The small flake implements belonging to a late palaeolithic industry, some of which are shown in the illustrations of this paper, were collected during about three years' work in some gravel pits which have been opened in a river terrace in the Colne Valley, Essex. That this site represents a settlement, and that the flints are not merely an aggregation of odd implements brought down by flood, there appears to be sufficient proof, first because of the distinctive nature of the industry itself, and secondly by the finding of hearths and depressions, which appear to be either the floors of pit dwellings or for use as wind-screens. The numerous cores and flakes also found suggest that the working places of implement makers have come to light.

The development of the earliest Germanic applied disc brooches is followed from their beginning in the Elbe valley to the fifth century in England. Third-century types constructed with rivets on a flat background were produced in the Elbe valley, giving way in the fourth century to a type soldered on to a concave base, and they spread to the middle and lower Elbe valley, to Holland, the Rhineland, Belgium, and northern France, increasing in numbers at the end of the fourth century, but not surviving the fifth century. The main designs were concentric circles, star, floriate cross, scrolls, and animal ornament.

The series goes on in England without any break in continuity of form or decoration, and the earliest types belong to the fifth century, mainly the first half. With the densest concentration in the Upper Thames area, they are otherwise mostly distributed south of the Thames with some along the Icknield Way. As they are associated with a post-Roman stage of metalwork, the Quoit Brooch Style, they must indicate Germanic settlements, no doubt mercenary in the earliest stages.

In 1966 the Winchester Excavations Committee was again joined by the University of North Carolina and Duke University in excavations on four sites in the city. The work lasted ten weeks from the middle of June to the latter part of August and an average of 160 people took part, about £14,000 being spent.

The excavation of the harbour site at al Mina having been finished in 1937, the whole of the 1938 season was devoted to the inland mound of Atchana, now identified by the help of the inscribed tablets as the ancient city of Alalakh. Work started at the beginning of March and was carried on until the end of May. Throughout the greater part of the season the number of men employed averaged about three hundred. Even with the invaluable assistance of our foremen, Hamoudi and his two sons Yahia and Alawi (the former of whom as usual was responsible for the photography), this entailed very heavy work on our limited staff, and for the success of the season I am deeply indebted to its members: my wife, who besides doing the drawings of the painted pottery and metal objects helped in the field in every way; Mr. Ralph Lavers, to whom are due the excellent plans and reconstructions of the buildings; and Mr. P. W. Murray-Threipland, who again acted as general archaeological assistant and undertook practically the whole of the work on the catalogue of objects. I have further to express my gratitude to Mr. Sidney Smith for his work upon the tablets, to Mr. R. D. Barnett for information regarding the Hittite inscriptions, to M. Henri Seyrig, Director of the Service des Antiquités for Syria, and to M. Merlat, Inspector of Antiquities for the Sandjak of Alexandretta, for help, both official and personal, ever readily given; lastly, I would thank the Trustees of the British Museum, the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, and the many generous friends who have financed the Expedition and made its work possible, and will, I hope, feel that their help has been rewarded by its success.

Mid nineteenth-century sketches of paintings then in the vaults of the Trinity Chapel ambulatory of Canterbury Cathedral are published for the first time. They provide an opportunity to discuss the iconographic programme and style of the lost paintings. Kings of England and local saints were among those represented in commemoration of the translation of the relics of Becket to the Trinity Chapel in July 1220. The date of 1220 which seems to be given in an inscription is confirmed by comparison with a Canterbury Psalter of before 1220, and sculptures at Wells.

Glass bangles are found in southern England and Wales from the mid-first century ad and become common in the north of England and southern Scotland in the late first century, before their numbers decline a century later. British bangles develop at a time of change, as Roman glassmaking practices were introduced across large areas of Britain, and as blown, transparent, colourless and naturally-coloured glassware became increasingly popular. In many communities, however, there was still a demand for strongly coloured opaque glass, including for bangles, and glassworkers devised ways of extending their supplies of opaque coloured glass. This study is based on over one hundred and fifty analyses of bangle fragments from sites in Wales, northern England and southern Scotland, spanning this transitional period. The bangle makers recycled coloured glass from imported vessels, and probably beads and bangle-making waste, to supplement supplies of fresh coloured glass. The novel methods used to modify and extend the coloured glass may derive from pre-Roman bead-making industries, and made use of widely available materials, including smithing hammerscale and possibly plant ashes. The results show the shifting balance of indigenous and Roman influences on different bangle types, depending on when and where they were made, and by whom.

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.

Kenilworth, though a castle in name, was converted by Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, into the first great Elizabethan progress house. This article aims to provide the first thorough account and assessment of his architectural works at Kenilworth. It is based primarily on the author’s long acquaintance with the castle’s building fabric, supplemented by the opportunities afforded by the recent programme of works undertaken by English Heritage and by new documentary information. Among the discoveries are several works (previously attributed to Leicester) which can be assigned to his father, the duke of Northumberland (c 1553) and also evidence for an early phase of work for Leicester himself (c 1568–9).

His most important architectural achievement, Leicester’s Building, is shown to have been built specifically to accommodate Queen Elizabeth, and the functions of its rooms are reconstructed. Evidence is assembled to show that Leicester’s Building was erected between 1570 and 1572, in anticipation of her 1572 visit. Archaeological analysis of its standing fabric shows that it underwent considerable modification subsequently, presumably in readiness for the 1575 progress. The physical evidence for Leicester’s other architectural works at the castle is assessed, including the remodelling of the great tower and the south and east ranges of the inner court.

The reasons for Leicester’s grand scheme are considered, as well as the importance of his architecture in the period and the roles of his architects and craftsmen, particularly William Spicer. It is argued that Leicester’s Building was the prototype for the midlands ‘high house’ (of which Hardwick New Hall is the best-known exemplar) and was probably the most significant model for the eclectic, linear style which came to dominate great houses in the second half of Elizabeth’s reign.

The middle decades of the seventeenth century are seen as a period when antiquaries were obsessed with heraldry and genealogy and paid little attention to physical antiquities. Through an exploration of a circle of antiquaries associated in the 1650s with John Aubrey, this paper argues that interest in physical monuments was indeed sustained and developed during this period of transition from Camden's Britannia to Aubrey's Monumenta Britannia. It is suggested that Aubrey's association with the Royal Society, a body that played an important role in preserving and disseminating archaeological evidence, has privileged one particular influence on the early development of archaeological fieldwork at the expense of others explored here. Indeed, this period is marked by a growing interest in physical evidence that was a natural next step for antiquaries who found themselves reaching the boundaries of what literary sources could tell them about the monuments they observed in the landscape.

The excavations of 1962 were originally planned to take place on three sites: the Amphitheatre, which lies outside the town wall a little to the south-west; a rescue excavation in a derelict garden in Coxwell Street; and a section across the front of the south-east defences at a point about 200 feet west of Miss Rennie's section cut through them in 1952. A week after the start, news came that work for a new police station was to commence during the current financial year, on a site north of Dyer Court, which our Fellow Dr. Graham Webster investigated in 1957. With such short notice, rescue work had to begin here almost at once. Imminent development of yet another building-site, in Victoria Road, was reported towards the end of the excavations, which had to be extended for a fortnight to meet this fresh emergency. Five sites have thus been dealt with this year instead of three, an undertaking of considerable magnitude, and the Committee here records its most grateful thanks to each of those bodies who contributed towards the expenses; to all those who assisted the excavations; to the Gloucestershire County Council for permission to explore the police station site; to the Cirencester Urban District Council for permission to dig in Coxwell Street; to Lord Bathurst for permission to dig at the Amphitheatre; to Mr. Harry Pitts for permission to cut a section across the southern defences; and to Messrs. R. van Gelder, Keen and Co. Ltd.

The parish of Riseholme lies immediately north of the Lincoln city boundary and on the east side of Ermine Street as it runs along the top of the Jurassic ridge towards the Humber. It is an area of fertile, easily worked land lying between 130 and 200 ft. above sea-level, and must have presented a sharp contrast, in prehistoric eyes, to the areas of difficult settlement on the low-lying clays to east and west. The latter no doubt came under the plough in Roman times and indeed probably formed the bulk of the territorium attached to the colonia at Lincoln after its foundation at the end of the first century; but the higher ground, with few or no trees to clear, must still have seemed desirable land to the discharged legionary.

Although it has generally been maintained that chivalric combat depended solely on strength and endurance, there is ample evidence that skill, dexterity, speed and control were also required. This paper attempts to reconstruct the techniques used in foot combats, tourneying on horseback and jousting (especially tilting)—in England, France, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula—on the basis of narratives and technical treatises, concerning sword and lance play, written between the late fourteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Recent excavations have added considerably to our knowledge of the lower walled city in the Roman period, both in terms of internal structures (mainly houses) and of the sequence of the defences. Much, however, still remains to be learned about the early development and layout of the lower town, while the exact nature of the defensive system is imperfectly understood. Evidence is gradually accumulating to show that what had been the Roman city was still occupied during the fifth and sixth centuries. Whatever form this occupation took, excavations at Flaxengate have shown beyond dispute that the city was revitalized in the early Anglo-Scandinavian period and that some streets which had previously been assumed to be of Roman origin were part of a planned layout undertaken early in the Viking period. Detailed information has also been retrieved about domestic and commercial buildings in the lower part of the city in the post-Conquest period, and this has complemented the evidence from documentary sources, confirming that the city was extremely prosperous in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

The excavation conducted by Sir Leonard Woolley in 1936 and 1937 at the site near al Mina, at the mouth of the Orontes, produced material of interest not only for archaeological study but also for Oriental history. The eighth to the fourth centuries of the pre-Christian era, to which the material remains belong, are also represented at other sites in Syria and Palestine that have been excavated by scientific expeditions. But the Phoenician cities, Byblos and Sidon, the north Syrian cities, Carchemish and Sinčirli, the sites on the plain of Aleppo reported on by the Syrian expedition of the Oriental Institute of Chicago, and Palestinian sites, have not yielded the same material of one special kind as al Mina, or only stray examples of it. There Cycladic and proto-Corinthian sherds and later developments of early Greek vases show conclusively that there was trade between the little Syrian port on the one side and the Aegean islands and the Greek mainland on the other, between the beginning of the eighth century and the end of the seventh. Similarly Attic pottery and coins are a proof of the encouragement given to Athenian trade at the same port from the time of Darius I to that of Artaxerxes III. In this respect new knowledge is to be gained from the finds at al Mina as to the history of the north Syrian coast during five centuries. The conclusions that may be drawn form an interesting footnote to what is known, and to some of the assumptions, about general Oriental history.

Fifteen drawings of Maya carvings presented to to the Society's Library in 1854 depict stone stelae and wooden lintels from Tikal, Guatemala, stelae from Ixkun and Ixtutz, Guatemala, and a temple at Tikal. Thirteen of the drawings can be assigned to specific monuments with certainty and the other two with some probability. Examination of the paper and other details suggests that the drawings are copies from lost originals, except for two drawings which may themselves be original. Annotations on the drawings are probably by Modesto Méndez, leader of the expeditions which explored the sites in 1848 and 1852. The drawings of Tikal were originally by Eusebio Lara, while those of Ixkun and Ixtutz may be by another artist.

Winchester has produced six bone spatulate spoons decorated with Ringerike–Winchester style engravings which are, in some cases, dated by their contexts to the eleventh century. The range of motifs and the style of execution suggest they are the work of an individual craftsman. They form part of a sequence of spoons spanning the period from the late Roman to the thirteenth century, but unlike the examples in more precious substances, which have primarily Christian ecclesiastical associations, the wooden and bone spoons of the eleventh century seem, at least from their contexts, to be domestic.

The excavation of ten Trajanic kilns, all of the up-draught type, was carried out in the spring of 1968 on a site now part of the Derby Racecourse Playing Fields (SK 36133775) which are situated some 700 yards east of Little Chester along the Roman road running to the Trent at Sawley. The kilns ranged in size from 18 to 51 inches in diameter (0.46 m. to 1.30 m.) and were disposed as follows: a group of six kilns, a group of three kilns, and a single kiln. A great variety of pottery was recovered with jars, flanged bowls, and carinated vessels predominating. Two unusual products from this site were lead glazed ware and an early form of Derbyshire ware.