The Centopietre at Patù, 60 km. south of Leece (FIG. I ) is one of the most extraordinary ancient monuments in south-east Italy. It is asmall rectangular structurewith ashlarwalls and a pitched roof, built entirely ofstone. Several accounts of the Centopietre are available in Italian, notably those of Pasquale Maggiulli, who produced the first rational discussion of the building in 1912 [I], and Professor Adriano Prandi, who published the results of a detailed investigation in 1961 [2]. However, as far as we know, no account has ever appeared in English. Discussion of the Centopietre has produced two distinct hypotheses. The first, advanced by Maggiulli, holds that it is protohistoric and was built in a style derived from the Greeks; the second, argued at length by Professor Prandi, contends that it is medieval. This article describes the Centopietre and suggests that the earlier date is more likely to be correct. We reach this conclusion by relating the structure to three other monuments in the Terra d'otranto, the Cisternale at Vitigliano and the 'megalithic' tombs which formerly existed at Uggiano la Chiesa and Muro Leccese. None of these monuments has ever been regarded as medieval and we suggest that the group as a whole belongs to the Messapian Iron Age.

Proposals that Stonehenge was con- structed as an astronomical observatory [1, 2, 3] with the purpose of predicting eclipses [4, 5] imply that the builders of Stonehenge, even Stonehenge I, were possessed of a degree of intellectual sophistication that seems inconsistent with the usual picture of the population of S. England in the and millennium B.C. Either the people were not just primitive farmers or these proposals must be substantially in error. It is not the purpose of this paper to attempt a decision between these alternatives but to explain the nature of the astronomical arguments in more detail than has been done heretofore. My hope is that with a moderate effort it will be possible for the reader to rework the calculations on which the astronomical suggestions have been based; for only when archaeologists and astronomers have understood each other's arguments can we expect to resolve this intriguing dilemma. At several places in the discussion I shall quote the solution of mathematical problems, thereby permitting the whole discussion to be confined to simple trigonometry. These few places will be marked by an asterisk. The reader wishing to cover these gaps will need to consult a text on spherical astronomy, e.g. [6].

The study of strip lynchets is one which has been sporadically carried out by many people for the last 70 to 80 years. Recently there has been an increase of interest in this field with the result that much more is now known about their purpose and construction. However all this work has not produced any general agreement on their date. There is no dispute that they were cultivated in the medieval period, but while some workers have seen them as medieval, others have suggested their origins lie in the Roman or Iron Age period.

The archaeological work being undertaken in the New England region of northern New South Wales is part of a long-term study of the prehistory of this part of the state, combining field survey with the excavation of stratified sites. In both these aspects work is proceeding on a regional basis, at present concentrating on a coastal river valley (that of the Clarence), and the Northern Tablelands, areas offering contrasting environments, sub-tropical riverine and coastal conditions and rugged upland over 3,000 ft. above sea level. In reconnaissance the aim is a total regional record, to give a full picture of the range of evidence for prehistoric occupation and exploitation of any area, and the distribution, within the region as a whole, of particular types of site. This should provide a setting within which the excavated material may be interpreted, with the hope of eventually establishing connexions between art, ceremonial and industrial sites, and the dated industries, so gaining a fuller reconstruction of the life of the prehistoric occupants of the area.

The only previous report of parasite eggs from archaeological excavations in Britain is that of Taylor (1955), but their occurrence in ancient deposits and human remains in other parts of the world has been known since 1910, when Ruffer reported Schistosoma haematobium eggs in the kidneys of two Egyptian mummies. Szidat (1944) found eggs of the roundworms Ascaris and Trichuris and structures resembling eggs of the tapeworm Diphyllobothrium latum in the bodies of a girl and a man recovered from a bog in East Prussia. Pizzi and Schenone (1954) recovered eggs of the roundworm Trichuris trichiura and cysts of the protozoan parasite Entamoeba from the frozen body of an Inca child found in a tomb in the Andes. T. trichiura eggs were also observed by Helbaek (1958) in the stomach contents of a corpse recovered from a peat bog in Grauballe, Denmark.