When the Editor of Antiquity invited me to write some notes on the Zürich Congress, it was agreed that they could only be considered as personal impressions, and not a formal report. The unfortunate human limitation which debars one from being in two places at once is always irritatingly obtrusive on such occasions, and a decision on which of several simultaneous papers to attend is likely to be decided by spinning a coin at the last moment, so that one can do no more than record one's own impressions, and something of those of friends to whom one has talked.

Some ten years ago Professor G. Montell published a well-illustrated and highly interesting account of the history of the Chinese game of t'ou hua or Pitch-pot. In this game, practised in China for many centuries, two contestants attempt to toss (t’ou) arrows into the mouth of a narrow necked vessel (hu) according to very elaborate rules of procedure. He began by quoting verbatim Legge's translation of the lengthy description of the game as contained in the Lichi,b taking this as evidence that the game ‘was perfected as early as the Chou period’. He surmised that the game survived the centuries although he knew of ‘no further mention of it in the literature until the time of the Sung dynasty’, his next source dating from the 11th century.

In 1925, Professor Dart of the Witwatersrand University described the well-known Taungs skull (Australopithecus). He pointed out that, in spite of the obviously ape-like proportions of the brain, there were certain features (particularly in the dentition) in which this fossil primate resembled Man more closely than do any of the known anthropoid apes. In general, other anatomists agreed that this certainly was so, but some regarded the resemblances as little more than interesting examples of parallelism having no particular reference to the origin of the human family (Hominidae). In 1936 and the following years, Dr R. Broom, F.R.S., of the Transvaal Museum, discovered many more remains of similar ape-like creatures, including teeth, portions of skulls and jaws, and parts of the limb skeleton. Incidentally, he believed these remains to represent two types closely related to Australopithecus but generically distinct, and he gave them the names Plesianthropus and Paranthropus. Whether this generic distinction will be accepted as valid is a subject of controversy. Actually, however, it is (for the moment) a matter of no great importance, for it is agreed that they all certainly belong to the same group, the Australopithecinae. Dr Broom's account of his discoveries (which were made at Sterkfontein and Kromdraai—not far from Johannesburg) was published in 1946. It became clear from his description and illustrations that the hominid traits of the Australopithecinae were even more remarkable than many anatomists had supposed. So much was this the case, indeed, that some of those who had shown a cautious reserve towards the Taungs skull now expressed their conviction that these extinct primates were by no means merely “ anthropoid apes ”. On the contrary, they agreed that they provided evidence of the utmost importance for problems of human evolution. But although this now became widely accepted, one or two critics continued to combat it with rather unusual (and also rather puzzling) vehemence. Meanwhile, unperturbed by these minor protests regarding his earlier discoveries, Dr Broom was quietly working away at his excavations at Sterkfontein, and in 1947 he came upon an astonishingly rich collection of Australopithecine remains closely packed together in a small and circumscribed locus of dense limestone. This new material proved to be much more complete and perfectly preserved than anything hitherto found in the area, and included several skulls or parts of skulls, many teeth, and an exceptionally fine specimen of a pelvic bone.

This appreciation of George Grant MacCurdy does not purport to record either the main facts or the details of his long and fruitful life. It is merely the appraisal of the man, the teacher, and the scientist by one who was his junior friend and colleague for more than a third of a century. It is designed to supplement the admirable biographical sketch written by Dr Hugh Hencken for the Bulletin $16 of the American School of Prehistoric Research.

There is a body of theory, most clearly delineated in recent years by V. Gordon Childe, concerning the importance of the appearance of Food-Production as a basic economic revolution. The domestication of plants and animals assured a stable food supply. Proper village life now came into being, and with it a completely new kind of technology. This latter depends on the fact that time now became available for pursuits other than that of simply collecting food. The theory holds it to be no coincidence that such crafts as architecture, pottery, weaving, and presently metallurgy make their appearance with the establishment of Food-production. These crafts make use of materials constructively, and in some cases actually change the physical or chemical properties of the materials. Such a technology was not characteristic of the preceding Food-gathering stage. The Food-producing revolution and the type of technology which attended it were at least the economic prerequisite for the appearance of civilization (in any useful sense of that word).

Recent years have seen the publication of some sumptuous reports of the large scale excavations conducted by American enterprise in the years before the war. The sites of Megiddo and Beth-Shan, which can confidently be referred to by their historical and biblical names, are of outstanding importance, dominating as they do the Plain of Esdraelon and the great road from Egypt to North Syria and Mesopotamia. The publications here considered are the latest (but not, it is hoped, the last) of a series dealing with different aspects of the excavations. Both sites have been partially sounded to bed-rock, and show continuous occupation from thc chalcolithic period to the end of the first millennium B.C., and Beth-Shan beyond it. Tell en-Nasbeh is in a different category. It is possibly to be identified with the Biblical Mizpah, but this is not universally accepted. Like many Palestinian hill-country sites, it was occupied in the Early Bronze Age (the ascription of some groups to the chalcolithic period is unsatisfactory). Its main occupation is, however, confined to the Early Iron Age, from the time of the undivided Israelite Kingdom down to the post-exilic, Hellenistic and Roman periods.