The popular epithet for our pleistocene forerunners is still ‘cave men’. It gives the impression that they were as completely dependent on Nature’s bounty for shelter as for food. And of course that impression was originally intended by archaeologists themselves. Most remains of middle and upper palaeolithic cultures were, and still are being, collected from caves. Other sites that yielded similar relics have been designated ‘open stations’, with the inevitable, if not deliberate, implication of the absence of any shelter. Yet from many caves there have long been known engravings or paintings that seem to represent tents or more substantial structures and that have been designated ‘tectiforms’ for this very reason. Not all prehistorians accept this obvious interpretation, and few of those who do have realized its significance. Perhaps they were waiting with proper scientific caution for monumental evidence.

Such evidence is now available in plenty. But as it is mostly published in Russian, and badly at that, it has not been at all widely appreciated. Yet the construction of dwellings twenty thousand or more years ago is so striking a fact in cultural history as to justify a summary of the rather inaccessible accounts that have appeared.

Physical remains of the simple tent-like structures inferred from the commoner tectiforms have been identified at Gagarino and Kostienki on the Don in the Ukraine and at Mal’ta and Buryet on the Angara in Siberia. At Gagarino the ‘hut foundation’ was an irregular saucer-shaped excavation in the löss, nowhere more than .50 m. deep, and measuring some 5.50 by 4.50 m. across. A silo trench, dug by peasants, that had originally revealed the archaeological deposit, had cut right through its centre along the major axis thus presumably destroying the hearth and the entrance. Little evidence for the superstructure was left, but Zamyatnin noticed large slabs of stone and mammoth tusks lying near the margins of the depression. This dwelling was occupied by Gravettian mammoth-hunters as was a similar one subsequently discovered at Kostienki below the large ‘communal house’ to be discussed later.

In a recent article in this journal Mr O. G. S. Crawford referred to the people of the Sudan as a people without a history, and he drew attention to the possibilities of filling some of the lacunae in their history by the excavation of sites south of Khartoum especially along the White Nile. It is, of course, true, as the responsible authorities are well aware, that a good deal of exploration remains to be done in the Sudan and awaits only the necessary funds. It is probable, also, that many ancient village sites in the area between the Blue and White Niles now lie beneath the cotton fields of the Gezira Irrigation Scheme. It is therefore the more unfortunate that some archaeological discoveries which have been made have either been inadequately published or their publication has been inordinately delayed.

In this latter respect archaeology has been singularly unfortunate in the district round Sennar, on the Blue Nile, a region which appears to have been important throughout the history of the Sudan. It is doubtful if the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom penetrated as far south as this, though their descendants may have done so in New Kingdom times ; but the area was certainly a centre of civilization in the heyday of the Meroitic kingdom, about the beginning of the Christian era, and, nearer our own times, it was the headquarters of the powerful Fung kings of the 16th to 18th centuries.

It is but rarely that we light upon any trace of those articles of furniture which must have been in daily use in every Romano-British home. The purpose of this article is to call attention to a series of objects which contribute something to our scanty knowledge of this subject, namely the carved fragments of Kimmeridge shale occasionally found during the excavation of Romano-British sites. Of these no less than seven are on view in the Dorchester Museum. All were found at or near Dorchester, and there seems no reason to doubt that they were made locally, as a shale industry is known to have existed in Dorset since Neolithic times.

The best known piece is probably the one discovered at Colliton Park, Dorchester, in a rubbish pit 16 feet deep, lying beneath the hypocaust of one of the houses of the Roman town of Durnovaria (PLATE I, I) . It consists of the leg of a piece of furniture with a tenon top made to fit into a mortise in some flat surface. The upper part of the leg is carved to represent an animal’s head with an open mouth and a lolling tongue, the latter being extended in an unrealistic manner to join the leg, which swells out to meet it. Below the animal’s head the leg is cut away in a semi-circle at the back and shows in front a fluted band which may perhaps be a reminiscence of some form of foliate ornamentation. Behind the animal’s head is a small notch. The leg itself terminates in a claw foot. Part of another leg of this type, a little smaller in size, was found on the villa site at Frampton near Dorchester (PLATE I, 2). This is carved with a head resembling that on the Colliton Park leg, but here a space has been hollowed out between the elongated tongue and the animal’s neck, and the band of fluted ornamentation is missing. A third example was discovered during the excavation of the villa at Preston, near Weymouth (PLATE 1, 3) . Of this fragment only the left-hand side is intact, the right-hand side having split away in an almost straight line. The head survives, but the tenon has been broken off, and most of the animal’s tongue has disappeared. On the fragment of a fourth leg which comes from South Street, Dorchester, the extended tongue survives, although the carved head itself has unfortunately been destroyed. The lower parts of two legs ending in claw feet were also found in South Street, and another foot of the same type was recovered from the Roman level at Maiden Castle .

During the war and in the immediate post-war period the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force undertook a considerable air survey programme covering Burma, Siam and French Indo-China. In Siam the initial cover was restricted to large-scale (1:15,000 and better) photographs of towns, airfields and communications. Later a more ambitious programme of survey cover (scales 1 : 50,000 and 1 : 25,000 with a few towns and beaches at larger scale) was undertaken, and practically the whole of the country has been covered by air photographs of one scale or another.

It has been my privilege to serve with the R.A.F. in Siam on both ground and flying duties and, more recently, to be in a position to examine most of the photographs taken. A very considerable number of archaeological sites have come to light, many being noted for the first time ; and it is my intention in this initial paper to comment briefly on one particular type of earthwork which appears to have a limited distribution in eastern Siam. The air photographs are reproduced with the sanction of the Air Ministry.

It must be emphasized that although Siam, the meeting place of Indian and Chinese cultures, is rich in archaeological sites very little systematic work has yet been undertaken. On the one side the natural reluctance of the Siamese to disturb ancient sites and, on the other, comparative absence of trained archaeological research workers have been contributory factors. Detailed ground information generally is lacking and it follows that these notes are based on air photographic evidence, in most cases without ground checking, an impropriety of which the writer is only too well aware.