It does not seem to have been contested, and therefore one may assume that it is generally agreed, that the discovery of the remains of a sickle in an ancient deposit is evidence that its owner knew how to grow corn. The forms that sickles took prior to the use of metal have been ably classified by M. Vayson de Pradenne in an article which was reviewed and summarized in ANTIQUITY in June 1930, and as a result of his work the characteristics of the flint flakes and of their method of hafting as sickles has come to be widely known and easily recognized.

Immediately to the north of Australia, the island of New Guinea forms the largest single land mass in the cultural area known as Melanesia (FIG. I). Politically the island is divided; to the west is the Indonesian state of West Irian, to the east is the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, at present administered by the Australian Government. While such political boundaries are disregarded as a matter of course in attempting to reconstruct the prehistory of the area, the development of archaeological research reflects, and has been impeded by, this artificial division.

In this detailed study of fifteenth-century settlements in Argentina, the authors show how the Inka did not just use force, production and ritual to subdue the indigenous population. The conquerors' strategy included the re-ordering of settlement plans, routeways and landscape, class separation and even the imposition of a rigorous discipline on the indigenous vision, controlling what could be seen looking out or looking in. The material readings made in these South American examples have much to offer to archaeologists working in colonial periods elsewhere.

The recently concluded ‘People of the British Isles’ project (hereafter PoBI) combined large-scale, local DNA sampling with innovative data analysis to generate a survey of the genetic structure of Britain in unprecedented detail; the results were presented by Leslie and colleagues in 2015. Comparing clusters of genetic variation within Britain with DNA samples from Continental Europe, the study elucidated past immigration events via the identification and dating of historic admixture episodes (the interbreeding of two or more different population groups). Among its results, the study found “no clear genetic evidence of the Danish Viking occupation and control of a large part of England, either in separate UK clusters in that region, or in estimated ancestry profiles”, therefore positing “a relatively limited input of DNA from the Danish Vikings”, with ‘Danish Vikings’ defined in the study, and thus in this article, as peoples migrating from Denmark to eastern England in the late ninth and early tenth centuries (Leslie et al.2015: 313). Here, we consider the details of certain assumptions that were made in the study, and offer an alternative interpretation to the above conclusion. We also comment on the substantial archaeological and linguistic evidence for a large-scale Danish Viking presence in England.

Camels were not native to Europe during the Holocene and were evidently imported by conquering peoples. The discovery of camel bones at two sites in Slovenia is an important contribution to understanding the distribution and function of these animals during the Roman Imperial Period.

The wildness and desolation of moorland, even when seen on a fine summer’s day, can give an overpowering impression of land untamed by man, land in which man is the interloper and not the master. The word primaeval usually comes to mind and, indeed, even modern geography books sometimes describe these areas as the last strongholds of wild nature. It is recognized, of course, that man burns the moor at intervals to facilitate turf-cutting or to provide better conditions for his animals whether sheep or grouse, but as this practice has been going on from time immemorial and the moorland still looks the same, it is tacitly assumed that it has always been the same.

How far from the truth this assumption can be has recently been shown by an investigation into some archaeological sites on the watershed of the Cleveland Hills. Such sites contain organic remains, particularly pollen and charcoal, which reflect the contemporary ecological conditions. The conclusions reached here do not necessarily apply to all moorland areas, of course; the Cleveland Hills receive less rain than moorlands further west, so their early history may have been different. Today this relative dryness is reflected in the predominance of heather (Calluna) rather than the plants of blanket bog. Nevertheless, these North Yorkshire Moors today have as strong an atmosphere of wilderness as anywhere in the North of England. To anyone who knows them the old name of Blackamore graphically expresses their present character.

The papers in this Special Section present the latest results of research into the waterlogged later prehistoric site at Flag Fen, Peterborough. The landscape is almost flat and very low-lying, and the archaeological site consists of two main elements: a man-made timber platform and a kilometre-long alignment of posts, interpreted here as a defensive palisade. The site also has an important ritual component that continued into the Iron Age. Dendrochronology and other evidence indicates that the platform and posts were used for some 400 years, between about 1350 and 950 BC. This was a period of increasing wetness in the region.

Introduction

In recent years, considerable attention has been dedicated to the involvement of archaeology (and most notably prehistory) with nationalism. The probable causes of this recent fashion1 need not concern 11s here, but the movement itself is ccrtninly welcome, testifying to the reflection of archaeologists on their own practices and those of their predecessors. For historians, this trend is quite welcome insofar as it contributes to a general renaissance of interest in the past of the discipline. However, a more careful examination of this historiography leads us to some caution about its significance.

Do gender roles, or expectations about gender roles, affect what kind of study is pursued by the individual researcher? Has excavation been rather a man's business? And if so, have other kinds of study — regional survey, for example — rather become women's business? These issues are explored as they are illuminated by the research careers of two eminent Australian contemporaries.

The authors show how sites in upland Hawai‘i may be dated using uranium series radiogenic measurements on coral. The sites lie in a quarry, inland and at high altitude, with little carboniferous material around, and radiocarbon dating is anyway problematic here for the first millennium. Freshly broken coral had been transported to these sites, remote from the sea – no doubt for ritual purposes. Giving a date in the fifteenth century with an error range of only five years, the method promises to be valuable for the early history of the Pacific.

We are honoured to present this pivotal paper by a senior Danish scholar (born in 1922) that promises to revise many views of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe. Prehistoric daggers found in graves in Scandinavia and beyond have long been interpreted as weapons wielded by warriors, giving the whole period a rather belligerent flavour. In a radical re-interpretation, the author demonstrates that their use was most probably for the despatch of cattle or other livestock, and the dagger is thus the implement of sacrifice and the symbol of its office.

A different vision from southern Africa challenges Mazel's view of the region's archaeology, and of the place for rock art in knowing its history.

From Lattes, an ancient port on the low Languedoc coast of Mediterranean France, comes the material for an archaeobotanical study of the last centuries BC and the first AD. It illustrates the complexity of ways in which seeds are incorporated into urban deposits, where they are informative about cereals and vines in the town and in the countryside.

The cultural transition from the Mesolithic to Neolithic in the Rhône valley has been radically illuminated by excavation in the Grotte du Gardon (Ain). Examination of the well-stratified assemblages shows that flint and pottery associated with early Neolithic cultures in the Mediterranean occurred with lithics of local Mesolithic traditions. The author proposes that during the transitional period in this region in the sixth millennium BC, peoples of the two cultures lived side by side.

Painted caves are numerous in this region, particularly in the Coaito highlands. Let us consider some of the most important sites.

Research at Mosu I. northern Botswana, has discovered a 10th-century AD ivory cache. Although small, this is one of the largest single concentrations of ivory recovered from southern Africa. Consideration of other occurrences suggests that ivory was prepared throughout the area and traded as finished bangles.

Every prehistorian has heard of the famous volcanic rock of the Eifel from which querns were made in prehistoric and later times. The source from which the querns came has several names, and we read of Andernach, Niedermendig and Mayen lava. Actually, Andernach is merely the Rhineland town nearest to the quarries; there is no lava there. Niedermendig has lava quarries, but they did not begin to be worked until the Middle Ages, and then the output was only about one third of that of Mayen. Since however the output of Mayen passed through Niedermendig on its way to the Rhine, the latter name got attached, and we in Britain usually write of ‘Niedermendig lava’. But all prehistoric and Roman querns came, not from there but from the Mayen quarries, which are still being worked. During a visit to Germany in July 1953, I was conducted round them by Dr J. Röder of Koblenz. The following account, though made possible by that visit, is not an original composition but is derived from an authoritative article by Dr Röder and others, which has kindly been abstracted for me in English by Mr J. D. van der Waals of Amsterdam. I wish also to thank Dr Röder for the loan of illustrations, especially the blocks for FIGS, 1 and 3.

Great Zimbabwe, most celebrated monument in the country that is named after it, is a large challenge not just in its technical conservation, but in how it is to be made alive for its country's citizens.