Compared with the civilizations of Egypt and the Near East, Chinese civilization as we know it is not of great age. Authentic history does not begin until about the ninth century B.C. (a commonly accepted date is 841 B.C.), nor have we archaeological finds that we can reasonably date prior to the thirteenth or fourteenth century B.c., though the beauty and mature style of the earliest known bronzes indicates a history of at least hundreds of years before this.

When excavating in the hill-fort of Cissbury a few years ago the writer found nothing by which to date a certain group of pits except a piece of a revolving handmill (FIG. 23). Even this could not supply the necessary chronological evidence, because the developmental history of the quern or hand-mill had not yet been worked out in sufficient detail to enable one to say that a certain form is characteristic of a certain period. Being thus impressed with the need for such a study the writer endeavoured to collect data, but was met at the outset with the difticulty that of all the hand-mills preserved in our Museums extremely few have been dated at all closely by associated finds of pottery—at least so far as records go—while it seems to be exceptional even for modern excavators to note such associations when querns are found. After all, it is, as Pitt Rivers said, the common objects that are often more important than the rare ones, just because they are common, and it is surely one of the prime objects of excavation to obtain data for the study of the evolution, not only of pottery, but of all common objects.

The study of Anglo-Saxon pottery in the pagan period in England has probably received less attention, and has certainly made less progress, than that of any other archaeological epoch. Our knowledge of Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age ceramics has been revolutionized in the last ten or fifteen years, and it is now possible to use the pottery of these periods, as it should be possible to use the pottery of any period, as the most ignificant and sensitive element in the cultural evidence for the time. With some types of Roman pottery it is possible to go still further, and to treat them not only as a barometer to indicate the varying cultural pressures, so to speak, of different areas and sites, but even as a chronometer for the close dating of the different phases in their occupation. But with Anglo-Saxon pottery at present we can do none of these things. Apart from certain rare and peculiar forms recently studied by Roeder: we know about as much and about as little about it as was known when Neville published his Saxon Obsequies in 1852, or Kemble first drew attention to the continental parallels in a pioneer paper in Archaeologia in 1856.

On the 29th of June, 1910, at the consecration of Westminster Cathedral, a curious piece of ritual was performed called ‘The Ceremony of the Alphabet’, almost identical with a ceremony which had been witnessed by the London of a by-gone day at the dedication of Westminster Abbey in 1065. The Times of 29 June 1910 described the ceremony as follows:

‘On the floor of the spacious nave, from the main entrance to the sanctuary, were painted in white two broad paths, which connected the corners diagonally opposite, and intersecting at the centre of the nave formed a huge figure x, or St. Andrew’s Cross. Where the lines converged was placed a faldstool ; and here the Archbishop, still in cope and mitre, knelt in prayer, while the choir continued to sing the ancient plainsong of the “ Sarum Antiphoner ” … Meanwhile attendants were engaged in strewing the nave with ashes. This meant the laying of small heaps of the ashes, about two yards apart, along the lines of the St. Andrew’s Cross. Beside each heap of ashes was placed a piece of cardboard containing a letter of the alphabet–the Greek on one line and the Latin on the other. The Archbishop then went towards the main entrance, attended by the deacon and sub-deacon, and preceded by the Crucifix carried between lighted candles. Starting first from the left-hand corner Dr Bourne advanced along one path of the St. Andrew’s Cross, tracing with the end of his pastoral staff the letters of the Greek alphabet on the heaps of ashes ; and returning again to the main entrance repeated the process on the other path, tracing this time on the heaps of ashes the letters of the Latin alphabet. This curious ceremony is variously interpreted as symbolizing the union of the Western and Eastern Churches, or the teaching of the rudiments of Christianity, and as a survival of the Roman augurs in laying their plans for the construction of a temple, or as the procedure of Roman surveyors in valuing land for fiscal purposes’.

The Horn of Ulph is one of the principal treasures of York Minster. It is exhibited in the Chapter House, and is well-known to visitors; but in spite of its fame this celebrated antiquity cannot be studied quickly and conveniently away from the Minster,l and the Dean of York has therefore rendered an important service to scholars by allowing Mr C. J. P. Cave to take the fine photographs reproduced here (PLATES I-V).

The horn is one of the so-called ‘oliphants’, i.e. horns made from tusks of elephant-ivory, and it is a particularly noble example, being both large and handsome, with a maximum length of 2 feet 4 inches and a mouth 5 inches in diameter. The ivory has coloured to a warm orange brown with rich cloudings and gradations in tone, the sunken fields in the carved zones having darkened almost to black; but though it is thus venerable in appearance, the horn is excellently preserved, and the unimpaired lustrous gIeam of the figures in relief and of the unornamented surface does much to enhance the mellow beauty of this magnificent piece. The shaft is faceted on the top and bottom with a gentle ribbing, as soft as the ‘bone’ of a good Malacca cane; but the flanks are rounded, and the section near the mouth is a natural oval. The metal fittings are silver-work of the 17th century, and consist of a plain rim and two inscribed bands to which are fastened the ends of the chain. The Latin inscription on the mounts states that the horn, having been given [to the Minster] by Ulph, a chieftain of western Deira, with all his lands, was subsequently lost or stolen, and afterwards restored and re-mounted by Henry Lord Fairfax in 1675.

In a stimulating essay published a few years ago, Mr O. G. S. Crawford indicated how the archaeology of the nineteenth century was a natural outcome of the social and industrial background of the period, and resulted from a combination of circumstances which gave opportunities for the investigation of Man's remote past. If we examine the study of British prehistory during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in its relation to contemporary fashions in literature and the visual arts, we shall I think, see that the accurate and precise science which some of us would consider modern archaeology to be began merely as an episode in the history of taste less than two hundred years ago.

During the last fifty years prehistoric archaeology has developed with extraordinary rapidity into a firmly established branch of science. A system has been constructed, the frontiers of several cultural phenomena have been laid down, and the outlines of prehistoric chronology have been formed. Hypotheses and assertions have been made concerning the ethnographical groups of prehistoric times, and lengthy ‘prehistoric’ periods have literally been transformed into ‘historic’ ones. The inscription on the medal struck for Oscar Montelius– ‘Fifty years of research have mastered millennia of human culture ’ –may serve as a short motto summarizing the results of archaeology as a whole, not merely the achievements of one man.

The method which has led to this result is that of the empiric sciences, based on the theory of evolution, namely, that of typology. The starting-point of research has for the most part been morphology. When synthesis has been the objective, the student’s instruments of research have consisted primarily of forms or shapes of objects, or ornaments and tombs and so forth, and their comparison.

Although situated in the heart of Angers a few squares behind the Cathedral, the disused church of St. Martin lies so completely hidden by encroaching modem structures that a view of its tower may only be had from one side street. Likewise an undeserved obscurity has descended upon its past history. Known before its dissolution in 1790 as one of the most venerable religious foundations of Angers, whose canons received their appointment from the king himself, the ancient College has left almost no records of its activities and vicissitudes. Nearly all its documents have perished at the hands of the revolutionists and the book-binders. Even archaeologists have left the church in relative neglect; for in spite of the fact that it has been known and casually referred to since the days of de Caumont as an interesting example of Romanesque and pre-Romanesque architecture, it has hitherto been surveyed only once, by Gailhabaud in 1848. Even his handsome engravings (in Monuments Anciens et Modernes) quite omit the twelfth century choir and apse which so adequately mirror the power and growth of that fertile Anjou whose counts could step to the throne of England. The structure received no adequate attention until Canon Pinier acquired it in 1903, saved it from imminent ruin, and by excavations under the crossing revealed the importance of the site.

During the first years of this century an astronomer, Dr A. E. Douglass, started a series of examinations of the annual increment in trees just south of Flagstaff, Arizona, to see if the cyclical nature of sun-spot appearances was reflected in tree growth, through their influence on climate. He found that there was a rather high correlation between tree growth and sun-spots in the living trees he examined. In order to extend his studies into the past—beyond the 500 years recorded by living trees—he collected material taken from beams in the old Spanish Missions that dot the southwestern United States. He had found that it was possible to identify certain characteristic sequences of tree-ring widths with certain years, and thus project into the past his chart of tree growth from timbers cut at an unknown past date. In doing so he discovered a technique that has founded a new branch of science—dendrochronology.

Brunanburh was fought in the late summer of 937 between king Athelstan and all the might of England on one side, and the viking Olaf Guthfrithson, king of Dublin and claimant to the throne of York, and his ally Constantine II, king of Scots, upon the other. The thousandth anniversary of this British battle of the nations is an occasion for reviewing critically the evidence upon the disputed question of its site. The well-known poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, being impressionist rather than narrative, provides only two or three slight clues; the Latin poem preserved by William of Malmesbury,l of early but uncertain date, helps us only a little further; and the Northumbrian annals used by Symeon of Durham seem to have supplied him with an alternative name for the battlefield but no other indication of its locality. Judgment must therefore be based largely upon the names by which the battle was known and upon traditions preserved by writers who had no claim to be contemporary; and the reliability of such evidence must be tested.

For natural reasons it is somewhat difficult to find remnants of prehistoric dwellings in Denmark. Our early forefathers utilized perishable materials in their house building, such as wood and straw. They made use also of clay and sod and, to a small extent, of natural stones. However, Denmark is one of the most intensely cultivated lands of Europe. The plough has been almost everywhere; and when the ploughshare has gone through the remnants of a hut of sod and clay the site is generally spoilt for the archaeologist. As a rule, we cannot expect to find any house-site intact unless it has been covered with a layer of soil, sufficient for protection against the plough.

While our knowledge of the prehistoric dwellings is, on the whole, very incomplete, we know something about the dwellings of the Iron Age for the cultural deposits are comparatively thick. It was probably not until the Early Iron Age—i.e. the La Tène and Roman periods—that agriculture reached such a stage of development that successive generations might dwell on the same site. Our best finds are from the northern part of Jutland. In Thy and Himmerland there are a number of deposits of Roman and the pre-Roman Iron Age with a depth of 1–2 m., containing several dwelling-sites above each other. Evidently, there existed in northern Jutland small village-sites, in the Roman period and probably somewhat earlier, of permanent habitation and occupied for several generations.

Early in 1854, in the townland of Ballinrees, about three and a half miles west of Coleraine, county Londonderry, Ireland, a labouring man unearthed from a considerable depth in peaty soil one of the most remarkable hoards of Roman silver ever found in our isles. Though no trace remained of any urn or other container, it was apparent, both from the depth of the deposit and from the closeness with which the whole was packed together, that it was indeed a hoard, no mere chance series of deposits.

WE are often far too ready to apply to Egyptian art the same standards which we use in dealing with Greek, Roman, medieval and modern works. Thus, for example, we are apt to speak of Egyptian ‘masters’ or ‘master-hands’, expressions which constantly occur in connexion with Greek sculpture or Renaissance painting; or we assume that the identity of an Egyptian portrait can be established just as if it were a question of a definite Renaissance personality. Now one of the chief characteristics of Egyptian art is its impersonality. The Egyptians had no conception of a work of art produced, so to speak, from pietas, to perpetuate the features of some dear departed, or such as it would be pleasant to possess from sheer delight in artistry; in particular, the artistic contemplation and enjoyment of a work of art as we understand it could scarcely have been understood by an Egyptian.

It appears to be necessary for the human mind to temper the rigours of the scientific method with certain irrationalities. In archaeology, terminology usually performs this function of safety-valve, as witness the treatment of Greek place-names or the use with ‘B.C.’ of the ill-matched ‘A.D.’, especially in the monstrosity ‘such and such a century A.D.’ When these aberrations cause no confusion of meaning, the logical mind can only hold its breath and swallow hard, knowing that reform is hopeless, but when they lead to equivocation and thereby violate the primary rule of scientific terminology, no protest can be too emphatic.

Among the many ancient stone monuments in the British Isles there are few which are so little known as the small related group found standing chiefly on high moorland overlooking the Cheshire Plain on the southeast side of Manchester.

Four survive in various stages of decay, and they take the form of large roughly rectangular or oval blocks of stone with two adjacent circular or rectangular sockets on their upper faces, which sockets either still contain or have contained upright stone pillars.

The Admiralty, having purchased in 1937 an extensive area of land in Llanychaer and adjacent parishes five miles SSE of Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, kindly permitted the National Museum of Wales to examine and make records of any sites or buildings of interest therein.

I visited the local headquarters at Trecŵn in June 1937 for this purpose. The site consists of a narrow valley—at one point a gorge with rocky scarps—and its flanking uplands. The western half is occupied by Trecŵn House, its parkland and village, an estate developed in the English manner and providing little of antiquarian interest. The remainder was largely under different ownership, and, apart from Llanychaer church and farm, both of which are modernized, more primitive conditions survive in it. This portion of the area, which includes the picturesque rock-wall of Graig Lwyd, is shown in FIG. I. Each rectangle on the map represents a dwelling; and it will be seen that settlement is now confined to the floor and eastern side of the valley. It is of the diffuse type, which contrasts so strongly with the nucleated villages characteristic of England and met with in south Pembrokeshire and other anglicized parts of Wales. If the parish boundaries be examined (shown by a line of dots on the map) it will be seen that most of the houses are in Llanychaer parish, the ancient centre of which, the church, has only one farmstead near it. The shaded (red) portion of the map represents part of the common land (rough mountain pasture) of this and the adjacent parish. The dwellings within the area controlled by the Admiralty are overprinted in red.