In “The Whitehaven Herald” of the 19th of November, 1870, there appeared a communication entitled “Remains of Ancient British Dwellings at Ehenside, near Egremont,” signed by the Rev. J. W. Kenworthy, a paper of striking interest to all who concern themselves with the slowly increasing materials for a better knowledge of the ante-historic state of man in these islands.

During the past three years the work of the Trent Navigation Company in dredging the river above Nottingham has brought to light a number of interesting finds. The company's dredger has been removing large quantities of gravel from the river-bed, and in particular it has been dealing with the Clifton reach, where a large accumulation of gravel projecting from a point on the left bank directly opposite the downstream end of the tree-covered bluff called Clifton Grove has been cleared right away. This point is in the parish of Wilford, and here the river is nearly 100 yards broad with an almost straight course for a considerable distance between Clifton Grove and a wide expanse of level meadows on the left bank (fig. 1).

Excavations in the church and churchyard at Asheldham revealed a complex series of building phases preceding the existing structure. Domestic occupation of the middle and late Saxon periods was followed by a timber building, interpreted as a church, with associated graves. The early structures were built alongside and aligned on a Roman road, and the cemetery associated with the first (Norman) masonry church encroached on this road, causing its diversion. The excavation of this key site has demonstrated the likely Roman date of an extensive road and field system which survives throughout the Dengie peninsula. A preliminary discussion of the historic landscape and its future potential for study is offered.

Pumping operations conducted by the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers Co., Ltd., in the large chalk quarry situated between Brook Vale and the Southern Railway track to the east resulted in the normal water-level for the immediate vicinity being lowered by approximately 50 ft. This volume of pumping, however, had the effect of filling to capacity all streams and conduits connected with the outflow, so that archaeological investigation of the low-lying deposits of the neighbourhood was rendered impossible.

In the summer of 1938 operations in the quarry were abandoned, and the pumps were withdrawn for installation in Baker's Hole, half a mile to the west.

Upon the cessation of pumping the water-level immediately began to return to normal at the rate of about 9 in. every twenty-four hours, whilst the beds of the streams and conduits promptly dried up.

Such a state of affairs rarely presents itself to the archaeologist, and I forthwith decided to make two excavations at what I considered were likely to prove ‘key’ sites in the bed of the Ebbsfleet. The first spot chosen lay at the junction of Brook Vale and the Ebbsfleet, and the second was at a point a quarter of a mile farther upstream.

As the rude and primitive processes by which metals were extracted from their ores and adapted to the uses of man in early times are fast disappearing, and will soon cease to be practised in the few regions of the world where they still survive, it has appeared to me to be advisable that some record should be preserved of them before they fall entirely into disuse and become forgotten.

The discovery of this important neolithic temple enriches the unique series of Maltese monuments and, besides demonstrating afresh the importance of the Maltese Islands in prehistoric times, sheds a flood of light on the other monuments so far discovered.

The site on which the monument was raised is not very far from the Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum and the Cordin stations, which may well be considered to be upon the same plateau.

The excavations were undertaken by the Silchester Excavation Committee supported by donations from public and private bodies and from individuals and by permission of the Duke of Wellington, K.G., F.S.A. Their purpose was the investigation of (a) a previously unsuspected polygonal enclosure of about 85 acres, here named the Inner Earthwork, which lay partly inside and partly outside the line of the familiar Roman town wall; and (b) a western extension to the known line of the Outer Earthwork, which increased the size of this enclosure from about 213 to 233 acres. With the assistance of the Ordnance Survey, the aerial traces of these earthworks, first observed and recorded by Dr. J. K. St. Joseph, F.S.A., were confirmed and extended by field-work and excavation, and have been planned as appears on pl. I.

The excavations showed that the Inner Earthwork was a defence of Gaulish ‘Fécamp’ type, and that it was erected, on the south, over an area of late pre-Roman occupation, the first clearly identified at Calleva Atrebatum, but one with strong ‘Catuvellaunian’ influences in its pottery-series. It is claimed that the Inner Earthwork was constructed by the client King Cogidubnus in or shortly after A.D. 43–4, as the defence of this, the most important settlement in the north-west of his dominions. It is further suggested that the Inner Earthwork was replaced by the Outer Earthwork also during the reign of Cogidubnus.

The excursus attempts to collate with the results of excavation the earlier discoveries of pre-Conquest material. The total evidence is finally related to the Belgico-Roman topography of Silchester and its neighbourhood, within the historical framework of the century and a half which separated the arrival of the earliest Belgic immigrants in the region from the death of Cogidubnus and the consequent emergence of the Roman Civitas Atrebatum.

The recent examination of the cairn known as Bryn yr Hen Bobl was begun in 1929 at the request of its owner, the marquess of Anglesey, who generously paid the cost of the labour employed throughout the six seasons work on the monument.

The small town of Caerleon lies upon the banks of ‘full-tided Usk’, on the north-eastern outskirts of Newport in Monmouthshire. In a superficial sense it may, indeed, be regarded as the forebear of the medieval and modern borough which, two miles nearer the Severn estuary, has first replaced and now, spreading inland, threatens to absorb it. At the end of 1925 events moved with unexpected rapidity in this direction. Land in the centre of Caerleon—and therefore in the centre of the site of the Roman legionary fortress—changed hands for immediate ‘development’, and urgent action was necessary. On the initiative of the National Museum of Wales, a representative ‘Caerleon Excavation Committee’, under the presidency of Lord Treowen and the chairmanship of Dr. C. A. H. Green, then bishop of Monmouth, was called into being; whilst the Presidents of the Society of Antiquaries, the British Academy, the Classical Association, the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, and other bodies, realizing that Caerleon provided the only example in Britain of a legionary fortress which was not almost completely covered by medieval or modern buildings, issued a joint appeal to the press.

The object of this paper is to endeavour to show that there was in the West of England an important school of craftsmen responsible for a number of buildings of the first magnitude as well as for others of a smaller size. This supposed school flourished at that period when the round arch was logically giving way to the pointed one; so that to understand the importance of its position in this development a few words on the reason of the adoption of the pointed arch are necessary.

The first research project in medieval industrial archaeology in Cyprus originated with the investigation of the Lusignan cane sugar production centre at Kouklia (Stavros Project); it became an incentive for the exploration of the establishments of the Hospitallers at Kolossi and the Cornaro family at Episkopi. Excavations at Kouklia-Stavros (1980–82 and 1987–91) recovered a sophisticated structure of milling and refining installations, and revealed new economic and technological aspects of this important, but thus far hardly explored industry of the island in Lusignan and Venetian times. The wealth of new information gained made it possible to understand for the first time thoroughly how Levantine cane sugar refineries actually worked. The contextual approach of the Stavros Project, interrelating archaeological evidence and written information, suggests further interesting research topics such as the repercussions of the sugar industry on social structure, settlement patterns, and environment, or the transfer of the methods and technology of sugar production from Islamic lands to the western Mediterranean, and finally to the Americas.

A research excavation was commenced on the site of the basilica which forms the western side of the forum of Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, Hants) in IQ80. Its aim is to examine the Late Iron Age and early Roman occupation which, despite extensive Victorian excavations, was preserved beneath the masonry basilica. So far there is evidence of the Iron Age sequence dating back to the last quarter of the first century B.C.; it ends with the construction of a palisade dating to about the time of the Roman conquest. Two major phases of Roman timber building have been recorded, of which the later consists of a large basilica, interpreted as part of a forum-basilica and of Flavian date. The masonry basilica dates to the early second century. From the mid third until the later fourth century the basilica was given over to metalworking. The amphitheatre, with its well-preserved earthen seating banks, was first constructed during the third quarter of the first century A.D., when the seating, arena wall and entrance passages were built of timber. After several phases of repair the arena wall and entrance passages were rebuilt in stone in the first half of the third century. The full plan of this phase has been recovered; it consists of two opposing entrances on the long axis and two apsidal recesses on the short axis. The monument enjoyed a brief period of reuse in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

At the close of the description of the site itself in the first report i t was stated that the rise in the level of the trench east of the pit containing Hearth 4 suggested the presence of a causeway beyond. It is now more than doubtful whether the evidence is capable of such interpretation. Just beyond the top of the slope where all signs of the usual cultural layer had disappeared, a fine specimen of a comb and some sherds were found, but after that nothing but occasional flakes of flint and a very few sparse sherds.

The archaeology of Dyfed in the first millennia B.C. and A.D. is largely that of defended enclosures. The distribution of these is described. This suggests the existence of three zones of defended enclosures, reflecting differences in environment and socio-economic systems, particularly differences in the relative productivity of different areas. The results of recent excavations are described and discussed in terms of chronology, economy, function and status. The excavations at Llawhaden—which have included the total excavation of three small enclosures—provide a key sequence, covering the whole period in question, with which other excavations can be compared. Throughout much of the period differences in the development of settlements can be related to the environmental and socio-economic differences between zones. In terms of function and status, it can be suggested that the majority of totally excavated defended enclosures were high status sites.

Last year I described before the Society a series of flint implements of Upper Palaeolithic (Upper Mousterian-Aurignacian) facies discovered by me in Yorkshire at the base of, and passing up into, a deposit considered by Lamplugh to resemble a weathered Boulder clay and classed by him as of Late Glacial Age. The geological aspects of these archaeological finds I have dealt with fully in a paper read subsequently to the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia. Both papers, however, were complementary to one read by J.Reid Moir on archaeological discoveries of a similar nature made by him in north-west Norfolk in the Brown Boulder clay. With the objects of obtaining confirmation of Lamplugh's geological opinion and of bridging the gap between north-west Norfolk and Yorkshire, I decided to investigate the glacial sequence in north-east Lincolnshire, choosing Kirmington as a centre.

The collection of iron, bronze, and glass found in Bulbury, Dorset, in 1881 is discussed in detail. It is considered to date to the early first century A.D.

The nature of the deposit is uncertain, but the possibility is examined that the finds divide into three categories: (a) fittings of a male burial, (b) fittings of a female burial, and (c) an ironsmith's stock in trade. Further excavation is called for.

The Department of Urban Archaeology, City of London, was set up in December 1973 as part of Guildhall Museum, now the Museum of London. Since then it has excavated sixteen sites and carried out numerous watching briefs. Most of the formal excavations have been conducted on the vital waterfront sites, made available for the first time, and on the Roman and medieval defences of the City. Important evidence of the elusive Saxon occupation is gradually coming to light, and the work is accompanied by specialist research, particularly finds, environmental and documentary.

A small chalk figurine from Withemsea, North Humberside, is identified as the finest example of a distinctive group found only in the territory of the Parisi. Between forty and fifty figurines are now known and many represent a warrior, usually carrying a sword on his back. Most of the figurines come from Iron Age or Roman sites, and all the swords are shown in scabbards suspended about their midpoint—a fashion known in northern Britain in the Iron Age. The warrior represented is presumably a god, mythical figure or ancestor, and the figurines may well have had a ritual or magical function.

As the periods during which excavations at Stonehenge were continued in the seasons of 1925 and 1926 were short, it has been considered better to give the results of the two years' work in one Report.

Work began on 1st May 1925, and was continued until 8th September following. The portion of the ditch opened was that remaining between two other excavations in the ditch previously examined and reported upon. It formed part of the general excavation of the eastern segment, but as it was essential to complete the exploration of the interior between the rampart and stone circles separately, the ditch in that quarter was left for later investigation

This paper presents an overview of the results of two brief excavation seasons (2008 and 2010) at Foxhole Cave, Gower, south Wales, placing them into the wider context of mid-Holocene Britain. No prehistoric pottery was found and the few pieces of worked flint recovered are diagnostic of the Mesolithic period. Typically for the Carboniferous limestone caves of Gower, bone was well preserved, however, and though much of the material in the heavily disturbed upper metre or so of the deposits was modern sheep and rabbit, scattered fragments representing the remains of at least six humans were also recovered, of which two have been directly radiocarbon-dated using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS 14C) to the Late Mesolithic and two to the earlier Neolithic (the remaining two providing Romano-British and medieval dates). Their associated stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values indicate a significant difference in diet between the two periods (contrary to the results from an earlier excavation in 1997), with marine foods contributing around half of the protein for the Mesolithic individuals and little or none for the Neolithic individuals. The new results are consistent with those from Caldey Island, Pembrokeshire, some 30km to the west. The floor of the cave has still not been reached at around 2m depth; limited investigation of the lowermost levels has yielded a Pleistocene fauna (including reindeer, aurochs or bison and collared lemming) with dates back to approx 33,500 cal bc, though with no definite evidence for human activity so far. A small, dark-stained fragment of human cranium was recovered from what may be pre-Holocene levels, but this failed to produce sufficient collagen for dating. In addition to a marked dietary shift, the combined stable isotope and dating programme provides further support for an equally striking temporal gap of some two millennia between the Mesolithic and Neolithic use of caves for burial.