The first three seasons of a joint Anglo-Catalan research project in north-eastern Spain have concentrated on the Roman villa of Vilauba. It has been shown that the site was occupied for some nine centuries, but the most important discoveries have been the elucidation of substantial phases of occupation from the fifth to seventh centuries A.D., which included in the latest phase a large press building for olive oil. These findings have pointed to the problems of the transition from the Roman to the early medieval period, which have also been met in the field survey of the surrounding region. The medieval settlement pattern had emerged by the ninth or tenth centuries, but its relationship with the Roman pattern remains to be clearly established. Important discoveries have also been made about considerable geomorphological changes in the area, which can be dated to the post-Roman period. A range of techniques have been used in the survey, including recording of standing buildings, geophysical survey and surface collection, which, added to the environmental and pottery studies from the excavation, are shedding important light on the Roman and early medieval rural development of this part of Spain and on the western Mediterranean more generally.

The excavations described in this report were aimed at establishing more about the character of the Cambridgeshire Car Dyke and at defining the period during which it was in active use. The dyke, which traverses with several changes of direction the low gravel and loam promontory between the fork of the Cam or Granta immediately south of Waterbeach and the alluvium of the Old West River (and present Ouse) north-north-east of Cottenham (fig. 1), varies in character considerably in its five-mile course. Most of it has been degraded to a field ditch, and over some stretches cultivation has overrun the banks on either side and encroached upon the bed, but the dyke survives reasonably intact at Waterbeach and on the site of the present excavations at Bullock's Haste and Setchel Fen.

This paper presents a new assessment of the hoard of five gold finger rings and ten silver groats found together near the River Thame, in Oxfordshire, in 1940. It proposes a refined date of manufacture for the exquisite reliquary ring and reports newly identified elements of its design, suggesting that it held a second relic. A holistic understanding of the landscape, topography, contemporary institutions, places and events is used to interpret the hoarded material. It is advocated that the hoarded rings and coins were probably the property of Notley Abbey, not Thame Abbey as has been thought, and that they were rescued from Thomas Cromwell’s Commissioners in 1538 for burial at a place of cultural significance. The paper also draws attention to some of the problems of interpreting and dating hoards and it emphasises the continuity of hoarding practice from prehistory into the later- and post-medieval periods.

2005 marked the centenary of the publication of Forty Years Researches in the British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire by John Mortimer. This review explores the key concepts underpinning his work – those of progress and racial identity – and how they were developed both in the monograph and in the fieldwork and museum arrangements upon which the monograph was based. It argues that although Mortimer is best known for his work on the Neolithic and Bronze Age of East Yorkshire it was the material from Iron Age burials in the region that crystallized his thinking on these issues. The article also explores the way in which this archaeological collection shaped Mortimer's own relationships and sense of place, while contributing more broadly to regional and national discourses on identity. Finally, it highlights the contemporary significance of this collection and its associated archive, currently held at the Hull and East Riding Museum.

It has for many years been disputed whether the existing structure of the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem were that built by Constantine, in the first half of the fourth century, or a later restoration or rebuilding under Justinian, some two centuries later. The documentary evidence is insufficient to decide the point, as no unequivocal description of the present church exists earlier than that of Sophronius in A. D. 635, which describes the building as τρίκογχος, triple-vaulted, or tri-apsidal. Unfortunately, this comes a century too late to decide the point at issue (pl. XIII).

We do not know when the English kings took up their residence at Westminster. Some slight indications suggest that Canute may have first established himself here. It is clear from the name Westminster that the Abbey was first in place, and this is confirmed by the position of the Palace, built along a narrow marshy strip between the better ground of the Abbey precinct and the river. Holyrood seems to be a parallel case of a famous religious house drawing the king's palace to its side. There is no certain evidence for the existence of the Abbey itself until the opening of the last third of the tenth century. The points in favour of Canute's residence at Westminster are as follows. His son Harold was buried in the Abbey, and according to the traditions of the house he was a great benefactor to it, presenting it with many relics, and being much attached to the Abbot Wulnoth. Gaimar, a twelfth-century writer, says that the dispute as to the tide happened at Westminster. “He was in London on the Thames, the tide was flowing near the church called Westminster, and the king stood at the strand on the sand.” The first positive evidence as to the Saxon palace is contained in William of Malmesbury's Chronicle, which tells how King Edward the Confessor was wearing his crown at Westminster, and while sitting at table one Easter Day, surrounded by nobles, he saw a vision.

The royal officer known as the Keeper of the Wardrobe was, we may suppose, first appointed to look after the royal clothes, but at an early date his functions were enlarged until he became one of the most important officers of the Household.

Thomas Jenkins was born in Rome in 1722, a son of William Jenkins about whom little is known. Thomas was in England during his early life and, as a young man, studied painting with Thomas Hudson (1701–79), portrait painter in London. He returned to Rome as a student-painter in 1753, though whether through his own resources or under the patronage of others, remains doubtful.

Some years ago the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London, acquired the prehistoric collections resulting from the late Dr. Joseph Bailleau's excavations and researches in the Allier, that département which forms part of the old province of Bourbonnais, Central France (fig. I). The most important series is the classic one from a multiple cave, La Grotte des Fées, in the commune of Châtelperron. Stone and bone artifacts from here have long been held to typify the first stage of French Upper Palaeolithic culture. Assuch, the character of the most outstanding part of this industrial output is now familiar from innumerable references based on the writings of the Abbé H. Breuil, who in 1911 drew a number of inferences from the artifacts. These views have been fully supported since by evidence from elsewhere. However, credit is due in the first place to Bailleau for having attracted attention to thearchaeology of Châtelperron. Lecturing in 1866 he first mentioned his researches, and some years later he published a more detailed account of the discoveries, but in the state of knowledge then prevailing the full significance of the objects could not be appreciated. Now, having examined virtually all the known partof the Bailleau collection, and having classified quantities of other material from Châtelperron, added in different ways since Breuil referred to some of the relics, the present writer thinks that new features and certain aspects may usefully be brought to notice. That he can supplement previous communications is due to the opportunity he has had to study the remarkable collection handed over bythe executors of Dr. Bailleau's estate and also to information given him on the Palaeolithic lots by the Abbé G.-H. Pépin, Curé of Neuvy-lès-Moulins (Allier) and M. R. Sadourny, Moulins (Allier).

The suspension owing to the continuance of the Great War of all work upon the hill of Old Sarum, and the consequent lack of material for the usual report thereon, afford a useful opportunity for the discussion of certain points connected with the cathedral church of Sarum.

The use of heraldic decoration in medieval books has been somewhat neglected, only a few have been the subject of detailed studies and some of these are less than satisfactory. The Tickhill Psalter group had the advantage of having been the first to use the medieval rolls for comparanda, although the importance of the background decoration and line fillers as part of the overall pattern was not realised, accordingly a re-examination of all of these books is desirable. Unfortunately the book also gave renewed currency to the erroneous identification of the heraldry in the so-called Grey–FitzPayne hours at Cambridge which has long been regarded as closely dated to 1308 and hence a key manuscript for the chronology of the early fourteenth century books.

The task of card-indexing the enormous number of seals scattered over the various groups and classes of documents in the Public Record Office, originally undertaken by Sir William St. John Hope, but interrupted by his death and by the war, was resumed in 1922 by Mr. R. C. Fowler. It was then decided to create a small special section within the Repairing Department, to deal with questions of packing, repairing, moulding and casting. When this work came to be started, it was discovered that the various processes had been hitherto regarded in this country rather as trade secrets; and although some works on the subject have been published abroad, though also various archivists have been most generous in placing their experience at my disposal, I found that some matters which interested us were still unexplained and that in practice we had to make almost every step the subject of more or less elaborate experiment. As we are now passing out of this experimental stage, and as many Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries and other persons in this country are possessors of seals and may be presumed to have some interest in the technical and mechanical processes involved in their preservation, it has seemed worth while to record the result of our modest inquiries in this place.

In the West Mediterranean islands before the mid-nineteenth century, discoveries of fossil bones, prehistoric deposits in caves and megalithic monuments stimulated ideas about the remote past, as in other parts of Europe where similar phenomena were observed. Many of these ideas were characteristic of a pre-scientific age and their sources are sometimes obscure. Their inspiration can often be traced to the Bible, classical texts, folklore, as well as to advances in palaeontology and direct observation of antiquities. The study of fossils and prehistoric remains progressed gradually, following a similar pattern elsewhere. Two lines of enquiry emerged, one closely linked with progress in the natural sciences and the other concerned with ancient monuments and the background to the classical world.

In 1929, during the excavation of a prehistoric and Roman site upon Camp Hill in Lord Bledisloe's deer-park at Lydney, on the borders of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, a reputed earthwork upon the adjoining Little Camp Hill (fig. 1) was trenched and found to contain the remains of a small stone-built castle. The existence of this castle had not been previously noted, as the site has no known history and the remains of the walls are completely covered by the grassgrown banks of their own debris. The site had been regarded locally as that of a small camp, associated with the larger Roman ‘camp’ on the opposite hill. On the Ordnance maps it appears under the name Outpost.

In the preparation of its Dorset inventory the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England) has drawn new attention to a remarkable earthwork which has long been known to exist on Bindon Hill, adjoining Lulworth Cove, Dorset. The significant topographical features are as follows. For many miles of Dorset coast the cove is the only natural harbour where in all weathers small craft may lie up with safety. In terms of human time, it must long have approximated to its present shape, the product of a fairly simple geological process. The successive strata hereabouts (from bottom to top) are Purbeck limestone, Wealden clay, and chalk; but they are all here uptilted towards the south through nearly 90 degrees so that in effect they lie side by side with the limestone as an outermost barrier against the sea. In ages past a chalk-stream wore a gap through the limestone down to sea-level, admitting the sea to the Wealden clay, which it then proceeded to scoop into a basin until stopped by the more solid chalk beyond. The tiny descendant of this incisive stream still flows unnoticed beside the road down to the harbour.

Castle Tower, a ring-work of Norman character, was shown by excavation to have two main structural phases, dated by pottery to XII—early XIII century A.D. In the first phase, there was an elaborate timber gate-tower, and wooden buildings in the interior. After the gate had been burned down, the entrance was refashioned in stone, and a dry stone hall was constructed.

The seals used by Duke John IV of Brittany (1364–99) are described. Frequent changes in the four main series are linked to his oscillating political fortunes. It is argued that the symbolism in the designs of some of the seals reflects Breton aspirations to independence from the duke's sovereign, the king of France.

In 1946 a visit to the barrow, which lies on the edge of the western scarp of Chinnor Common, and a cursory examination of the adjoining area, cultivated during the war, resulted in finds of pottery and other objects indicating Iron Age occupation. The site lies on the saddleback of a Chiltern headland, at a height of about 800 ft. O.D. Two hollow ways traverse the western scarp, giving access to the area from the Upper Icknield Way, which contours the foot of the hill, then drops to cross the valley, passing some 600 yards to the north of the Iron Age site of Lodge Hill, Bledlow, and rising again continues northwards under Pulpit Hill camp and the Ellesborough Iron Age pits below Coombe Hill. The outlook across the Oxford plain to the west is extensive, embracing the hill-fort of Sinodun, clearly visible some fourteen miles distant on the farther bank of the Thames. The hollow way at the north-west end of the site leads down to a group of ‘rises’ hard by the remains of a Roman villa, and these springs are, at the present day, the nearest water-supply to the site.

The name of Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) is well known in scientific and exploration circles – he is undeservedly much less well known as an antiquary. This study considers his roles in relation to the premier antiquarian society of the time, the Society of Antiquaries of London. Using the Society’s records, Sir Joseph Banks is considered as an ordinary Fellow, as a member of Council, as an auditor of the finances and as a scrutator at elections. The relations between the Royal and Antiquarian Societies on first moving into Somerset House and the contemporary question of whether they might have merged is also examined. Joseph Banks’s role in the circumstances of the three contested presidential elections of 1785, 1799 and 1812 is especially considered, and these are seen not just to represent internal squabbling amongst the Fellows, but to reflect the wider social and political strains of the time. In producing the narrative of these elections, significant past mistakes are corrected. Lastly the relationship between George iii and the Society of Antiquaries is touched upon.