This paper takes Neolithic pits as a starting point from which to investigate the broader issues of settlement and deposition in Britain at that time. It suggests that while sites made up primarily, and often only, of pits have recently been incorporated much more readily into accounts of the period, they are still not well understood. It is only by investigating the character of occupation across the landscape as a whole, and the nature of deposits in a variety of different contexts, that we will be able to understand pits, settlement, or deposition fully. On the basis of a study of this kind, it is suggested that pits were sited in specific locations which might be considered suitable for ‘settlement’; it is also demonstrated that deposition varied considerably between contexts and over time. By including large numbers of sites known only through ‘grey’ reports and Historic Environment Records, the study draws on an important body of work which has been under-used in the past. The paper focuses primarily on East Anglia, a region well-known for its pit sites but not well-known for its monuments; in doing so, it aims to counterbalance the weight of previous narratives which have tended to focus on other parts of Britain.

The excavation of the Sweet track at two sites in the Somerset Levels has yielded unique material of the late fourth millennium bc. The track was built across a reed marsh, and the builders used a variety of timber obtained from both nearby fen-wood and from the dry land of the Burtle sand and the Poldens. Pollen analyses indicate that certain areas of the Levels were particularly favourable for forest clearance and cultivation, and the debris from the track shows a range of woodwork so far unique to the British Neolithic.

Excavations at the Easton Down long barrow were part of a wider programme of research into the Neolithic sequence and context of the Avebury area in north Wiltshire. The short barrow, on high chalk downland to the south-west of Avebury and the upper Kennet valley, and containing only a few inhumations according to Thurnam's 19th-century investigation, dates to the later 4th millennium BC. Test pits around the barrow produced very little struck flint, and virtually no colluvium in the adjacent dry valley to the west. The mound covered a thin calcareous turfline above a rubbly soil, probably formerly cultivated. The pre-barrow molluscan fauna, soil micromorphology and other environmental data indicate a clearance adjacent to woodland. In the secondary fill of the flanking ditches there is a succession from renewed woodland to open conditions in the Late Neolithic.

The Easton Down monument falls relatively late in the regional sequence of long barrow construction. Its setting was probably one of scattered, non-permanent clearances in woodland. Woodland was still widespread on the higher downland of the region in the middle of the Neolithic. Renewed and bigger-scale clearance towards the end of the Neolithic may be connected with the construction of very large monuments elsewhere in the region. The later prehistoric landscape became both more open and less diverse.

The Plain of Macedon, North Greece, has seen remarkable changes in its physical geography during the Holocene. The significance of these changes for prehistoric and historic settlement is evaluated, with particular reference to the Neolithic site of Nea Nikomedeia. This reinterpretation contrasts dramatically with previous studies of the Plain's development and with the prehistoric environment postulated by the excavators of Nikomedeia.

The barrow is No. 6b in L. V. Grinsell's list for the parish of West Overton (V.C.H. Wilts., 1, Part I, 1957). It stood some 400 feet to the north of the most northerly member of the conspicuous group of bowl and bell barrows that straddles the A.4 road on Overton, or Sevenbarrow, Hill, 4½ miles west of Marlborough (SU 11966835). Its position is marked on the OS. 6-inch map (SU 16NW), but not on the 1-inch (Sheet 157). The height above sea-level is about 580 feet.

The subsoil is Upper Chalk, its surface broken by irregular depressions and long parallel troughs filled with a soft buff material, evidently the result of weathering under periglacial conditions. The topsoil is a rendsina about 6 inches thick.

Most of the barrows on Overton Hill are known to have been dug into in the past. No. 6b had escaped the attentions of antiquarians, but it was evident before excavation that it had nevertheless suffered extensive disturbances.

Collectors of prehistoric antiquities have long regarded the foreshore of long stretches of the Essex Coast between the rivers Stour and Blackwater as a prolific hunting ground, and many notable collections, consisting mainly of flints, have been obtained from this area. It is not the purpose of this paper to record these discoveries in detail, but rather to discuss the circumstances under which the antiquities are found, to summarise the main facts relating to the age of the old land-surface now submerged below the sea at high tide, and in conclusion to relate the facts observed on the Essex Coast to the stratigraphy established for the post-glacial deposits of the Fenland basin.

A three-dimensional study of the vegetational history of Seamer Carr from the Devensian Late-glacial to the Atlantic period has been made with the aid of six sites in the main basin. Five of these are close to the margins of the organic deposits and the sixth is from deep basin deposits. The Godwin zonation scheme has been used to allow a direct comparison with the survey of Walker and Godwin (1954). A composite section through the basin deposits, based on the detailed contour plan described in Part 1, shows that, pre-Zone IV, the open water margin abutted the dry land, and that during Zone IV reedswamp and carr gradually filled in the edges of the lake. Large expanses of fen carr occupied Seamer Carr during Zone V, but a rise in water level during Zone VI was responsible for the area reverting to reedswamp. At the Boreal/Atlantic transition, coincident with the rise in the alder pollen curve, there is a thick band of highly humified, acid peat, full of microscopic pieces of charcoal. Analysis through this band at one of the specially selected sites on East Island produced evidence of local disturbance, seemingly anthropogenic, at the wetland margin. There were two other special sites in West Embayment that were sampled for pollen analysis. The first was located over a radiocarbon dated Zone II organic deposit, sealed beneath a Zone III calcareous sand layer. The second was located in a late Mesolithic organic mud radiocarbon dated to c. 8000 BP and containing an assemblage of microliths of late Mesolithic type, identified tentatively as a composite tool (A. David pers. comm.).

For many years past on both formal and informal occasions, archaeologists and others, including Mr W. F. Grimes (1932 and 1935) and Dr F. J. North (1938), have been stressing the importance of a scientific examination of the numerous stone axes in public and private collections. It has been urged that an exact determination of the rock material and its original provenance, together with a knowledge of the locality at which the tool was found, would lead to far wider and more exact information concerning early trade routes and other factors of economic and social importance in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age times.

A major hindrance to the realisation of these anticipations lay with owners who required the petrologist to identify the rocks by macroscopical characters alone. It was of little avail for the geologist to point out that grinding, polishing and patination had often obliterated the few surface features available and that even if fracturing of the specimen were allowed, no real progress could be made until a thin section of the axe was obtained. Pressed for an identification even on the above unsatisfactory grounds, geologists have at times given answers which are really little better than reasoned guesses, and the archaeologists have based some equally speculative deductions upon them.

The discovery of evidence to suggest that copper ore was exploited at the Great Orme on a considerable scale in prehistory is of great significance in our understanding of the development of metalworking technology in the British Isles.

In the past, the apparent absence from the archaeological record of a contemporaneous native mineral source for the production of copper and copper alloy artefacts during the Bronze Age has led to the assumption that raw materials, as well as metal technology, were imported from abroad. Alternatively, whilst accepting that local resources could have been exploited, it was assumed that these would have been obliterated by the mining operations of later centuries.

There are now several sites on the British mainland and in Ireland which have been identified and dated as having been exploited for copper ores during the Bronze Age, of which a number, as on the Great Orme, had since seen intensive working during the 18th and 19th centuries AD. AS yet, much of the evidence has come essentially from surface excavations, but at the Great Orme surface excavation combined with underground exploration has revealed a system of workings of truly remarkable size. A series of 10 radiocarbon dates has been obtained from within the mine complex, indicating that working was carried out for over a thousand years spanning the Early to Late Bronze Age.

The true extent of the surviving prehistoric workings is yet to be realized but present evidence indicates mining activity covering an area in excess of 24,000 square metres, incorporating passages totalling upwards of 5 km, penetrating to a vertical depth of 70 m.

Much of the archaeological evidence contained within this report has been gained from detailed excavation carried out within surface workings, which in their own right constitute a sizeable part of the prehistoric mine. From the surface area presently exposed it is conservatively estimated that 40,000 cubic metres of material was removed during the Bronze Age. Much of the early technology represented within the surface workings reflects the technology employed in the deep workings, with the additional evidence of ancillary operations which would seem to relate solely to surface locations.

Whilst the excavations reported in this paper relate to surface, or near surface, workings, they must be seen in the context of a labyrinthine complex of prehistoric workings recorded at depths of over yom (Jenkins & Lewis 1991; Lewis 1994). These deep workings are the subject of parallel studies to be reported elsewhere. The known underground and surface prehistoric workings are on a scale so far unparallelled in Britain and are of international significance. Elsewhere in Europe there is evidence for the mining of copper ores at Ai Bunar in Bulgaria dated to 5840 BC (Cernych 1978) and at Rudna Glava in former Yugoslavia dated to 4715 BC (Jovanovic 1979). Evidence for subsequent copper mining has been dated to 3785 BC in southern Spain (Rio Tinto area: Rothenburg & Blanco Freijeiro 1980) and to 3330 BC in Austria (Mitterberg; Pittioni 1951), marking an apparent development and extension westwards and northwards of copper technology. More recently, the dating of two sites in the south of France to around 3330 BC, at Cabrieres (Ambert et al. 1990) and Bouche Payrol, near Brusque (Barge 1985), has confirmed another area of Bronze Age working.

The development of the Gravettian complex is still largely unknown. In this context, the lithic assemblage from Maisières-Canal, 14C dated around 28,000 bp, is particularly interesting. We propose here a new study of this collection, based on technological, typological, and functional approaches, particularly focused on the tanged pieces and ‘Maisières points’, some of which are likely projectile points. This new study leads us to discussion of the position of this assemblage in the context of the western European Early Gravettian. The Maisierian appears to be a specific industry, different from the typical Early Gravettian, and studying it thus permits new light to be shed on the complexity of the first phases of the Gravettian, a complex that is perhaps less consistent than it would seem.

The Iron Age hill-fort at Grimthorpe (Grid reference SE.816535) in the parish of Millington, East Riding of Yorkshire, is on the western edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, with a commanding position over the Vale of York. There is an uninterrupted view to the White Horse on the Hambleton Hills, 25 miles to the north-west; beyond York, 13 miles to the west, to the Pennines; and to the south 25 miles to the chimneys of Keadby and Scunthorpe. To the west and south the land slopes away to the Vale of York, and to the north and east there is a sharper fall to Given Dale and Whitekeld Dale. The hill-fort defences follow the 520 feet contour, and enclose an approximately circular area of eight acres (fig. 1).

A traditional reference may be preserved in the field-name—Bruffs—perhaps a variation of ‘Brough’, which ‘refers in all cases to ancient camps, usually Roman ones’. But all surface indications have now been obliterated by ploughing, and even a century ago there was little more to be seen. John Phillips in 1853 noticed ‘unmistakable traces of ancient but unascertainable occupation’, and in 1871 an excavation by J. R. Mortimer located ‘the filled up inner ditch of a supposed camp’. But Mortimer was not concerned with the settlement; his interest had been aroused by the discovery, in 1868, of a burial with rich grave-goods, including metalwork with La Tène ornament, in a chalk-pit within the south-west sector of the hill-fort.

Material culture meanings are transferred between objects on the basis of similarities and differences. In order to fix the potential ambiguity of meanings, experience is bracketed within bounded contexts. New acts always refer back to existing organized experience or texts. It can be argued that text comes before action. This idea is used in a discussion of the appearance of agglomerated and bounded settlements in the European Neolithic. It is shown that occupied settlements are often preceded by non-domestic enclosures which sometimes have a ritual nature. Ritual text seems to prefigure practical event. A similar relationship between formalized ritual texts and social action is shown in a wide range of other examples. Finally some of the potential reasons for the observed relationship between text and action are discussed.

The traditional definition of a Fürstensitz, outlined in 1969 by W. Kimmig, is in need of modification. Greater precision is needed in the interpretation of imported and imitated Mediterranean pottery and élite burials. From our discussion, it becomes clear that both rich settlements and burials underwent crucial changes within the late Hallstatt period: the élite burial rite was becoming increasingly exclusive, and imported or imitated Mediterranean pottery generally appeared on hillforts only after the end of Hallstatt D1. Clearly, a model for the West Hallstatt culture should take account of its dynamic nature. Some important trends are described: (1) the spread of élite burial practices, (2) the foundation of the Fürstensitze, and (3) the ‘concentration of power’ in the late Hallstatt culture north-west of the Alps.

The emergence of an élite during the Hallstatt period had an internal logic which did not necessarily require a Mediterranean instigator. The foundation of Massalia in 600 BC has traditionally been seen as providing the impulse for the emergence of the ‘princely’ culture of Hallstatt D. But neither the internal developments of the Hallstatt culture, nor the degree of contact with the Greek colonies in Hallstatt D1, can support this view.

Previous emphasis on influence from the Greek colonies in the South of France has obscured the effects of contacts and trade with Italy, although it is certain that the increasing acquaintance with the civilized neighbours across the Alps led to events of historic importance: the Celtic invasion of Italy and the start of the Celtic diaspora. This process of acquaintance must be assigned to the late Hallstatt period (Hallstatt D2/3), when Italic imports became frequent north of the Alps. In fact, the transalpine areas which in the late Hallstatt period had especially close trading relations with Italy (particularly east central France) seem to have been the origin of most of the important contingents of Celtic invaders. The imported or imitated Italic objects in Hallstatt D2/3 and La Tène A reflect the changed political situation before and after the Celtic invasion. Whereas in both phases the Celts imported luxurious feasting equipment, only in the Early La Tène period is Italic influence apparent in Celtic weaponry.

The river gravels of the Boyne Hill (1st., 100 ft. and, in this district, the highest) Terrace of the Thames at Swanscombe (Kent) have yielded flint implements in thousands for many years.

As long ago as 1905 these contemporary (not the derived) implements were correlated with the St. Acheul culture in the Somme Valley, and in 1912 some excavations were undertaken by the Geological Survey and the British Museum to determine the exact horizon at which these implements occur.

These excavations showed conclusively that the level where the implements were so abundant was at the top of the middle gravel. The excavators regarded these middle gravel implements as of “Chelles” type, but recent work has caused the word “Chelles” to be used in a more restricted sense, and they may now be regarded as of St. Acheul type.

The point of the exact determination of the middle gravel implements is important, on account of its bearing upon the age of the industry which occurs in the gravel below the middle gravel.

This paper examines the distribution of stone and flint axes in Wales and the mid-west of England based on systematically collected data. Typological variations within the category of implements generally known as axes are discussed, and the distribution of the largest group, true axes, analysed. Three types of distribution are identified: regional distribution, local distribution and waterborne distribution. Proximity of source is shown to play a major role in the frequency and range of axes present in any given area.

Political and economic organisation of Argaric society has been one of the most interesting research topics among Iberian Prehistory. Recent debate has focused upon how to define and assess the socio-economic differentiation which is characteristic of Argaric communities, as well as the suitability of the term ‘State’ when approaching those differences at the political level. Arguments for and against it have been mainly drawn from the Argaric funerary record (2250–1550 cal BC). This paper attempts to approach this issue through the analysis of grave-goods associated with infant tombs. Our main goal is to ascertain if Argaric society established rules concerning asymmetric consumption of goods through infant funerary rituals. If so, this will allow us to infer relevant differences affecting the property of various elements involved in social production.

In the field of European recent prehistory it is generally agreed that, from the Early Orientalising period, Etruria played a central role in long distance trade, also acting as a link between the Aegean and east Mediterranean and trans-Alpine Europe. A widely acknowledged implication is that this primary status of the Etruscans among the indigenous peoples of Italy was a secondary effect of the Greek and Phoenician colonisation in the central Mediterranean. It is the aim of this paper to show that, as early as the Late Bronze Age, Etruria emerged as a complex territorial, political, and economic entity and was able to participate in an interregional network of trade reaching as far as northern Germany and the Aegean. By the beginnings of the Italian Iron Age, this region was organised as a federation of early states, with important extensions in the southern Po plain, along the Adriatic coast, and in Campania.

A summary is given of 23 direct AMS radiocarbon dates for Palaeolithic and Mesolithic camp sites and single finds in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia (Germany). These new radiocarbon dates not only complement earlier results on the Upper Palaeolithic settlement in Central Germany, but they also provide new data for Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunting and fishing gear in northern Europe. In addition, the age of the first Mesolithic cremation burial in Germany has now been confirmed and that of a child's lower jaw from the llsenhohle at Ranis had to be corrected.

Mount Sandel has long been an iconic site for the Irish Mesolithic, having produced evidence for a sequence of occupation huts and pits and the earliest radiocarbon dates for the Mesolithic on the island. This paper presents details of a recent programme of redating whereby the application of Bayesian modelling has confirmed the early date for the site but also helped to refine its internal chronology. The major phase of hut building at Mount Sandel took place within a much shorter period of time than had previously been thought, perhaps only a generation or two. The dating of pits of differing sizes suggests that many of them were created during other slightly later visits to the area. The implications of the dating programme for the place of Mount Sandel in the Irish Mesolithic, and for the chronology of the period and its relations with that on the British mainland, are discussed.

Excavations at the Sculptor's Cave (north-east Scotland) during the 1930s and 1970s yielded evidence for activity in the Late Bronze Age, Late Iron Age, and early medieval periods, including a substantial human skeletal assemblage with apparent evidence for the removal, curation, and display of human heads. The present project, combining osteological analysis and a programme of AMS dating, aimed to place the surviving human remains from the site into their appropriate chronological context and to relate them to the broader sequence of human activity in the cave. A series of AMS determinations has demonstrated that the human remains fall into two distinct chronological groups separated by a millennium or more: one from the Mid-Late Bronze Age and one from the Late Iron Age. Osteological analysis suggests that while the Bronze Age group may, as previously suggested, include the remains of the heads of juveniles formerly displayed at the cave entrance, this was not the sole mechanism by which human remains arrived in the cave at this time. The Late Iron Age group provides evidence for decapitation and other violent treatments within the cave itself.