which to De Mortillet and other pioneers seemed relatively simple. Gone for ever is the straightforward succession of Palaeolithic cultures from Chellian to Magdalenian as laid down in the Musée Préhistorique. Even as early as 1912, when Breuil produced his classic paper on the subdivisions of the Upper Palaeolithic its foundations were sapped, and the discoveries of the last decade have merely completed its demolition as a system of world-wide application.

I need not insist that De Mortillet's scheme, as corrected by Breuil, who first pointed out the true position of the Aurignacian in western Europe, was the best that could be devised given the very incomplete information, relating to a very limited area, possessed by workers at that date. The fault of De Mortillet's disciples lay in their canonisation of a system which could only be applied locally, and which in any case contained enormous gaps.

The Overton Down earthwork was constructed in 1960, the first of a series designed to study the changes which take place with time in a bank and ditch, and in selected materials buried within the bank. Full details of the construction of the earthwork are given by Jewell (1963); as this report will be referred to repeatedly, for simplicity it will in future be called the Basic Manual. The experiment was designed to be sectioned at intervals of 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and, perhaps, 128 years, though, in the early stages particularly, observations would be made at more frequent intervals. This paper deals with the results of the two- and four-year sections, together with such other observations as were made. Even at this date it has not been possible to complete the analytical work on all the buried objects; deficiencies will be made up as far as possible in future reports.

In 1979 Cleveland County Archaeology Section completed fieldwork for a survey of Bronze Age burial mounds in the county. The survey isolated a number of themes for further investigation, including the examination of several of the few remaining barrows near the coast, all of which are threatened with destruction from continued ploughing. One of these mounds was a shallow earthwork surviving in a hedgebank at Street House Farm, Loftus. Excavation in the autumn of 1979 and in the summers of 1980 and 1981 revealed a multiphase neolithic cairn which incorporated a burnt timber façade and mortuary structure. The cairn had been badly damaged by ploughing, but the evidence for the construction and use of the monument survived to a considerable extent. The neolithic monument had been overlain by a Bronze Age round barrow, of which only a part had survived.

Gorham's Cave is one of a group of seven which lie at the base of the cliffs on the east side of Gibraltar, below Europa Advance Road, which is about two hundred feet above them. There is now a beach in front of the five southern caves but this has only been in existence for a few years, and arose from the depositing of tunnel spoil over the cliff edge. Four of the caves are named, starting from the south end of the beach, Bennett's, Gorham's, Vanguard and Boathoist; the remaining three have local names which change from time to time. The beach, which is now called Anderson Beach, will probably disappear in a few years and the sea will again reach the base of the cliffs.

The cave is named after Major A. Gorham who explored a fissure at the back of the main cave in 1907, and for convenience both have been called by his name. The finding of an archaeological deposit was due originally to two members of R.E.M.E., when temporary access had been made to the beach from the cliffs above, and excavations were carried out in the upper level by Captain G. B. Alexander, R.E., and Lieut. Monke, R.E.

In 1948 the Governor of Gibraltar asked that full scale excavations should be carried out and two seasons' work have now been devoted to the cave under his patronage and with the help of funds supplied by the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund.

The cave of Bosumpra is one of a long line of numerous caves and rock-shelters in Voltaian sandstone, facing east at about 1,800 ft. O.D., on the eastward slope of the hill on which the Christian quarters of Abetifi stand. The cave takes its name from the spirit formerly believed to be resident there. It can be reached by following downhill for about a quarter of a mile the bush-path which leaves the eastern side of the road from Abetifi old town to the Government Rest House, less than ¼ mile from the Rest House: the cave lies some hundred yards to the north of the point, where this path descends the rocky line, on which the caves are situated, and comes out of bush into farming land.

The cave was formed by the dissolving action of water which seeps out of the rock at this level during the wet season, although during the dry season it is quite dry. In the centre of the cave the distance from the back wall to the drip-line is 27 ft.; at this point the rock overhang is 12 ft. above the present level of the floor of the cave. On either side of the centre portion of the cave, the rock overhang gradually curves back to the vertical cliff wall on either side, thus gradually diminishing the depth of the cave. The total width of the cave from north to south is about 60 ft. The floor of the cave is lowest in the centre, where there is comfortable room to stand upright in the front portion; it rises gently towards the north, but more steeply towards the southern end, so that there is barely room to get between the floor and the roof (Pl. 1).

Of all the monuments of remote antiquity in the British Isles none are more impressive, both by reason of their size and of the purposes which they served, than the structures of which Stonehenge, Avebury and Woodhenge are the most famous examples. In this paper it is my purpose first of all to record the investigation of a new monument of the ‘henge’ class—to use the convenient term adopted by Mr Kendrick—situated in the parish of Arminghall immediately south of the city of Norwich, and, secondly, to consider its date, purpose, affinities, and origin in relation to material published from other sites.

The fluvial gravels of the river Vaal in South Africa have long been known as a source for Earlier Stone Age (ESA) artefacts. Most were discovered through the open cast mining for diamonds that has left very little in situ fluvial sediment remaining today. The site of Canteen Koppie is an internationally famous location with a reputation for prolific Acheulean artefacts, especially handaxes and the enigmatic prepared core and Levallois-like technology known as Victoria West. Our understanding of this site, and most other Vaal locations, is almost solely based on highly selected artefact collections. Here, we report on the first controlled excavations ever to be conducted at Canteen Koppie. The deposits are likely to date to the Early and Middle Pleistocene, and our excavations sample the full depth of the stratigraphic sequence. The lower units, first identified in these excavations, add a considerable time depth to the Acheulean occupation of the site, making this the longest chrono-stratigraphic sequence in South Africa to our knowledge. Given the current international interest in the origins of Levallois/prepared core technology (PCT), its occurrence in Unit 2b Upper, and its presence alongside Victoria West technology in Unit 2a has significant implications for debates on the role of Victoria West in the origins of PCT. From the Canteen Koppie evidence, Levallois and Victoria West are clearly rooted in the Acheulean.

A sequence of deposits ranging in date from Late-glacial to the present produced detailed evidence of environmental changes, reflecting both climatic fluctuations and the effects of human activities. A Later Mesolithic occupation horizon, with lithic industry and associated faunal remains, is dated at about 5280 bc. It was sealed by a deposit of tufa. An irregular linear excavation, dated at about 2765 bc, is interpreted as a quarry; the backfill contained Earlier Neolithic pottery and other settlement debris. The first phase of later activities is marked by the deposition of a large quantity of Peterborough ware. Later on, part of the site was ploughed over and at the same time a series of small ditches, interpreted as elements of a system of land boundaries, was dug in the adjacent area. Late Beaker and Food Vessel sherds indicate the approximate date of these events.

The literature of the past seventy years relating to battle-axes and axehammers is limited, and relates mainly to the separate publication of individual finds. Sir John Evans, in his classic work, Ancient Stone Implements listed eighty-seven battle-axes from England, Scotland and Wales. R. A. Smith, in 1925, carried out a more detailed survey with emphasis on the associated finds, but drew conclusions about evolution and dating which are untenable according to present archaeological thinking. In 1960, Ashbee briefly delineated five types, making a distinction between ‘axe-hammers’, his Woodhenge and Parcelly Hay groups, and ‘battle-axes’, comprising more evolved implements with connections with the Wessex Culture. In this present survey it is hoped to make good the neglect this subject has suffered, by presenting a corpus of finds which is as complete as possible, together with some considerations on typology, associations, petrology—where details are available—distribution, origins and dating.

The Early Iron Age pottery of the Herefordshire-Cotswold region is marked by a predominance of the well-known duck-stamped ware associated with a thinner spread of pottery ornamented with tooled lines. It has been customary to equate the former with the presence of an intrusive culture now generally labelled Western Third B, while the linear-tooled pottery has been referred to the Western Second B culture and is held to represent the indigeneous population. However, this is based on the unwritten assumption that the pottery was produced in or near the home and hence can be used as a cultural type-fossil. Petrological examination suggests that this is unwarranted since it appears that the pottery was the object of a well organized trade involving specialist potters based in the Malvern district. The distribution could thus be due to purely commercial factors, and this necessitates a reassessment of the cultural interpretation. The object of this paper is to present the new evidence and to discuss briefly its implications.

Although concerned mainly with the stamp ornamented and linear tooled ware of the west Midland and Cotswold regions, this paper deals occasionally with undecorated pieces. The ornamented vessel from Pen Dinas, Aberystwyth has been included because of its obvious resemblance to some of the pots from Bredon Hill, Worcestershire, but other stamped sherds such as that from Methyr Mawr, Glamorgan or the Cornish duck-stamped pottery have been excluded on typological grounds.

After more than a century of work in the field a wealth of archaeological material has been recovered for analysis and interpretation by the prehistorian in his continuous attempt to understand the cultural traditions and relationships of his own ancestors. A varied array of analytical methods have grown to aid him in his task of defining ancient cultural groups. In many cases these methods have grown without their underlying principles being perfectly understood or clearly stated: they were used first and understood later. A typical example of this process has been the changing implications of the ‘Three Age System’. Curiously the position often taken today seems to suggest that no principles underlie the study of prehistory, since when these are defined they are never used and those used are rarely defined. This position is contrary to the observations of Social Anthropology and Ethnology and the pioneer work of the late Professor Childe. Wherever human actions or their fossil results, the artefact, can be studied they show distinctly non-random action conditioned by the peculiarly human attributes, namely foresight and transmitted culture. In other words they obey certain limiting principles. The present position in the study of prehistory is similar in many ways to the position of the emergent Natural Sciences in the 17th and 18th centuries; data has been amassed, but the principles remain dimly perceived or are even denied existence.

The Celtic field research programme of Groningen University involves research excavations of Dutch Celtic fields or raatakkers: embanked field plots thought to date to the Iron Age (c. 800 cal bc–12 bc). In this paper, detailed attention is given to (a) the palaeoecology of raatakkers; (b) the relationship between habitation and agriculture in such systems; and (c) their dating and use-life. Counter-intuitively, it is argued that the macro-remains from crops such as barley, wheat, millet, and flax recovered from Celtic field banks represent a non-local (settlement) signal rather than document local agricultural regimes. Palynological approaches, in which a more local signal can be preserved but which also show evidence for details of the agricultural regime such as manuring strategies and fallow cycles, are argued to be more appropriate avenues to study local agricultural strategies. A discussion of the relations between habitation and agriculture shows that house sites uncovered within Dutch Celtic fields are almost invariably placed in positions partly overlapping banks. Moreover, in most cases such settlement traces appear to date to the Middle or Late Iron Age, raising the question of where the initial farmers of the Celtic fields lived, as the communities planning and first using these Celtic fields probably pre-dated the Iron Age. A critical review of existing dates and discussion of new OSL and AMS dates has shown that bank construction of Dutch Celtic fields started around the 13th–10th centuries cal bc and continued into the Roman era. The chronostratigraphies preserved in the banks testify to a sustainable agricultural regime of unprecedented time-depth: centuries of continued use make the system employing raatakkers the most enduring and stable form of farming known in the history of the Netherlands.

The Shaugh Moor project is concerned with an area of moorland in south Dartmoor north-east and north respectively of the villages of Shaugh Prior and Wotter (fig. 1). The physical threat to the evidence for settlement and land-use caused by the operations of the China Clay industry involved the Central Excavation Unit of the Department of the Environment from 1976 in a programme of survey, excavation and environmental studies related to the settlements, land boundaries, burial mounds and ceremonial structures that are to be found on this piece of moorland. The background to the project and its preliminary research strategy have been outlined in Paper I (Wainwright et al. 1979) and this publication describes the investigation of a stone-walled enclosure surrounding houses and other structures that was totally excavated in 1977 and 1978. Subsequent papers will describe the related archaeological and scientific investigations into the past environment and land-use of this block of moorland and its adjacent region.

The third phase of the Shaugh Moor Project comprised survey and excavation work on the Saddlesborough Main reave and Wotter Common (fig. 1). Following the decision of the china clay companies not to develop the area immediately around Saddlesborough (Area Y), Watts, Blake and Bearne & Co Ltd and English China Clays Ltd embarked upon a joint tipping programme which will eventually destroy the terminal reave east of Saddlesborough and most of the monuments on Wotter Common (fig. 2).

The area to the north of Saddlesborough was surveyed in 1976 and limited excavation was undertaken early in 1977 (Site 10, Wainwright et al 1979). An enclosure, 1 km to the north-east of Site 10, was totally excavated in 1977 and 1978 (Site 15, Wainwright and Smith 1980). In 1979 and 1980 the area threatened by the quarry extensions was surveyed and a programme of limited excavation was undertaken on the Saddlesborough Main reave and Wotter Common (Site 208).

More than twenty years have elapsed since Stuart Piggott suggested the possibility of a connection between the primary Neolithic cultures of Britain and the early phases of the Funnel necked Beaker (TRB) Culture of northern Europe (Piggott 1956). What appeared at that time to many scholars, not least in Denmark, to be a very far fetched idea, must today in the light of the many new Danish excavations be considered seriously. Piggott pointed to three categories of finds which could possibly be advanced as indicators of contact: Pottery, causewayed camps and ‘unchambered’ earthen long barrows. In all three areas decisive new results have been obtained, and although this paper deals with the earthen long barrows, both the pottery and the causewayed camps will be briefly commented upon.

C. J. Becker's division of the Danish early Neolithic pottery into four major classes, the A, B, non-megalithic and megalithic C types of pottery, is still useable for the general categorization of site inventories (Becker 1948). The neat derivative system that he built, with A originating somewhere in eastern Europe, followed by B, and terminating with two contemporary C-groups, is however no longer warranted, and especially not with reference to the radiocarbon dates. Nor can the clear-cut typological division of the pottery into the four groups be maintained, since many types of pots and ornamentation occur in more than one group. For instance the B type beaker, with lines of twisted cord beneath the rim, is an integral part of the inventory of non-megalithic C sites, and also occurs in connection with megalithic C pottery.