The handaxe of Libyan Desert glass (PL. XIIIb & FIG. I) was found on 23 June 1979, in the Sand Sea of S.W. Egypt, at latitude 25°o8' N, longitude 25° 35·5' E, near the southern boundary of the known distribution area of the glass. Lying just north of the Gilf Kebir, this part of the Sand Sea is characterized by an extensive field of linear dunes, trending almost exactly N-S, which are up to Ioom high, tens of km long, and separated by interdune corridors or ‘streets’ 2–5 km wide.

My father’s forebears were ironmasters in Birmingham. Yet neither he (born 1877) nor my uncle (born 1870), let alone five aunts, knew more than the name of their firm, The Eagle Iron Foundry. When their mother died and the family moved to Beckenham, all were children. A remote cousin Arthur, Borough Librarian of Wigan, genealogist, and thence FSA, wrote when I became that (1932) to tell me that Hawkeses were Warwickshire under Charles I1 already, when a branch went to Ireland. But he said nothing of William Hawkes, who in 1824 (June), with a young Mr M. H. Bloxam of Rugby, went to Oldbury, in the country near Atherstone, and opened a barrow. Bloxam stated, naming him and the firm, that he was leader of the dig, when publishing it in Charles Roach Smith’s Col1ectanea Antiqua, vol. I part 3 (issued 1843, then in whole vol. of 1848), 33, with Pl. xiv, engraving of the finds. (My knowing this is entirely due to Sonia Hawkes’s finding it, in her luckily-obtained Collectanea a few years ago.) His publication cited in VCH Warwickshire and in Gerloff, 1975 (172 and Pl. 27 no. 332) was thus his second, and the first needs adding to the barrow’s bibliography.

Three decades have elapsed since Williams-Hunt (1950) described the results of an aerial survey of archaeological sites in N.E. Thailand. He observed four site-types. The most abundant was a disposition of practically circular earthworks which looked like moats and ramparts. Williams-Hunt described them as small defended towns. There are also four ‘metropolis’ sites with a large gap between inner and outer ramparts, several sites located on rock outcrops, and a number of sites with an irregular layout and possible periods of enlargement. The sites concentrate in the valleys of the Mun and Chi rivers (FIG. I). Williams-Hunt had no clear information on the dates of the sites, although pioneer work by Prince Damrong in I904 and Quaritch-Wales (1936) just before the second war suggested occupation before the Khmer occupation of the Khorat Plateau in the eleventh century AD. ‘Further comment’, he concluded, ‘would be futile. The excavator’s spade alone will provide the final answer.’

The East Anglian Fenland comprises some 1,300 sq. miles (205 ha) of flat and monotonous terrain which is today cultivated on an intensive scale. Beneath this rich farmland lies a complex sequence of post-glacial deposits, reflecting periods of marine and fresh-water flooding, interspersed with phases of relative dryness (Godwin, 1978). During the Iron Age, the sea covered the northern Fenland with a thick blanket of silt, accounting for the dearth of finds of this time; but by c. AD 50 the sea was receding and the land had begun to dry out. Settlement soon followed. It is likely that a fort of the post-Boudiccan period was briefly in garrison at Grandford, north-west of March, but the principal remains are those of salt-making sites and of small farms. During the reign of Hadrian, however, both the scale and the nature of settlement changed dramatically. AS the authoritative survey of the region makes clear (Phillips, 1970), the 120s and 130s witnessed a sharp increase in the number of sites, including the foundation of many villages. At the same time a network of canals, designed to disperse water at times of flood, was constructed (Simmons, 1979), as well as a series of straight-line roads and drove-ways. Although there was no formal division of the land by centuriation, as had been customary in areas reclaimed earlier for the settlement of veteran—the Po Valley and Lake Velinus near Rieti provide obvious Italian examples—the hand of government is nevertheless explicit in the size of the undertaking. While we lack direct evidence, there can be little real doubt that the Fenland was taken over as Imperial land and placed in the charge of a procurator (Salway, 1970).

Sir Mortimer Wheeler towers over twentiethcentury archaeology like a colossus. One of the last of the great archaeological adventurers, Wheeler has left a mark on our discipline that shows no sign of diminishing even as immediate memories of his long life fade into history. A biography of this extraordinary, almost heroic, figure was inevitable, and sure enough it has appeared. Jacquetta Hawkes’s Mortimer Wheeler: adventurer in archaeology arrives just six years after his death; far too soon for a really dispassionate assessment. Hawkes has been careful to compile a life, not a hagiography. She has avoided the pitfalls of a cult book, such as those devoted to other well-known figures in recent years. Wheeler would never have approved of groupies nor of a cult, for he was only too aware of his own imperfections. Nevertheless, he emerges from Hawkes’s biography as rather larger than life. ‘Mortimer Wheeler will rise from these pages as a Hero figure’, Hawkes disarmingly admits at the beginning. She undertook the daunting task of sifting not only through piles of dusty notes and archaeological field notes, but through peoples’ opinions of the man that varied from unqualified hero-worship to virulent hatred. What is remarkable is that his detractors were also admirers of his energy and vitality. Hawkes is refreshingly honest about her own feelings for Wheeler. She had ‘a very great liking’ for him. She enjoyed, she tells us, ‘his company, his talk, his power to brighten the day.’ She had the disadvantage of never having worked with him, which she describes, probably accurately, as ‘a terrifying as well as immensely profitable’ experience. Her well written, enjoyable biography paints Wheeler as a form of epic character, one of the last people to belong in the heroic age of archaeology.