Changes in the geological interpretation of the history of the ancient Solent river basin have focused attention on the handaxes discovered in the Corfe Mullen area during quarrying before the Second World War. Recent geological research suggests that the fluvial terrace the handaxes are associated with may pre-date the Anglian glaciation. This is important because it contributes to the question of just when the Solent basin was first occupied by hominins, and how this relates to other areas of possible contemporary pre-Anglian occupation such as the Boxgrove Marine embayment. However, the artefacts were believed to come from the bluff of the river terrace and were thus not in situ. This paper explores that question and re-examines the context from which the handaxes at Corfe Mullen were discovered.

This paper presents the first systematic archaeological evidence from the early prehistory of south-east Ireland. The research is designed to investigate the colonization of the area during the Mesolithic period and the subsequent transition to agriculture. From a theoretical perspective, we offer a view of indigenous development. That is, we look for continuities between Mesolithic and Neolithic Ireland in terms of technology and settlement. The data, we are gathering include surface and excavated materials. Lithic assemblages were systematically collected from ploughsoils surrounding the Waterford Harbour area during the years 1983 through 1987. These materials are analyzed from the point of view of geography, raw material, reduction sequences, manufacturing technology, and chronological typology to yield an initial glimpse into the rich prehistory of the region and its pattern of settlement. Excavations during 1986, 1987 and 1989 have begun to fill in some detail including the region's first prehistoric barley, a Neolithic radiocarbon date, prehistoric pottery, a rhyolite quarry and several rich lithic assemblages.

Ty-isaf long cairn is one of a group of 13 long cairns in the Black Mountains of Brecknockshire. The existence of the group was first recognised by Mr O. G. S. Crawford, who published them in his Long Barrows of the Cotswolds. Several—in particular Ty Illtyd, Gwernvale and the two fine examples at Fostill near Llanelieu—were already well-known; but Ty-isaf, with a number of others, was first launched on an archaeological career by Mr Crawford in 1925.

Crawford's preoccupation being with the Cotswold long cairns he did not attempt to consider every aspect of the Brecknockshire cairns. This I subsequently tried to do in Archaeologia Cambrensis for 1936. But it had long been clear that the complete excavation of at least one of the monuments was badly needed to augment what we already knew— which was little enough—from chance digging and from visible features.

The Brecknockshire Society therefore deserves the thanks of archaeologists in general for undertaking this excavation, and congratulations for the success which has attended their efforts. Gratitude is especially due to the Society's President Sir John Lloyd, by whom with Mr R. G. Sandeman most of the preliminary arrangements were carried out. Other members of the Society helped in various ways. Mr Sandeman himself was present throughout the whole course of the work, and Mr Jestyn Williams was responsible for some of the surveying upon which the plan (fig. 2) is based.

Western Europe is often used as the basis from which to understand the Aurignacian of other regions. For some there is good inter-regional chronocultural agreement, whereas others see significant difference. One region frequently argued to differ is the Swabian Jura (southern Germany). In a recent contribution to this issue Bataille and Conard (2018) describe the Aurignacian assemblage from Layer IV of Hohle Fels. They convincingly outline important similarities with the Western European Late Aurignacian. However, they also argue that it is older than, and different from, the most comparable Western European assemblages, and therefore that it contradicts an Aurignacian chronocultural framework built on Western European evidence. Here we assess this claim, focusing on the sites used by Bataille and Conard in their comparison. Radiocarbon dates for Hohle Fels IV of 33–30,000 uncal bp are no older than dates for Western European Late Aurignacian assemblages. Most of the features of Hohle Fels IV argued to demonstrate its dissimilarity are, in fact, evident in the Western European Late Aurignacian. One potential difference is the reported absence from Hohle Fels IV of microblades with inverse/alternate retouch. However, due to the near absence of laterally retouched microblades and uncertainty over whether the fine fraction has been searched we doubt the significance of this observation. Other recent publications have similarly suggested that the Western European chronocultural model is incompatible with other regions. In light of this we consider Eastern Europe. Despite some difference, reliable data point to the pene-contemporaneity of characteristic bladelet/microblade technologies between the two regions, a pattern that stratigraphies from sites across Europe are also consistent with. The biggest complicating factor is radiocarbon dating, which has created a culturally complex picture that is inconsistent with all chronostratigraphic data. We therefore offer some thoughts as to the use of radiocarbon dates for this period. Despite ongoing problems dates are still frequently presented with an unwarranted confidence in their accuracy. Their presentation should instead explicitly acknowledge the method’s fallibility and its inferiority to more reliable evidence such as chronostratigraphic patterning and tephra. When radiocarbon dates contradict a consistent chronostratigraphic picture the burden of proof falls to those arguing the dates’ veracity. In these cases, the reasons for the discrepancy between the radiocarbon and chronostratigraphic records require exploration.

A 2.5 ha open area excavation at South Hornchurch, Essex (London Borough of Havering) has revealed an extensive Late Bronze Age settlement on the Thames terrace gravels. The site is particularly significant because of the association of a circular ditched enclosure or ringwork with a contemporary field system, as well as clusters of enclosed and unenclosed circular structures. Two enclosures were formed by rings of pits or large post-holes. Placed pottery deposits and unurned cremation burials were found, mostly associated with structures and entranceways. Other finds include both plain and decorated Post Deverel-Rinibury pottery, burnt flint, spindle whorls, possible loomweights, perforated clay slabs, and a bivalve clay sword mould. The entire site was subsequently sealed by a buried colluvial ploughsoil which almost certainly represents the final phase of Late Bronze Age activity. The site's spatial structure, environmental context, and regional significance are discussed.

In light of the enculturation of landscapes by ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers, we should expect Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to have endowed their early Holocene landscapes with meaning. Attempts to find evidence for this have focussed on the unusual and exotic – those aspects of the archaeological record that seem immediately unrelated to subsistence. In this contribution, I suggest that fireplaces, ubiquitous on Mesolithic sites and often swiftly passed over in site reports as evidence for cooking alone, had played a key role in the process of landscape enculturation. Although we cannot reconstruct the specific meanings once attached to early Holocene landscapes, by appreciating the social and cultural significance of fireplaces we gain a more holistic view of the Mesolithic than is currently the case, whether in those studies that focus on settlement and subsistence or those that cite examples of ritual. In the course of making this argument, I summarise the evidence for fireplaces from Mesolithic Britain, noting the need for more systematic reporting. Finally, I provide a case study from western Scotland that seeks to view a suite of fireplaces in the context of the landscape topography, early Holocene environments, subsistence economy, and by drawing on selected ethnographic analogies.

Ever since Martin's definition of Breton tumulus burials in 1900 the discrete distribution of biconical handled vases or vases à anses has been well known (Martin 1900). In 1928 details of similar vessels in the Channel Isles became readily available through Kendrick's survey of the Bailiwick of Guernsey (1928). In Southern Britain, however, the nineteenth century finds at Portland G2 and Winterbourne Stoke G5 have reained unconfirmed and consequently discussions on Armorico-Wessex connections in the Early Bronze Age have treated the question of cross-Channel ceramic exchange with notable circumspection.

In the 13 years since ‘Problems in the Stone Age of Southeast Asia’ was published, there has been a number of significant developments. There remains a lack of early cultural material despite the possibility that first occupation of the area may date back as far as 1.8 Myrs. It seems that the first hominins in the region were essentially ‘alithic’ in their adaptation, making the reconstruction of their behaviour extremely difficult. There is also a question as to which hominin was first ‘Out of Africa’ and into Asia and a suggestion that Homo erectus is, in fact, an Asian species that may have migrated west. This has important implications for interpretations of the significance of the so-called ‘Movius Line’. By the time stone tool use does appear regularly in the record, modern humans are present but it is still hard to identify the kinds of directional changes that are associated with the Late Pleistocene elsewhere in the world. The question of when humans were able to exploit tropical forests in the region is also one that recent work explores. The recent discoveries from Flores of stone tools that appear to pre-date the arrival of modern humans, and a possibly associated ‘dwarf’ hominin, Homo floresiensis, all require re-appraisal of the nature of human activity in the region.

The assemblages from four sites in Spain and Gibraltar form the basis of a study that addresses the behavioral significance of the variability in Middle Paleolithic chipped stone artifacts. Quantitative analysis of artifact edge morphology forms the primary focus of this work.

It is suggested that (1) morphological variability is generally continuous for the features examined, (2) retouched and unretouched lithics are extremes in a continuum of the degree of edge use, (3) lithic morphology is dynamic and artifacts may be multi-functional and (4) lithic morphoplogy is conditioned by the time of discard in the use-life of the artifact. Retouched artifacts may be more the end result of the extent and nature of the use of their various edges than preconceived tools determined by cultural traditions or intended function.

These results are applied to a study of Middle Paleolithic settlement strategies using data from the four primary sites of the study and an additional five sites in the Iberian peninsula. Differences are noted between upland and lowland strategies. Upland sites may represent more of a ‘forager’ strategy, with frequent, short-term occupations of sites. Lowland sites seem more characteristic of a ‘collector’ strategy, with longer occupations and less frequent visits to sites. Settlement response to changing Upper Pleistocene environments during the onset of the last glacial may include a shift to a more ‘forager’-like strategy in lowland settings.

The present report is the fifth to be issued by this Committee in the course of 35 years' work on the petrological identification of stone implements. The four earlier reports (Keiller, Piggott and Wallis, 1941; Stone and Wallis, 1947; Stone and Wallis, 1951; Evens, Grinsell, Piggott and Wallis, 1962—hereafter referred to as the Fourth Report) were concerned primarily with stone implements from South-Western England, but also included implements from other parts of the British Isles. Since the early 1960s, when a series of regional implement petrology surveys was set up under the aegis of the Council for British Archaeology, this Committee's official work has been confined to the South-West, a region which, for administrative purposes, now comprises the seven counties of Berkshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, together with the Channel Islands. Hampshire, formerly within this Committee's area of special interest, has been allocated to the South-East, with Sussex, Surrey and Kent. The present report is concerned, therefore, exclusively with implements from the South-West, as defined above.

Explaining the evolution of prehistoric trade systems dominates archaeological research in the Papuan Lowlands of New Guinea. However, important evidence in the form of ground stone axes, which had to be imported into this region, is largely ignored. This paper provides a summary of relevant ethnographic accounts of axe exchange systems, describes the archaeological finds from a restricted area near Kikori Station using sourcing and morphological analyses and interprets the meaning and significance of results. As this is a radical departure from traditional studies, we take this opportunity to sketch some major research questions which may aid future investigations.

It is particularly interesting for those British geologists who devote themselves to studying the Thames gravels, to have a statement, as accurate as possible, of the results at which I have arrived in a parallel study, which I have pursued for nearly twenty years in the Somme valley.

On the slopes and in the foot of this valley, a series of deposits bear witness to successive oscillations with phases of erosion and aggradation, episodes which brought the river from a high level to its actual course, running on the deposits of its last aggradation, those which are visible being peaty.

There is every evidence, judging by the remains left by the river on the slopes of its valley, of a series of levels, differing both in height and physical state, as well as in their paleontological and archaeological content. These have been called terraces, though this term is very inexact, for they are generally only steps surviving of ancient scooped out aggradations, which in their turn filled up the modern valley. Each is really complex, and, far from being of one date, is the accumulated result of phases of fluvial accretion at different periods of aggradation, which spread out or partially removed, at the beginning and end of these phases, the contributions of lateral phenomena, usually solifluxion, at the time of the deepening of the river bed.

In a note in the last issue of these Proceedings, Professor C. Daryll Forde commented on some of the tentative conclusions set forth by the present writer in two articles in earlier issues, and went on to a general discussion of the morphology and diffusion of prehistoric burial chambers. During the last few years it has been generally held by archaeologists that the megalithic colonisation of western and northern Europe was dual in character, consisting of two separate movements—the one diffusing Passage Graves, the other diffusing Gallery Graves: this notion is implicit in the recent writings of Childe, Hawkes, Estyn Evans, Powell and Megaw. It has seemed to me abundantly clear that, even if these two sets of movements were ultimately from the same Mediterranean source (and this, too, is open to question), as far as western and northern Europe was concerned they were two distinct and separate movements. This conclusion Forde challenges, and regards all Gallery Graves as local developments from degenerate Passage Graves in the various regions of Europe to which the Passage Graves were diffused. It has seemed worth while to the present writer, before meeting Forde's detailed criticisms, to deal with his general thesis, and it is the purpose of this article to argue and describe the dual nature of the megalithic colonisation of Europe.

The scene of the excavations described in the first part of this paper is the Sewage Farm of the Farnham (Surrey) Urban District Council, situated on the gravels of the old course of the Blackwater River to the north-east of the town at an elevation of c. 250 ft. O.D. (fig. 1). The surface of the gravel within the area investigated is level, but to the west it slopes upwards to Farnham Park. From here there issues the course of a stream, which, skirting the site on the south-west, turns south to join the Wey half a mile to the south. In recent years the Park stream has been captured near its source by a system of swallow-holes, and to-day its effective source is the spring which breaks out from the Chalk below the gravel spread in the immediate neighbourhood of the site. The Bourne Mill Spring, as it is usually known, has cut its way back an appreciable distance, having formed a small valley of its own, so that it can lay claim to a fair antiquity; indeed, there is every reason for regarding it as a main attraction of the site from Mesolithic times onwards (pl. VI). At the present day the spring retains its purity unaffected by the disposal of sewage and is still a well-known stopping place for tramps. For an account of the site written from a geological point of view the reader is referred to Appendix I, kindly supplied by Dr K. P. Oakley, F.G.S.

In the course of my work on Jade Axes from sites in the British Isles (PPS, XXIX, p. 133) I had occasion to consult descriptions of jade axes from Europe and to make notes on all those in publications available to me. I have now plotted on an outline map of Europe (fig. 1) the sites of recorded jade axes and have added also the locations of the few jade axes from France in the British Museum, Ashmolean Museum, and in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, which I have examined.

This map is far less complete than that showing the distribution of jade axes in the British Isles, op. cit., fig. 4, which shows the location of every jade axe known in museums or in private hands as well as a few mentioned in the literature but not traced.

The new records of British axes, recorded at the end of this paper, have been shown on the outline of the British Isles, included on the present map which reveals a large increase in the concentration in East Anglia.

As regards Europe, apart from the few jade axes from France mentioned above, the records plotted are confined to those known to me from publications and I have had to rely on the authors' identifications of the materials used. These are confirmed by density determinations for a great many of the axes from Germany and for a few of those from Italy.

A new set of radiocarbon measurements for the three phases of Bronze Age enclosure at Rams Hill allows refinement of their chronology. Phase 1 is radiocarbon dated for the first time and appears, contrary to previous indications, not to be very much earlier than phases 2 and 3. The dates are on carefully selected bone samples and give a rather later timespan overall than an earlier set of dates on charcoal, within the 13th–10th centuries cal BC. This span bridges the formal Middle–Late Bronze Age transition, overlapping the use ofPenard and Wilburton metalwork. The opportunity is taken to clarify some confused aspects of Bronze Age periodization.

The development of Bronze Age enclosure in Britain is reviewed. A former suggestion that Rams Hill is representative of a class of Middle Bronze Age high-status enclosure is re-examined. Current evidence does not support the idea of a coherent set of sites either functionally or chronologically. It is considered likely that Rams Hill represents an emergent state of larger-scale enclosure, perhaps after the regular embanking of small domestic sites. However, the precise role of Rams Hill in the regional economy remains enigmatic.

A recent stimulating paper on radiocarbon dating has drawn attention to the variety and richness of Irish Neolithic material-culture and to the great span of years it appears to cover, and thus to the possibility of arranging it in a convincing sequence. In order to achieve this by archaeological method, the material must be classified and the classes regionally determined; but compared with the care which has been given to classifying megalithic monuments and seeking their distributions, little detailed attention has so far been given to the pottery which they are generally found to contain.

Enclosures with ditches and banks were a feature of Neolithic cultures in western Europe from the end of the Linear Pottery culture onwards, and seem to have served a wide variety of purposes within the settlement patterns and economic strategies based on mixed farming such as prevailed in the fourth and third millennia be (on the uncorrected radiocarbon chronology, used throughout). The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to draw attention to the earliest known examples in western Europe, belonging to the late Linear Pottery culture and to its immediate successors in what may be called the Linear Pottery culture tradition, to outline the variety of possible functions which these may have had, and to suggest that they are ancestral to subsequent enclosures in other parts of western Europe and particularly in southern England; second, to show that the enclosures of the earlier Neolithic of southern England may also, like their continental predecessors, have had varied roles, such that the hypothesis of ritual function is inadequate and even the label ‘causewayed camp’, like ‘henge’ or ‘hillfort’, cannot denote more than common constructional techniques.

One of Professor Childe's leading characteristics as a prehistorian has been the range and depth of his interests and sympathies. In the present contribution it is desired to acknowledge the interest he has shown in the mesolithic background to the neolithic colonization of Europe and his uncommon awareness of the relevance of Quaternary Research to the problems of prehistory.

The opportunity will be taken to reconsider, in the light of a more abundant material and of recent advances in knowledge, the microlithic industry of Late Boreal age, first brought to light in the Cambridgeshire fens during the excavations carried out on behalf of the Fenland Research Committee during 1932 and 1934 at Plantation and Peacock's Farms, Shippea Hill. The object of these excavations was primarily stratigraphical and only a comparatively small quantity of mesolithic material was obtained at the time. Since then the opportunity has been taken at favourable seasons to collect on the surface of the sand ridges, and that on Peacock's Farm has yielded a sufficient quantity to give a reliable indication of the cultural affinities of the industry. Further, the researches of our French colleagues have thrown fresh light on the whole question of Post-Azilian microlithic industries and the new discoveries have led to changes of nomenclature directly relevant to the classification of the Peacock's Farm industry. Again, the zoning of British Postglacial deposits by means of pollen-analysis undertaken by Dr Godwin and his colleagues has made it possible to fix the chronological context of the Peacock's Farm assemblage and this in turn has made feasible a new approach to the history of the microlithic industries of Britain. Thanks to Dr Godwin's kind co-operation, it is now possible to publish a re-drawn pollen-diagram, illustrating the stratigraphy of the Lower Peat bed at Peacock's Farm and showing the relationship of the mesolithic occupation both to the forest-history zones and to the neolithic occupation of the sand-ridge on which prehistoric man settled from time to time.