In the two articles referred to above, Dr Roger Duff, the Director of the Canterbury Museum, reviewed the evidence then available for the origins and character of the first human settlement of New Zedand. Using the evidence of both oral tradition and archaeology, he saw the first settlers as Polynesians, coming from a tropical ‘Hawaiki’ to the north-east (identified as the Society group) and possessing a material culture similar to that typical of Eastern Polynesia, particularly the peripheral islands of Hawaii, the Marquesas, Easter and Pitcairn. Chronologically, he was prepared to argue that ‘. . . there is strong circumstantial evidence for believing that human settlement must be earlier rather than later than A.D. 950’, the genealogically derived date for the discovery of New Zealand by Kupe (who was followed, again according to traditional interpretations, by Toi, about A.D. 1150). To Duff, this ‘strong circumstantial evidence’ comprised the remains, particularly in the South Island, of a distinctive and now extinct avifauna consisting of moa, swan and eagle found in association with Eastern Polynesian-type artifacts but hardly referred to in Maori tradition. Duff argued that it would be logical to relate the Maori themselves to the traditional arrival of the so-called Fleet from Eastern Polynesia (Society Islands and/or Southern Cooks) in about A.D. 1350, which ‘. . . brings to a close a general period of migration from Polynesia. Introducing the sweet potato and other food-plants, the newcomers impose themselves as an aristocracy upon the Toi and pre-Toi descendants, and found the tribes which were dominant in Cook’s time’.

It is not growing like a tree.… The poet wrote of Man, and Man as the ultimate standard of all size need not, outside a company of Footguards, regard I the trivial vacillation of his inches. In other manifestations, Size is a matter of moment. Look at a Little Pyramid; a Big Pyramid has to fight hard enough for intelligent recognition, but those little pyramids that the Pharaonic builders did not hesitate to scatter round and about are surely silly toys beyond belief. And imagine a little Empire State Building, bereft of the size and vista that give some sort of status, I suppose, to the actual pile; the thought horrifies. Imagine a little St. Peter’s, such as can in fact be seen somewhere in Canada, lacking altogether that superhuman, super-personal, immensity that in Rome at once conditions the mind to all measure of other-worldly emotion. Size.

To aid digestion of ANTIQUITY’S yeasty September Editorial, on our own and other national museums and archaeologies, I offer what follows as a chaser. ‘The British’, declared the Editor, ‘are a disgrace archaeologically’, because they have not bothered to insist on a first-class museum, at the centre, for their national archaeology and history. Other nations have, with results that can be splendid. They have the cultural patriotism; where is ours? It is not absent really. It is divided. In Wales and Scotland, primarily and rightly, it is Welsh and Scottish; and in Edinburgh and Cardiff, no less than in independent Ireland, there are admirable national museums. What then of the English? Why no ‘Bloomsbury marchers’, demanding and getting museum reform in London? In the English population, the archaeology-conscious proportion is among the largest in the world; but its loyalties are very largely regional. London is all very well, but you should see our county museum in Blankshire, or our town museum in Blankington, or our village museum in Little Blankworth! This English regionalism indeed must guard against disorder: that is partly what the Council for British Archaeology, with its Regional Groups, is for. But to call it a disgrace, when it is really our peculiar glory, will not help the cause of a national museum in London—nor, incidentally, the popularity of ANTIQUITY.

The widespread remains of the Indus Valley or Harappan civilization—contemporaneous in part with the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt—present at first glance a picture of sterile isolationism. Yet none of the great civilizations of the world originated or thrived in a cultural and economic vacuum. There are, in fact, certain material indications of contact between the Harappans and their western contemporaries? Also, there is a strong Mesopotamian seafaring tradition attested to in cuneiform economic documents and mythological literature. The discovery of Indus type stamp seals in southern Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf area suggested that at least part of the Mesopotamian seafaring activities were directed toward the east. The identification, some thirty years ago, of the Makran Coast site of Sutkagen-dor as a Harappan settlement added further weight to the probability of sea contacts between the Indus and the West.

Jerusalem first enters written history as one of the towns of which the rulers were in correspondence with Egypt in the period covered by the Arnarna letters, in the first third of the 14th century B.C. It later appears in the Book of Joshua as a town of the Jebusites (a Canaanite tribe) who dwelt in the midst of the Israelites and were not conquered by them in the earlier stages of the entry into Palestine. It thus enters the historical stage as an important Canaanite town of the second half of the second millennium B.C. Its importance lies in its position. The physical configuration of Palestine with its north-south division of, from west to east, coastal plain—upland ridge—Jordan and Dead Sea Valley—plateau of Transjordan, means that a town dominating the backbone of the upland ridge is of major political importance, particularly when the coastal plain was under the control of alien powers, for the Jordan Valley route is not an important throughroute, owing to the spread of the Dead Sea from cliff to cliff of the valley. For most of the second millennium Egypt controlled the coastal plain, and from about 1200 B.C. onwards it was under Philistine domination. Jerusalem lies athwart the backbone of the upland ridge at a point where it is intersected by an important east-west route. The control of Jerusalem was therefore essential to the development of the political power of the Hebrews, who had infiltrated into Palestine in the second half of the second millennium B.C. Only when Jerusalem was captured by David about 995 B.C. could the Hebrew groups be combined into a nation.

By common consent the spread of Neolithic culture has been one of the first objectives of radiocarbon dating in north-western Europe. This is due primarily to the intrinsic historical importance of this process, but the fact that the inception of husbandry has left clear indicators in the palaeobotanical record means that decisive samples are readily available. In the present paper an account will first be given of the reinvestigation of the site on Peacock’s Farm, Shippea Hill, Cambridgeshire, a locality where in 1934 Neolithic pottery had been found stratified in a vertical sequence between Mesolithic and Early Bronze Age remains, each in deposits with fossil pollen. In view of the stratigraphical importance of the site it may be appropriate in this same context to review the radiocarbon dates for the inception of Neolithic culture in the British Isles as a whole. The excavations were undertaken during June, 1960, by the Cambridge University Department of Archaeology and Anthropology with the support of the Crowther-Beynon Fund. Samples were collected for pollen analysis and radiocarbon age determination and the laboratory work was carried out in the University Sub-department of Quaternary Research at Cambridge.

Banked and ditched rectangular burial enclosures, called ‘Grabgärten’ (grave garden, literally) by the local folk, are found frequently in the southern Rhineland, with distribution centred on the south east Eifel, the Rhine-Moselle junction and the northern part of the Hunsriick mountains. All examples known to us up to the time of writing are plotted on the map (FIG. I).

Within these enclosures are found incineration burials, either in urns, pits or stone cists made of schist slabs, or simply a scatter of bones in a pit. In some cases post holes which have been found may belong, by analogy with finds in Champagne, to mortuary houses, cult stelae or the like. Chronologically, the enclosures in the Rhineland fall partly in the late La Tène period, but the majority are early Roman Imperial in date. Inasmuch as the origin of these enclosures, due to the paucity of data, is still unclear, it is not possible to comment on that aspect of the question.

In the fifties of the last century attention was paid to these earthworks for the first time by von Cohausen, though he misinterpreted them as Roman fortifications. Half a century later, R. Bodewig recognized that the ‘Grabgärten’ which he excavated in the Koblenz municipal forest were flat graves, and he contrasted them with the round barrows which often accompanied them. He considered them to be the individual family burial plots of the Treveri, a view which the present writers support?

‘No attempt worthy of the name has yet been made to explore an ancient wreck. Marine Archaeology will only become a science by practice, patience and experience. But at any rate we know enough to say that any excavation likely to fulfill its purpose will be heart-breakingly slow and will only be achieved underwater’.

Philippe Diolé, L’Aventure Sous-Marine, 1951.

Rapid strides in the development of underwater excavation have been made during the past two decades. New techniques of diving, raising objects, and removing sand and mud make practical the excavation of sites lying at depths up to 150 ft. The problems encountered in making accurate three-dimensional plans, however, are only slowly being solved. The methods used by the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, in excavating two ancient wrecks off the southern coast of Turkey, present partial solutions to these problems.

The excavation of a late Bronze Age shipwreck, reported lying near Cape Gelidonya by Peter Throckmorton, has been discussed more fully elsewhere. This wreck rested upon bedrock, which was unfortunate from an archaeological point of view as there was no protective covering of sand to preserve the wooden hull. The survey of the site and its remains, however, was relatively simple. Scattered heaps of metal cargo were photographed, plotted and then, not without considerable difficulty, removed to the surface in lumps held together by 32 centuries of deep sea concretion.

After the feverish archaeological activity of the Fascist era, the postwar years in Rome have been a period of relative calm. There have been a few major discoveries, such as the Vatican cemetery and the new catacomb of the Via Latina, the recently published account of which is unfortunately marred by the poor quality of the colour-plates, inexcusable in a volume of this price. On the whole, however, excavation has very sensibly been diverted to clearing up specific problems, notably in the Forum and Palatine, and students of Roman topography and monuments have had a chance to pause and take stock. The results of this much-needed stock-taking are just beginning to appear, and very valuable they are proving to be.

One of the most important and remarkable monuments of classical antiquity to have come down to us, at any rate in part, is the great marble plan of Rome which Septimius Severus set up on the end wall of a large room opening off the south-west corner of the Forum of Peace, a wall which is now the outer south wall of the church of SS Cosmas and Damian. The fragments recovered since their first recognition in 1562 represent barely a tenth of the total inscribed surface, and many of these were lost before, in 1741, the collection passed from the Farnese family into the safe-keeping of the city authorities, and are known to us only from drawings. But what has survived is fundamental for the reconstruction of the topography of classical Rome and for the study of its lost monuments.

In 1960 there appeared two important studies devoted to the Neolithic gallery graves of Ireland, hitherto considered to be part of the Clyde–Carlingford culture, as defined by Childe and Piggott. The first, by Professor de Valera, is of unique importance: it records and discusses a mass of new evidence for the Irish gallery graves, and advances an entirely fresh theory for their origin and evolution. Dr Corcoran defines and isolates the elements of the Carlingford culture, and argues for its acceptance in its own right, as distinct from the Clyde-Solway culture.

De Valera's paper contains an inventory of 269 sites. No fewer than 152 are planned, of which 97 are new surveys. All the plans are to a small but uniform scale of 3/1000, which greatly simplifies comparisons. Most of the hitherto unrecorded sites are in Connaught, Sligo and Mayo, where de Valera has worked as Archaeology Officer to the Ordnance Survey.

Professor Stuart Piggott, who opened the conference, began by tracing the history of Iron Age studies in Scotland. He referred to the idea that there was something essentially peculiar about the Scottish Iron Age, and attributed its growth to an over-emphasis on the distinction between Highland and Lowland Zones. It was not inevitable (though it frequently happened) that Scotland should receive its cultural stimuli at second hand from lowland England, and certainly not that every development in the north should be retarded in time. On the other hand, there were differences, above all the shortage of pottery, and this gave especial value to the recent field studies of monuments, notably those made by the Royal Commission.

Clearly this is a major problem in New Zealand culture history. One of the present writers has recently outlined the problem and assembled the archaeological materials available for its solution, using excavated evidence for the Moa-hunters and, in the absence of dependable archaeological data, inferring the Maori culture traits relevant to the comparison from a variety of sources, mainly descriptions, drawings and collections made by Europeans in the early days of contact. The result has been to isolate the common elements, point out the distinguishing ones, and define the areas of our present ignorance.

The latter include, besides the question of agriculture already discussed, that of warfare. Though none of the evidences to be expected for this—weapons, defensive arrangements, or cannibalism—has been found in unequivocal Moa-hunter contexts, it must be admitted that the search has been restricted. Fortified sites (pa) are a prolific feature of the North Island cultural landscape, but very few have been properly excavated. The results of such investigations as have been made are hardly conclusive, and although the argument favouring Moa-hunter fortification in the Bay of Plenty cannot now be sustained, it would be well to keep the question open. The absence of weapons from Moa-hunter sites is a factor of some importance in this argument, but the Polynesian armoury was rendered almost exclusively in wood, and only stone or bone weapons of the patu type (FIG. 8) will be commonly found in archaeological deposits. Limited excavations on six undeniably fortified sites in the Auckland province have, however, failed to uncover a single weapon. The only piece of positive evidence for Moa-hunter weapons is the Horowhenua bone patu (FIG. 7) associated in a grave with a rare type of amulet, definitely known to the Moa-hunters though not necessarily distinctive of them.

During the past two decades numerous scholarly works based upon the Sutton Hoo Ship Burial have illuminated aspects of Anglo-Saxon history and culture and have specifically focused attention upon the royal court of East Anglia. However, the one aspect of the burial which could define its time and setting most precisely is still controversial: whom does this magnificent monument commemorate? An attempt is made here to present a new candidate for the burial utilizing recently re-evaluated genealogical evidence.

The theory developed here proceeds from the hypotheses, convincingly advanced by such scholars as Mr Bruce-Mitford and Professor Chadwick, that the Sutton Hoo Ship Burial is a cenotaph of an East Anglian King.

In addition to fulfilling these requirements, any candidate must fulfil the criteria imposed by the archaeological evidence of the find and by the historical situation existing at the time of the burial. First, the East Anglian king must have ruled and died at a time, not only within the limits imposed by the dates of the Merovingian gold tremisses, but at a time peaceful and propitious enough to permit such a magnificent burial rite. Also, since this pagan mode of ship burial contains definite Christian elements, details of the life of the king so honoured should reflect a similar combination of paganism and Christianity.

A POST-ROMAN inscription at Penmachno, Caernarvonshire, (Macalister's number 396) reads, in part:

The comment of Macalister is: ‘As Rhys, followed by Nash-Williams … has shown, this inscription dates the stone to A.D. 540, the year of the consulate of Justinus’. Whether this date is that of the ‘son of Avitorius’ commemorated at right angles to the words cited is uncertain, and for our present purpose unimportant. The point is that here we have evidence for the contemporary use of consular dates in Dark Age Britain.