The great silver cauldron from Gundestrup is one of the most fascinating exhibits in the National Museum of Copenhagen. It was imported into Denmark in antiquity and, since its discovery in 1891, has been the subject of considerable discussion. Although most scholars have agreed in assigning it to a 1st-century B.C. Gallic context, this identification is by no means universally accepted. Other suggested areas of origin have ranged from the eastern Danubian countries and South Russia to Denmark and even to northern India; similarly, estimations of the date of the object have varied from the 1st century B.C. to the 5th century A.D.

Although the Gundestrup cauldron is a unique object differences in style between the various plates that make up the body of the vessel point to the fact that several artists were involved in its manufacture. In the centre of each of the seven (originally eight) outer plates are placed human busts, with minor figures occupying secondary positions, while the five, long, inner plates, and the bottom plate, bear varied motifs. From a technical point of view it is an outstanding specimen of the silversmith’s art; particularly fine is the bull on the bottom plate, which is executed with boldness and great skill, The cauldron must certainly be regarded as a product of a vigorous school of craftsmanship.

This article is something both more and less than the lecture that it represents. The lecture was given in London last December to open the Conference on the Southern British Iron Age which is reported here below by Mr Frere (p. 183). But it had the disadvantage of all introductory lectures to conferences, that they cannot anticipate what the other speakers will be saying later. And in this case, what the others said later was sometimes so new and striking as to leave the introductory lecture rather far behind. Of course, that was the measure of the conference’s success; yet I was gratified to find that what had happened, by the end, was that the others had not so much contradicted as carried further, in their various special fields, much of what was suggested in my more general talk. This surely means—and I think we can be gratified all round—that in the dozen years since the Council for British Archaeology last caused a general survey to be put forward, or the twenty years since Childe was writing in Prehistoric Communities, we have taken our Iron Age studies through a process of expansion, and of revaluation, and yet have emerged still pretty well together.

These milestones in their history are worth remembering. Horae Ferales, in which Kemble and Franks first brought our Iron Age metalwork to recognition, appeared in 1863, and John Evans’s Coins of the Ancient Britons in 1864; Arthur Evans’s monograph on the Aylesford cemetery, with both metalwork and pottery shown for the first time in their European setting, in 1890; Canon Greenwell’s on the Yorkshire chariot-burials in 1906.

The Iron Age and Roman Research Committee of the Council for British Archaelogy organized a conference on ‘Problems relating to the Iron Age in Southern Britain’, which was held at the Institute of Archaeology from 12 to 14 December, 1958. A full report on this Conference is to be issued by the C.B.A. in the form of an Occasional Paper of the Institute of Archaeology; all that is here attempted is a short summary of the main points made.

The Conference began on the evening of Friday, 12 December with a brilliant introductory lecture in his best manner by Professor C. F. C. Hawkes entitled The A B C of the British Iron Age. This lecture is represented by the paper printed here above (pp. 170-82), and thus no summary is necessary, though it would be difficult to overestimate its stimulating influence on the remainder of the Conference’s proceedings.

The Ordnance Survey of Great Britain is now in its 167th year. Founded in 1791, it has provided a map coverage of this country which is unexcelled in its completeness and in the range of its scales. All the most important towns are now being mapped on a 1/1250 (50-in,) scale in a new survey, over 60 per cent of which have now been completed. Only a few mountainous and uninhabited regions are excluded from the 1/2500 (25-in.) scale which otherwise covers the whole country. Consequential from this scale is a further series of maps at scales of 1/10,560 (6-in.), 1/25,000 (2½-in.), 1/63,360 (1-in.), 1/126,720 (½-in.), and 1/253,440(¼-in.). Except for the north-west of Scotland the 1/25/000 (2½-in.) scale map covers the whole of the country, but the 1/126,720 (½-in.) scale has only recently been started and will take some years to complete.

An unusual feature of the whole of these map series when compared with other national surveys is the attention it pays to the mapping of antiquities. This is not confined to the delineation of those ancient features which have size and bulk which make it impossible to omit them from any map. A big range of antiquities is shown. The current list shows 107 different types ranging in date from the earliest times down to the 18th century. Some, like burial mounds, are small; others, like major hill-forts or Roman town sites, cover many acres, while others of linear type like Hadrian’s Wall or Offa’s Dyke approach or exceed 100 miles in length. Apart from this kind of antiquity which can still be recognized on the ground, there are many places indicated where important finds of portable objects have been made, and the sites of battles and other historic events are shown.