Causewayed enclosures have recently been at the forefront of debate within British and European Neolithic studies. In the British Isles as a whole, the vast majority of these monuments are located in southern England, but a few sites are now beginning to be discovered beyond this core region. The search in Wales had seen limited success, but in the 1990s a number of cropmark discoveries suggested the presence of such enclosures west of the River Severn. Nonetheless, until now only two enclosures have been confirmed as Neolithic in Wales – Banc Du (in Pembrokeshire) and Womaston (in Powys) – although neither produced more than a handful of sherds of pottery, flint or other material culture. Recent work by the authors at the Iron Age hillfort of Caerau, Cardiff, have confirmed the presence of another, large, Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure in the country. Excavations of the enclosure ditches have produced a substantial assemblage of bowl pottery, comparable with better-known enclosures in England, as well as ten radiocarbon dates. This paper provides a complete review of the evidence for Neolithic enclosures in Wales, and discusses the chronology and context of the enclosures based on the new radiocarbon dates and material assemblages recovered from Caerau.

This paper presents the results of a survey project investigating a complex of prehistoric archaeological sites at Lochbrow, in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. An Early Neolithic timber cursus, Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age timber circles and Bronze Age round barrows were first recorded as cropmarks on aerial photographs in the 1980s and 1990s. The Lochbrow Landscape Project set out to investigate and understand this lesser-known complex of prehistoric sites and their layout in the landscape using non-destructive survey techniques, including geophysical survey, experiential survey and re-assessment of aerial photographs. A pilot survey was undertaken in 2010 followed by a series of short field seasons from 2011 to 2015. Interpretation of the results from geophysical survey has proved challenging because of strong geological and geomorphological signals, but has been successful in detecting both the features known from aerial photographs and additional archaeological features. The simple step of marking out the known archaeology on the ground has provided additional insights into the landscape context of the known monuments and elements of their morphology. This indicates that the monuments were closely tied to their landscape context and that the monument boundaries were used to influence the experience of being within the monuments. Overall, the research has been successful in enriching our understanding of the complex of prehistoric sites known at Lochbrow.

This paper describes the discovery of a massive, fan-shaped flint core from West Kennett Farm, near Avebury in Wiltshire, a site that is noted for two Late Neolithic palisaded enclosures. The discovery of the core has renewed focus on three similar artefacts from East Anglia, the importance of which has been overlooked. These cores arguably constitute some of the largest individual pieces of systematically worked flint from Britain. The paper considers the implications of the discovery at West Kennett Farm, where nodules of this size are absent, with the movement of flint across Britain, and concludes by discussing the role of these ‘mega-cores’ with current thinking on the function of stone in Neolithic Britain.

A previously unresearched Early Bronze Age dagger-grave found in 1989 at Racton, West Sussex, is profiled here through a range of studies. The dagger, the only grave accompaniment, is of the ‘transitional’ Ferry Fryston type, this example being of bronze rather than copper. Bayesian analysis of relevant radiocarbon dates is used to refine the chronology of the earliest bronze in Britain. While the Ferry Fryston type was current in the earlier half of the twenty-second century bc, the first butt-riveted bronze daggers did not emerge until the second half. The Racton dagger is also distinguished by its elaborate rivet-studded hilt, an insular innovation with few parallels.

The excavated skeleton was that of a senior male, buried according to the appropriate rites of the time. Isotopic profiling shows an animal-protein rich diet that is typical for the period, but also the likelihood that he was brought up in a region of older silicate sedimentary rocks well to the west or north west of Racton. He had suffered injury at or close to the time of death; a slice through the distal end of his left humerus would have been caused by a fine-edged blade, probably a dagger. Death as a result of combat-contested leadership is explored in the light of other injuries documented among Early Bronze Age burials. Codified elite-level combat could help to explain the apparent incongruity between the limited efficacy of early dagger forms and their evident weapon-status.

The excavated evidence of the building on the middle terrace of Site C at Tintagel Castle, in Cornwall, indicates that in the post-Roman period it had been the focus of activity involving the reuse of imported amphorae in conjunction with secondary stone stoppers made at Tintagel. This paper considers the nature of that activity and suggests that mead (fermented honey water) was being made in the building in the fifth and sixth centuries ad and stored in reused amphorae. The role of alcohol and feasting in power structures of the period and in the development of the site’s defences is also discussed.

It is often argued that northward trade in gold from sub-Saharan West Africa began after the establishment of Islamic control late in the seventh century ad. This paper questions that conclusion, and suggests that minting at Carthage of the Byzantine gold coins known as globular solidi was related to the acquisition of metal through developing trans-Saharan contacts. Political developments in the late sixth century may have interrupted the supply of gold to Byzantine Carthage; this problem intensified during the following decades when production of globular solidi began. It is suggested that trans-Saharan imports comprised gold that was cast, for export and apparently also for local circulation, at Tadmekka in north-eastern Mali and perhaps elsewhere, into lumps of standardised weight calculated to meet the needs of the Byzantine mint at Carthage. Preliminary archaeometallurgical investigations provide some degree of support for this hypothesis, and further analyses are planned that may identify the sources of the gold minted in seventh-century Carthage. If and when such detail becomes available, it may have major implications for our understanding of the nature and instigation of ancient trans-Saharan connections.

The building of new facilities at the east end of Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, in 2014–15 involved re-opening a Romanesque arch. This had previously connected the nave’s north aisle with the north transept, and appears to have been blocked at the Dissolution when the transepts and eastern arm of the abbey church were demolished. As works progressed in 2014–15, a remarkable Gothic window tracery design was gradually revealed, incised on the early twelfth-century ashlar of the southern respond. The discovery is one of the most substantial and complete incised designs identified to date and, beyond being an important addition to the emerging corpus of incised designs on walls, it is significant for revealing use of black pigment to make the drawing more visible, for providing an insight into the lost monastic parts of the abbey and, most tantalisingly, for raising the possibility that Wymondham – like its nearby sister priory at Binham – was at the forefront of the development of bar tracery in England in the thirteenth century.

This paper re-evaluates the evidence for the dating of Edward the Confessor’s shrine at Westminster Abbey, which has been the subject of debate for many years. The paper presents a new argument that the manuscript evidence for a later date is based on an identifiable scribal error, locates the source of this error and postulates an alternative original reading of the inscription on the shrine pedestal.

An unpublished document in the archives of Lincoln Cathedral reveals the function of the thirteenth-century annex attached to the south-east transept, naming it as the cathedral’s thesaurarium (‘treasury’). This paper explores the fittings and the functions of the various chambers of the thesaurarium of Lincoln Cathedral, including its splendid crypt. In addition, the paper will examine the extent to which the thesaurarium conforms to the type of ecclesiastical treasure house favoured by secular canons in England and abroad. The building’s design and architectural language testify to the decorum and respect accorded to church treasures and the importance attached to the task of providing them with accommodation worthy of their status.

The mortuary roll of John Islip (1464–1532), Abbot of Westminster, is the finest example of its kind to survive in England. The drawings, possibly by Gerard Horenbout, afford the only views of the interior of Westminster Abbey before the Dissolution. The discovery of eighteenth-century copies of an unknown, coloured version of the roll provides important new evidence for both the circumstances of the production and the later history of both rolls. It also provides, for the first time, an authentic colour view of the interior of Westminster Abbey in the late medieval period, and new information on its decoration.

This paper will describe and illustrate variations on a sculptural theme in late-Hanoverian and early-Victorian funerary monuments by Sir Francis Chantrey (1781–1841), which, taken as a whole, demonstrate a shift in taste from severe Neo-Classicism to Early Romanticism. In the 1820s and 1830s, Chantrey carved several memorials to Anglican bishops featuring the prelates kneeling in prayer or contemplation: some showed the bishops in high relief against architectural backgrounds, others depicted them as free-standing figures. From the 1840s onwards, the impact of the Gothic Revival and Ecclesiology led to numerous bishops being commemorated by recumbent effigies, so the kneeling type was a relatively short-lived form, and could even be called an invention of Chantrey.