Archaeology as a branch of historical science has made new headway in the thirteen years since the founding of the Chinese People's Republic. The scale of its work has expanded and methods of research have been improved. Large numbers of young archaeological workers have been trained. In the course of the nation's gigantic economic construction, remains of ancient settlements and tombs have been uncovered in many places, yielding numerous important relics which have provided abundant data for archaeological research. Throughout the country, hosts of archaeological workers from research institutes, universities, museums and institutions for the preservation of ancient monuments are carrying out both field work and academic study and have already attained considerable success in their efforts to explore the history of ancient China on the basis of archaeological finds. All this has given further impetus to the advance of Chinese archaeology.

Archaeological finds made in New China are so rich that the present article can attempt to discuss only some of the most important problems.

Twenty-two years after the close of his investigations in north-west Syria, Braidwood produced this massive and expensive volume which covers the archaeology of a part of the ‘Amuq plain from the advanced Neolithic period down to about 2000 B.C. More than a quarter of a million words have been penned, and there are many hundreds of illustrations, including ten coloured plates which are good reproductions of sixty-nine prehistoric potsherds. Such lavish and verbose treatment may unfortunately defeat the purpose of the volume, for those who can afford the money, and still more the time required for the mastery of its contents, must be few indeed.

The classification of the material described depends basically on the partial excavation of three mounds: Judaidah, Çatal Huyuk and Ta’yinat, of which the first named produced the most abundant evidence. These excavations were supplemented by operations on a smaller scale at the mounds of Dhahab and Kurdu and by the surface exploration of many other sites.

In an attempt to halt the serious inflation in the later Roman Empire, Diocletian (n. 1) in A.D. 301 issued, in the form of an edict, a tariff-list of maximum permitted prices for consumer goods and of minimum wages for certain classes of labourer. He addressed it to the provincials of the whole empire (n. 2) (orbi universo) and appealed for their wholehearted co-operation in carrying it out. For us, it is a mine of vital information about the economic and social conditions of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. Among the woollen textiles listed in chapter XIX appears the byrrus Britannicus (n. 3) which is of some local interest for Roman Britain. It is with this that we shall concern ourselves in the following discussion.

Pantelleria is a small island, 34 square miles or so, lying south of the western end of Sicily and within sight of Cape Bon, the projecting tip of the African coast (FIG. I). Though every ship through the Sicilian straits passes close by, it can be extraordinarily isolated, as we found to our cost on a visit in November, 1962. Winter storms can, and occasionally do, cut it off for days at a time. Despite its archaeological wealth, recorded by Paolo Orsi in 1899 (n. 1), it seems that its isolation has discouraged archaeologists from visiting it since the days of Peet and Zammit, early this century. Its ‘sesi’ have become almost a myth.

In advancing our knowledge of ancient science and technology our greatest need is for accurate accounts of technical processes, based on detailed study of all the available evidence, both literary and archaeological, and on the rigorous exclusion of sweeping generalizations in the discussion of questions where evidence is scanty and interpretation uncertain.

The discussion that follows is a small contribution, based on close study of the evidence, towards the solution of a complex of problems which are of considerable importance to the student of Roman history. Unfortunately, statistical information on crop-yields is wholly lacking, and the researcher is reduced to the task of sifting a variety of scattered evidence from different periods and areas of cultivation.

The first test of the accuracy of dates obtained by the radiocarbon technique was made by determining whether dates so obtained agreed with the historical dates for materials of known age (n. 1). The validity of the radiocarbon method continues to be an important question, especially in the light of the numerous results that have been accumulated and the greater precision of the technique during the past few years (n. 2).

The radiocarbon content of the biosphere depends on three supposedly independent geophysical quantities: (i) the average cosmic ray intensity over a period of 8000 years (the average life of radiocarbon) as measured in our solar system but outside the earth's magnetic field (n. 1); (ii) the magnitude (but not the orientation, because of the relatively rapid mixing over the earth's surface) of the magnetic field in the vicinity of the earth, averaged over the same period (n. 1,3); and (iii) the degree of mixing of the oceans during the same period (n. 1). The question of the accuracy of radiocarbon dates therefore is of interest to geophysicists in general as well as to the archaeologists, geologists and historians who use the dates.

Previous workers in this area (n. 1, 2) have reported some discrepancies, and it is the purpose here to consider the matter further.