Professor Renfrew, who holds the Chair of Archaeology in the University of Southampton, has prepared for us an account of the sanctuary at the important site of Phylakopi in the Cycladic island of Melos, excavated by the British School of Archaeology at Athens from 1896 to 1899. The publication (Atkinson et al., 1904) was a landmark in the study of European prehistory. The person in day-to-day charge (although not nominally Director) was Duncan Mackenzie, who later assisted Evans at Knossos. Mackenzie's Daybooks have been preserved and are a useful source of stratigraphic information.

Excavation was resumed in 1974–7, directed by Professor Renfrew, for the British School of Archaeology at Athens, with the authority of the Greek Archaeological Service. The most important and altogether unexpected result has been the discovery of a sanctuary of the Mycenaean period, with a number of very beautiful finds (cf. Frontispiece)* as well as some highly unusual ones (male figurines). The only well-preserved Mycenaean shrine previously excavated is that at Mycenae itself, discovered by Lord William Taylour and first published in this journal (Taylour, 1969 and 1970).

The Phylakopi shrine is of great importance for the Mycenaean period in the Cyclades, for the understanding of Mycenaean cult and religion, and for the several works of art which it has yielded, including the Lady of Phylakopi, perhaps the most beautiful of the ceramic cult figures known from the Mycenaean world.

In April 1972 Mr Fleming, Lecturer in Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Sheffield, and his colleague Dr John Collis, were able to demonstrate the prehistoric date of a system of reaves, or low walls, on south-west Dartmoor. Further research showed that the true date and function of the reaves had been suggested in the early nineteenth century, but that they gradually come to be ignored by prehistorians of more recent times; Mr Fleming, Director of the Dartmoor Reave Project, here documents this curious case of lost knowledge.

The Jomon Period of Japanese prehistory, which extends from the 11th millennium BC to about 300 BC, has been termed ‘Neolithic’ in the tradition of the archaeology of North-eastern Asia since diagnostic artifacts include ceramics and polished stone tools. In more general terms, however, the subsistence pattern may be seen as Mesolithic, with the utilization of shellfish, fish, nuts, and roots. In recent years, Japanese archaeologists have raised the question of the possibility of early cultivation, and this has become one of the main problems in Jomon research. Richard and Kazue Pearson prepared this general survey of problems in Jomon subsistence for the Symposium on Japanese Archaeology held at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Boston, 3 April 1974. It was further revised during the tenure of a Research Fellowship of the Japan Foundation, Tokyo, during the summer, 1974, as part of a broader study of prehistory of the broadleaf evergreen forest zones of eastern Asia. Richard Pearson is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Kazue Pearson is co-translator of the English edition of Jeong-hak Kim's book on Korean archaeology (Kankoku no Kokogaku, 1972; Kawade Shobo Press) which will appear in 1978 as the ‘Prehistory of Korea’, from the University Press of Hawaii.

Dr Joan M. Frayn was formerly Head of the Classics Department at Wimbledon High School (GPDST). She is at present engaged in making a study of subsistence farming in Italy in the Roman period.

Various ways of dividing up the chronological and cultural content of the Neolithic of the British Isles have been proposed. Thus Piggott assigned the Windmill Hill culture to Early and Middle phases, and the Peterborough and other cultures to a Late phase (1954); Clarke proposed similar Early, Middle and Late phases, with the addition of a Final phase (1970,275); Case divided the Irish Neolithic into a beginning, a middle and an end (1969a) (a scheme recently further subdivided by ApSimon (1976)), his stages marked by various cultural innovations and developments. Though based on such cultural changes, these schemes—necessary as they are—all tend to create the impression of steady and consistent human activity, though manifesting itself in different ways at different times, over the by now vast span of the British Neolithic. Nor has this impression been altered greatly by the large number of radiocarbon dates-over 150—available for cultural activity over the period from at the latest 3500 bc down to 2000 bc or soon after.