From my title, you might think that this was to be a discourse on human origins and the story of early Man — about the fossil and genetic evidence for regarding Africa as the cradle of mankind such as the lecture to our Society by Mary Leakey four years ago. However, such is not my intention. My title is taken from a poem by A. E. Housman, the relevant portion of which reads:

‘Oh I will sit me down and weep For bones in Africa‘.

Housman (1956, 123) was uttering a threnody for a soldier who died in Africa, but I utter my lament on behalf of others.

But first, a brief look at aspects of the Prehistoric Society which show that it continues to flourish and grow. In these days of falling memberships, the Society has actually grown. We have made a modest increase in our Research Fund. The Proceedings and the maintenance of their high standard remain the Society's greatest contribution to prehistoric archaeology and justify the large proportion of our resources which we devote to them. This is in the realm of scholarship and research. In addition, we are moving into archaeological policy, with the intention of making the Society's voice heard in the councils of the nation as they affect prehistoric archaeology.

A map made by F. N Hayward showing the location of the Lower Palaeolithic site of Baker's Hole, found in the Hayward Archive stored by the British Museum at Franks House, shows that the site was not at the location suggested by modern authors. The new location, near some remnant Pleistocene deposits, opens the possibility of using modern techniques to date the archaeological material recovered from the site in 1909.

The assemblages from four sites in Spain and Gibraltar form the basis of a study that addresses the behavioral significance of the variability in Middle Paleolithic chipped stone artifacts. Quantitative analysis of artifact edge morphology forms the primary focus of this work.

It is suggested that (1) morphological variability is generally continuous for the features examined, (2) retouched and unretouched lithics are extremes in a continuum of the degree of edge use, (3) lithic morphology is dynamic and artifacts may be multi-functional and (4) lithic morphoplogy is conditioned by the time of discard in the use-life of the artifact. Retouched artifacts may be more the end result of the extent and nature of the use of their various edges than preconceived tools determined by cultural traditions or intended function.

These results are applied to a study of Middle Paleolithic settlement strategies using data from the four primary sites of the study and an additional five sites in the Iberian peninsula. Differences are noted between upland and lowland strategies. Upland sites may represent more of a ‘forager’ strategy, with frequent, short-term occupations of sites. Lowland sites seem more characteristic of a ‘collector’ strategy, with longer occupations and less frequent visits to sites. Settlement response to changing Upper Pleistocene environments during the onset of the last glacial may include a shift to a more ‘forager’-like strategy in lowland settings.

A collapsed rockshelter site, WHS 784 X (Yutil al-Hasa), in the Wadi Hasa drainage in west-central Jordan was tested in 1984. Technological and typological analyses of the stone artifact assemblages suggest that it pertains to the latest phases of the Levantine Upper Paleolithic ‘Ahmarian Tradition’. Excellent faunal preservation allowed the identification of several ungulate species, as well as other taxa. These data and the topographic setting of the site indicated that WHS 784 X was probably a hunting camp used in part to monitor the (seasonal?) movements of herds of equids and gazelles. Dating at 19,000 uncal BP, the occupations fall at the Upper Paleolithic/Epipaleolithic transition as conventionally defined, and represent one of the first well-documented occurrences of an Ahmarian limited activity site. Work at WHS 784 X contributes to the rapidly improving state of Levantine Upper Paleolithic systematics and provides a fuller understanding of life at the end of the Upper Paleolithic in the southern Levant.

Volume 52 of the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society contained two articles (Salisbury 1986; Tipping 1986) critical of our paper ‘The stratigraphy of Kirkhead Cave, an upper palaeolithic site in northern England’ (Gale and Hunt 1985). Here we reply.

Before dealing with the criticisms made by Salisbury, we correct the factual errors in his paper.

1. Bolton and Morris ‘… excavated through, and ultimately removed some 5 to 7 metres of cave earth…’ (Salisbury 1986, 321). In fact, the reports indicate a maximum depth of excavation of 7 ft (2.1 m) (Bolton 1864, cclii) or 8 ft (2.4 m) (Morris 1865–66, 360, 361; 1866, 169, 170; Bolton 1869, 167–68).

2. Bolton and Morris's ‘… publications are of little value today, and both may be considered to have been “bone hunters” and collectors’ (Salisbury 1986, 321). The assertion that Bolton and Morris's excavation reports are of little value suggests that Salisbury is not familiar with the wealth of early literature on this site. The reports provide a picture of a rich and varied assemblage of artefacts and macrofauna in the unit overlying the stalagmite floor in the cave. Information is also provided on the lithology of that unit. Interpretation of these reports allows the reconstruction of the stratigraphic context of the finds: we direct Salisbury's attention to Gale and Hunt (1985, 296–97) for an indication of the stratigraphic reconstruction possible from the information given in these early publications.

This paper presents the first systematic archaeological evidence from the early prehistory of south-east Ireland. The research is designed to investigate the colonization of the area during the Mesolithic period and the subsequent transition to agriculture. From a theoretical perspective, we offer a view of indigenous development. That is, we look for continuities between Mesolithic and Neolithic Ireland in terms of technology and settlement. The data, we are gathering include surface and excavated materials. Lithic assemblages were systematically collected from ploughsoils surrounding the Waterford Harbour area during the years 1983 through 1987. These materials are analyzed from the point of view of geography, raw material, reduction sequences, manufacturing technology, and chronological typology to yield an initial glimpse into the rich prehistory of the region and its pattern of settlement. Excavations during 1986, 1987 and 1989 have begun to fill in some detail including the region's first prehistoric barley, a Neolithic radiocarbon date, prehistoric pottery, a rhyolite quarry and several rich lithic assemblages.

Current models for the transition from foraging to food production in Ireland describe a range of possibilities concerning the roles played by indigenous populations, the length of overlap between the adaptive systems and the potential influence of one group on the other. For example, Woodman views Mesolithic populations as passive and temporally discrete for the most part (1976; 1978c; 1987). Alternatively, Aalen (1978) sees the potential for Mesolithic groups exerting a significant influence on the Neolithic populations. In Case's model, Neolithic lifeways are introduced fully formed into Ireland, with little or no input from indigenous groups (1969; 1976).

All three agree that colonists initiated the transition on the island. Expanding these models and outlining expectations based on them provides the baseline against which the data from Waterford will be measured.

The general nature of explanations for the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Britain and the current support for the notion of indigenous change are noted. The need for a more regionalized view of the transition is argued with reference to the upper Kennet valley and surrounding chalk downland in north Wiltshire. Problems in the recovery and presentation of later Mesolithic settlement are discussed. A model of later Mesolithic exploitation of the area from camps or bases outside it leads to the view that, whatever the cultural identity of those involved, there was a genuine agricultural colonization of the valley, involving new adaptations and new skills. Such infill is unlikely to have belonged to the primary phase of the establishment of agricultural settlement, and other possible cases of secondary infill in southern England and western Europe are noted.

This note draws attention to similar sequences of archaeology and environment in three long barrow ditches on the Chalk of southern and eastern England. Although the data have already been, or will shortly be, published in individual site reports, the events warrant consideration as a group because they are of regional importance. They are significant specifically for the later Neolithic use of long barrows and more generally for the identification of areas of arable, pasture and abandoned land in the later Neolithic and Bronze Age. The state of the Bronze Age soils has implications for their later use.

To start, the basic lithopedostratigraphy of a large ditch infilling on chalk (Evans 1972.) is iterated. There are four main stages:

(1) Primary fill. Coarse rubble with finer layers and turves derived from the contemporary soil. Formed by high energy, but seasonally intermittent, processes of physical weathering and gravity.

(2) Secondary fill. Loam, generally fining upwards and becoming increasingly humic as chemical weathering supersedes deposition. Formed by low energy processes of soil creep, rainwash of earthworm casts and others subsumed under the term colluviation; the details are unknown because such deposits have never been observed forming.

(3) Soil. Formation of soil profile after the natural depositional processes have ceased. Essentially this involves the increasing humification and weathering of the deposits as infilling slows down and ultimately ceases, so there is a merging boundary between the secondary fill and the soil.

This paper examines the sources of the hammerstones imported to the Neolithic axe quarries on Pike o' Stickle. Two basic groups are identified, and these probably originated in separate areas of Cumbria. They have largely distinct distributions among the quarries, raising the possibility that different parts of the stone source could have been used by people coming from different areas of the surrounding lowlands. This has implications for the social importance of axe production on these sites.

This paper is based on work carried out in 1984 to 1986 for an M.Phil, degree at the University of Lancaster. Virtually no work had been done on the subject for over seventy years and, with the exception of one article (Evett 1973), nothing showing the influence of the work of the Implement Petrology Committee of the Council for British Archaeology. Consequently little information was available which could be used as a basis for further research. Three problems were immediately faced: the time available in which to study artefacts in south Italian museums was severely limited; thin-sectioning could not be used; and due to lack of earlier studies data collection would have to be made blind, without reference to any formal model designed to answer previously formulated questions. These problems were all solved, and this paper outlines the development of, and theoretical and practical justifications for, my methodology, the methodology itself, its application to a sample of polished stone artefacts, the data thus obtained and their interpretation, and wider concerns such as the application of this methodology to other areas.

The stripping, for commercial purposes, of an area of chalk downland near Leckford, Hants., led to the excavation of a small ring ditch containing the remains of two male inhumations. The earlier, 3740±80 BP uncal., buried in a mortuary chamber, was accompanied by a bell-shaped beaker of early type (with European or Wessex/Middle Rhine affinities), an antler spatula, two pairs of gold earrings, a gold tubular bead, 55 stone beads, a copper dagger, a flint strike-a-light, a marcasite nodule and a number of flint tools and flakes. The second burial, 3780±80 BP uncal., interred shortly after the first in the same grave, was accompanied by a finger-nail decorated beaker and two flint flakes.

Late in November 1981, Mr M. Wright of the Danywenallt Centre, Talybont, noticed fragments of prehistoric pottery and an associated cremation burial in an area eroded by walkers in the pathway on Fan y Big (SO 03712057; fig. 1). The site lies at a height of 655 m on one of the denuded spurs of the northern escarpment of the Beacons (pl. 12). The find itself lay next to a small dry-stone beacon about 1 m high, on the knife-edge of the spur and less than 10m away from the precipitous cliffs which drop away for about 100 m to either side. Behind the spur, to the south, is a slight plateau covered in eroding peat hags with a little cotton grass.

The ground was frozen at the time of the discovery to a depth of about 3 cm, and the obvious vulnerability of the pottery to destruction by the weather or the passage of human feet necessitated immediate action to preserve it. A small excavation team supervised by C. S. Briggs was hastily assembled to undertake this task in bitter weather several days later.

Excavations of sites spanning the Beaker to early Roman periods at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed, are described. The sites are in an area of blown sand which enhanced their preservation and led to the separation of several horizons. The earliest is a buried soil beneath the blown sand which contained Mesolithic to Bronze Age artefacts. At site A, there was a roundhouse associated with Early Bronze Age pottery and dated to 1620±70 and 1400±70 BC uncal., and two other roundhouses, one possibly of Beaker age. After a period of soil formation, a ritual complex of Later Bronze Age date was established, this contemporary with the earliest besanding of the area; it included a stone setting of more than 2000 small stones, an alignment of small water-worn stones and a standing stone. A cremation gave a latest date of 940±70 BC uncal. Other Later Bronze Age activity is recorded at site G/J in the form of a rectangular enclosure, possibly unfinished.

Late Iron Age to early Romano-British settlement was present at sites A and B, consisting of scatters of occupation debris, burnt mounds, cooking pits, hearths and houses, some of stone, some of timber, all taking place in an area being intermittently besanded.

Peripheral to the religious and domestic sites, a field system was excavated. The earliest phase was a linear earthwork from which a C14 date of 400±70 BC uncal. was obtained from charcoal in the ditch. After the decay of this, rectangular fields with stone walls were laid out, one along the line of the erstwhile earthwork, this taking place around the end of the Iron Age as dated by C14 of charcoal directly beneath a wall to 90±70 BC uncal. Some of the fields had been cultivated by a succession of cross- and one-way-ploughing, others used for cattle.

An assemblage of 763 flints included a few Mesolithic artefacts but was mostly of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age date. A succession of ceramic assemblages included a small Middle Neolithic group (4 vessels), two distinct Beaker groups, one early (Lanting and van der Waals steps 1–3 (8 vessels), one late (steps 3–6) (45 vessels), an Early Bronze Age group of collared urns (43 vessels) and a Later Bronze Age group (26 vessels).

Environmental data was not prolific but there was a small quantity of animal bone, mostly cattle and sheep, and cereal grain, mostly barley with some wheat. Marine molluscs were present but sparsely utilized and there was no other indication of the exploitation of the coastal resources such as seals, birds, fish andiseaweed. Land Mollusca indicated open country from the Iron Age onwards when the record begins.

The importance of the site is in the ritual complex from site A, the succession of Iron Age/Romano-British occupation horizons, the succession of ceramic assemblages, the field system and the fact that blown sand horizons have allowed the preservation and separation of the sequence much of which would have been at best conflated in to a single horizon or at worst destroyed. Otherwise, there is no evidence that the site was in any way special with regard to the relationship of human activity and sand deposition until the Middle Ages when the area was used as a rabbit warren. Nor was the coastal location important, at least as could be determined by the results. This was a representative of a succession of later prehistoric farming communities and their various domestic, ritual and sepulchral activities in lowland Dyfed.

Skomer is an island off the west coast of Dyfed, the archaeology of which, consisting of fields, small enclosures, cairns, huts and dams, is well preserved. The broad outline and much detail was recorded by W. F. Grimes in 1950 and it was demonstrated that about two-thirds of the island is covered in a more or less undisturbed prehistoric landscape, preservation being due to the absence of Medieval and later settlement. The fieldwork described in the present paper was designed to record in detail small enclosures, or pounds, and habitation sites, mainly at a scale of 1:100 which was not done by Grimes. In addition two sets of air photographs were used to make a map of the fields. The work was done as a student exercise and is accordingly largely descriptive. However, analysis at two spatial levels has been attempted, one for huts and pounds and one for settlement complexes as a whole. But beyond the island itself there has been no comparative survey. The remains could be of any age from the Neolithic to early Roman period.

This paper examines the Mt Gabriel-type exploitation of sedimentary mineralization in the West Cork region of south-west Ireland. It includes a consideration of the physical setting of the mines, their distribution, morphology, technology, dating and cultural affinities. Mt Gabriel, the highest mountain of the Mizen Peninsula in south-west Cork, was the setting for extensive mining of surface copper beds during the closing stages of the Early Bronze Age. Recent radiocarbon dating of wood and charcoal from these sites confirms that the main period of mining activity on this mountain was between 1700–1500 cal. BC, making these the oldest copper mines presently known in north-west Europe. The importance of these sites lies not only in their antiquity, but in their unique preservation in upland blanket bog environments.

A recent programme of survey and excavation culminated in the investigation of the mine 3/4 site on the eastern slopes of the mountain. The removal of a large peat-based infill deposit from mine 3 revealed an 11 metre deep inclined opening, in which the transition from a strata-bound drift-mine to a cross-cutting tunnel was visible. Waterlogged sediments within this mine contained a large assemblage of roundwood fuel and wooden mining equipment, including a shovel, pick, wedges, lighting chips and handles for the many stone-hammers which were also found. The excavation of a large spoil mound outside this mine has provided important evidence on ore treatment in these operations, an important element of which involved the repeated crushing of rock using stone cobble-hammers. Activity areas located on the periphery of this dump included further dressing floors, concentrations of broken stone tools and a posthole structure with associated water trough.

This mining, together with an expanded Early Bronze Age metal production in south-west Ireland, may be directly associated with an important intensification of agricultural production and human settlement in this region, which also finds expression in the adoption of new sepulchral and ceremonial traditions. The ore sources constituted an important resource during this period, contributing to the emergence of controlling élites who had an important managerial role in the production and distribution of metal.

Tomalin (1988) commented on the similarities of vases a anses in Jersey to those in both north Brittany and south Britain. However following earlier writers, including Kendrick (1928, 89) and Hawkes (1938, 112), who also noted these vessels in Jersey, he finds no examples from the rest of the Channel Islands. Interestingly Kendrick illustrates a single-handled vase à anse from the site of La Rocque qui Sonne, Guernsey (1928, pl. XIV, G80); he describes it simply as a ‘small globular cup’ with ribbon handle (1928, 164). Presumably the Guernsey vessel's single handle excluded it from Kendrick's class ‘I’ of ‘Biconical vases with ribbon handles’ from Jersey, which he identified as ‘familiar Bronze Age ware in Brittany’ (1928, 89).

The finding of vases à anses in the Channel Islands indicates communication with at least Brittany, though at a period when the islands seem to have had little to offer the visitor, being at a date just prior to an apparent cessation of contact with Armorican ‘exchange partners’ of long standing. Briard (1986) used the vases à anses among other artefacts, to stress such contacts between the islands and Brittany during the Later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.

Air photography in the drought of 1984 and in the dry summer of 1989 has produced cropmark evidence in Dyfed for a number of defended enclosures whose morphology suggests a new site type that may be commonplace throughout the region.

The county of Dyfed has good surviving earthworks of defended enclosures and small hillforts, and hitherto most discussion on settlement patterns has been confined to upstanding sites. Air surveys since 1978, especially in dry summers, have begun to produce evidence for an inadequacy in our understanding of prehistoric and native Romano-British settlement patterns with the discovery of many new defended enclosures surviving only as cropmarks. Building on the work of Professor St Joseph, numerous straight-sided defended cropmark enclosures have been revealed, although the probably mistaken assumption that some of these are of Roman date has tended to exclude them from consideration of prehistoric settlement patterns. The straight-sided cropmark noted by the author in 1984 underlying the surviving earthworks of the later prehistoric Woodbarn Rath (SN 01681703) has corroborative excavation evidence (Vyner 1986) that this cropmark at least is of earlier prehistoric date.

Editorial summary. This paper began as a review of Renfrew, Archaeology and Language. The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins (1987). It was expanded with a further review, of Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans (1989). It has ended by considering not only the books in question, but also wider issues of the relationship between archaeological and linguistic evidence.

The hypothesis of Renfrew for an early dispersal of Indo-European speakers from Anatolia with the spread of farming from the 7th millennium bc is contrasted with the view of Mallory that Indo-European speakers emerged from a diverse background in a broad homeland between the Pontic and Caspian Seas in the period 4500–2500 bc. One major difficulty, among many others, for Renfrew's view is that there is no historical evidence for Indo-Europeans in western Asia until the early 2nd millennium bc; the Indo-European-speaking Hittites appear to have been intrusive into Anatolia only slightly before this time and to have made use of the non-Indo-European language of the indigenous Hatti; and in Iran, Indo-European speakers may not have appeared until the end of the 2nd millennium bc.

Both Renfrew and Mallory are seen to seek congruence between the archaeological and linguistic records. The opposite view is argued, that historical, linguistic and archaeological evidence each represent different kinds of human behaviour. The metaphor is employed of an incomplete jigsaw puzzle, three-dimensional and with past, present and future, and possessing both picture and text; picture and text each require separate specialists in their reconstruction. The independence and importance of archaeological evidence is reaffirmed.

Since 1840, a number of anthropomorphic wooden figures have been discovered in Britain and Ireland. They are described and illustrated, and aspects of their manufacture discussed. Previous interpretations of date and function are reviewed, noting the lack of recent interest, and the evidence available for dating the figures is summarized, demonstrating that although they were generally attributed to the later prehistoric period no firm evidence supported this conclusion. AMS radiocarbon dates have recently confirmed the prehistoric age of the carvings, ranging from about 3000 BC cal. to about 350 BC cal. Similar wooden figures from the continent are briefly examined, along with comparative representations in other media, and some common features are identified. The significance of various similarities and attributes is discussed, noting affinities with Scandinavian rock-art and bog-burials. The sexual ambiguity of the figures is recognized, along with a tendency to asymmetry and slighting of the left side of the face. It is suggested that these attributes may relate to the original symbolism of the carvings.