It may well seem presumptuous to attempt a fresh analysis of the Late Bronze Age in the Iberian peninsula, after the numerous contributions which the subject has received in recent years from Spanish archaeologists, and in view of the fact that the Civil War prevented the writer, when Maclver student in Iberian Archaeology, from visiting Spain at all. In fact he would not have dared to make such an analysis, if the recent output of well illustrated books and articles by Spanish archaeologists had not made study from a distance somewhat less hazardous. But the itinerary which political conditions in 1936–8 imposed on him—Portugal first, then south-western France and finally the Rhône basin—at least showed him an aspect of the Late Bronze Age in south-western Europe which is perhaps less obvious to archaeologists who look from Madrid and Barcelona with eyes trained in Central Europe.

Long ago Louis Siret was impressed by the typological lacuna between the copper and bronze implements of early forms in the Iberian peninsula and those which appeared to represent the second and last phase of the local bronze industry. He drew what most archaeologists now recognize to be the right conclusion, namely, that the Early Bronze Age industry of El Argar stagnated and was replaced at a relatively late date by an industry, which had passed through the earlier stages of its development elsewhere, but soon took on a strongly local character. In his recently enunciated Esquema Paletnológico de la Peninsula Iberica Professor Santa Olalla has taken account of this new conception.

The burial chamber of the Clyde-Carlingford cairn at Beacharra, Kintyre, Argyll, was excavated in 1892 by members of the Kintyre Scientific Association. The finds, consisting of six pots, a jet slider or belt-fastener and a utilized flint flake, were placed in Campbeltown Museum. A newspaper account of the excavation appeared at the time, and with the aid of this and of information from Mr A. Gray, who had been in charge of the excavation, T. H. Bryce was able to compile the first proper report upon the excavation. This he incorporated in the first of two papers on the cairns of Arran. A sketch plan of the burial chamber, prepared in 1892 by Mr P. Mackay and now in the records of the Kintyre Antiquarian Society, is reproduced (fig. 1).

The importance of the pottery from Beacharra was fully recognized by Bryce, but it was not until 1929 that it was related by J. G. Callander to Scottish Neolithic pottery as a whole. Subsequently this evidence was analysed and placed in its British and European context by V. G. Childe and S. Piggott. In 1935 Childe introduced the term Beacharra to describe the pottery from sites of the Clyde-Carlingford culture in Scotland. The term was retained and the classification developed into Beacharra A, B and C by Piggott for the Clyde-Carlingford culture as a whole. More recently, and inadvisedly in the present state of knowledge, it has been suggested that the use of the term Beacharra, at least insofar as pottery from Ireland is concerned, should be discontinued.

The main object of this article is to describe the material from three microlithic sites in south-west England, and to interpret them in the light of present information. Two of the sites are in Somerset, at Shapwick and Middlezoy on the Burtle Beds in the vicinity of Bridgwater, and the third is in Cornwall at Dozmare Pool on Bodmin Moor (fig. 1). Thanks are due to the authorities of the following museums for their kind cooperation: The County Museum, Taunton; The Torquay Natural History Museum; The Plymouth Museum; The Exeter Museum; The County Museum, Truro; and the British Museum.

The reconstructed roundhouse is everywhere: on the television, in the literature, in the landscape. It has powerful currency in both the public and academic understandings of the vernacular architecture of later British prehistory, in particular for the Iron Age. However, because the focus of these reconstructions is normally on technologies and engineering principles on the one hand, or on the experience of their occupation on the other, the roundhouse reconstruction — even after more than 30 years research around them — in fact currently tells us remarkably little about the past and a great deal about who we understand ourselves to be. This paper will explore what insight roundhouse reconstructions currently do and do not give into later British prehistory and what they may be able to indicate if the act of building is taken as a theme over the technologies of their construction or the experience of their space.

A substantial series of pottery was submitted to me from both the Plumpton Plain sites. Its examination has emphasized the distinction of date between them. It will appear that Site A belongs to the earlier part of the Late Bronze Age, from perhaps about 1000 B.C., whereas Site B cannot be dated before about 750 B.C., and covers the transition to the Early Iron Age in the period approximately centred on 500 B.C.

British Iron Age tankards and their handles have been somewhat neglected in recent archaeological literature and so far have not received a separate study. This paper is intended to bring together such information as is available to the writer in the hope that it may prompt a greater interest in this minor field of Iron Age craftsmanship. The first part is a general discussion of those tankards which are either complete or could be reconstructed, their handles, and handles found unassociated with any vessel. The second offers some comment on chronology and typology. The appendix contains a distribution map and an inventory of all the known examples. A list of acknowledgments is at the end, but special mention must be made here to the generosity of Mr R. W. Feachem, who unreservedly placed at the writer's disposal all his material which had been collected for a similar study but which he relinquished on hearing of the present paper.

The most complete section of the glacial series of deposits described and illustrated in Lamplugh's classic paper entitled “On the drifts of Flamborough Head” is that which is located at Danes' Dyke.

Referring to this section Lamplugh says:—

“I have spent much time in exploring this section, and consider that the beds up to this horizon represent the Basement Clay, while the persistent upper band of brown Boulder-clay (3) is all that remains of the upper Clay of Sewerby, this bed and the underlying sand and gravel (3b) together taking the place of the Purple Clays of Bridlington and Holderness. Above this clay lie the Sewerby Gravels (2b), the lower part chalkless and the upper layers composed chiefly of chalk-pebbles, as noticed farther west. A few feet of loamy stuff overlies these gravels at the cliff top (2c), resembling a weathered Boulder-clay, and a little farther east (near Hartindale Gutter) a seam of Boulder-clay certainly appears in these gravels, their contemporaneity with the uppermost part of the Boulder-clay, and consequently their Glacial age, being thus fully established.”

The ancient field system on Horridge Common, Ilsington, on the southern slopes of Dartmoor (fig. 1) has been known to scholars since 1954 but has never been studied in detail. In 1964 the owner of the adjoining Bagtor wood felled some timber and in order to remove it, had a broad track bulldozed from the Rippon Tor rifle range north-eastwards along the hill-side and across the field system, despite the fact that this was a scheduled ancient monument. In September 1965 Mr W. J. Hopkins, a ‘small-scale reviser’ of the Ordnance Survey, plotted the new track and noticed the palstave in the loose soil which had been churned up recently. The implement was eventually sent to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum at Exeter, where I saw it; in May 1966, Mr Hopkins kindly visited the site with me and marked the exact position of the discovery (fig. 2). It was obvious that the palstave was not the usual south-western type and that its discovery within a Dartmoor field system was of particular interest; accordingly Mr Dennis Britton was asked to describe it and with the assistance of Mr D. Walling a survey was undertaken of the relevant group of huts and fields adjoining (fig. 2).

With the working of high level dry gravels now such a rarity, students of palaeolithic archaeology have to be extremely grateful for the large collections of implements made from them when various pits were open. Although these collections have drawbacks, the chances of recovering so great a quantity of specimens from so many localities may never occur again. It is well-known that the majority of the large palaeolithic collections were made by the purchasing of specimens from workmen employed in the gravel pits. The provenance or horizon of any artifact may therefore be debatable, as it depends on the integrity of unknown people. There are stories of hand-axes from prolific, famous sites being taken to other sites in order to increase their market value. Some of these stories are undoubtedly true, but it would have required a thorough knowledge of typology and Pleistocene geology to have perpetrated any large-scale fraud and, as none of the large collections of labelled specimens have ever been in marked contrast with more recent finds, their validity can be generally accepted. If forgeries were purchased it is of no consequence for they would be evident as such. The only serious objection to these older collections being used as a basis for palaeolithic study is that they rarely give a true representation of the artifacts contained in the deposit: flakes were rarely preserved and ruder workmanship was often unrecognized.

The typology and chronology of the Neolithic monuments of the Carnac region of Brittany have been much debated. However, the landscape of which they are a part has been under-researched, in part due to the difficulty of conducting landscape research in the field. Through complimenting fieldwork with digital approaches, this paper demonstrates that the Neolithic monuments were deliberately situated in distinct landscape settings. By investigating the characteristics of the locations of the various types of monuments, new insight can be shed on the ways in which the monuments were experienced and perceived.

Sand quarrying in 1989 at Sand Fiold, Sandwick, in Orkney resulted in the accidental discovery of a rock-cut chamber containing a cist. Subsequent excavation revealed that this cist had a number of unusual features. The cist slabs had been fitted together exceptionally well and the completed cist was designed to be re-opened by the removal of a side slab. Within the chamber, access was provided to the opening side of the cist and a relieving structure was built over its capstone.

The cist contained cremation and inhumation burials that had been inserted on more than one occasion; as its builders intended. A collection of poorly preserved unburnt bone was found to comprise the remains of two individuals: a young adult and a foetus. Two collections of cremated bone, each derived from a single adult, were also present; one in a Food Vessel Urn, the second forming a pile on the floor and containing two burnt antler tines and two unburnt human teeth. The un-urned cremation deposit and the unburnt bones had been covered in mats of plant fibres derived from grass and sedge. The urn had been lined with basketry, also made from grass. Outside the cist, an exceptionally large collection of fuel ash slag (FAS), derived from a cremation pyre, had been deposited between the cist and the wall of the rock-cut chamber.

Radiocarbon dates indicate that the site and its contents had a long history. The FAS and the foetus skeleton date to 2900–2500 cal BC. Between 2200 and 1900 cal BC the urned cremation and young adult human bones were inserted and charcoal was deposited in the foundation slots for the back wall of the cist. The deposition of the un-urned cremation was dated to 1000–800 cal BC, some 900 years later, when the urn had already fallen over and broken. At this time, it is assumed that the urn was restored to an upright position and propped with stones, while the stone lid for the urn was reused in the foundation slot of the left-hand side of the cist. Reuse and refurbishment over two millennia seem evidenced in the results from this cist.

Landscape geophysical survey around the small upland ‘henge’ at Yarnbury, Grassington, North Yorkshire revealed few anthropogenic features around the enclosure but did identify a small rectangular structure in the same field. Sample trenching of this feature, radiocarbon and archaeomagnetic dating proved it to be an earlier Neolithic post and wattle structure of a type that is being increasingly recognised in Ireland and the west of Britain. It is the first to be recognised in the Yorkshire Dales and it is argued that the Dales may have been pivotal in the Neolithic for east–west trade as well as pastoral upland agriculture.

Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age chronology in Greece remains obscure due to a lack of stratified deposits and radiocarbon dates. In this paper the Greek evidence is considered in the light of typological parallels, stratigraphic sequences, and the larger series of radiocarbon dates available from the south-east European cultures, and a tentative chronology for Greece and south-east Europe is presented. The evidence does not support the earlier notion of an overlap between the Thessalian Rachmani period and the Early Helladic period of southern Greece, but rather suggests that Rachmani is essentially contemporary with the southern Greek Final Neolithic. The Final Neolithic–Early Bronze Age transition in southern Greece shows affinities to Petromagoula in Thessaly and the Boleráz culture of Europe. Several radiocarbon dates place the Boleráz period in the early 5th millennium BP, suggesting that dates from FN–EBA transitional contexts in Greece may, in the future, help to fill the existing early 5th millennium gap in the Greek radiocarbon date series.

After fire swept across 2.5 km2 of heather moorland the detail of a wide range of archaeological features was revealed. Among these was a so-far unique small circular monument, the principal component of which was a circle of near-upright slabs set in a shallow trench. The stones included one with a complex pecked geometric design reminiscent of some Grooved Ware ceramic decoration, and another with more commonly found cup-mark and linear motifs. Limited excavation was undertaken in response to disturbance of the monument and it was discovered that the stone with complex decoration had been reshaped for its monumental setting, having perhaps previously been a free-standing decorated monolith. In its altered form the stone formed part of a small circular arena, the interior face of which may have included alternating decorated and undecorated stones. The open arena had later been filled with rubble creating a small cairn, its material including a small block detached from the main stone as well as a number of cup- and other marked stones. Apart from the decorated stones there were no diagnostic artefacts and no direct dating information was present. It is suggested that the decorated stones originate in the later Neolithic period and that the monument containing them was constructed in the Early Bronze Age.

Analysis of radiocarbon dates has established the chronological contexts of three kinds of Neolithic monument in Britain: long mounds or long cairns, causewayed enclosures, and cursuses. It is more difficult to appreciate how such structures developed over time. The building of a barrow or cairn was sometimes the final act in a place that had already experienced a longer history. The construction of the monument brought activities to an end, and the site was effectively closed. Individual sequences were shorter than once thought but might be repeated at different locations over several hundred years.

On the other hand, the construction of causewayed enclosures according to a widely accepted template occurred almost simultaneously. Once those earthworks were established some went out of use, but a few others were adapted and changed so that they could play an increasing variety of roles over a longer period. The same contrasts are illustrated by cursuses. Timber structures in the north had finite histories before they decayed or were destroyed by fire, whilst earthworks had a wider distribution and enjoyed a longer currency. A similar approach might shed light on later monuments, including henges, stone circles, and round barrows. It is important to consider how the chronologies of all these structures are related to past conceptions of time.

In terms of their interpretation, cursus monuments remain arguably the most enigmatic class of Neolithic landscape monument. This paper reconsiders this ‘cursus problem’ through the study of the complex of cursuses that surrounds the village of Rudston, East Yorkshire. Using a GIS-based analysis, it is argued that two distinct forms of architecture can be recognised. In the earlier phase it is possible to recognise the importance of somatic experience generated through movement along the interior of the monuments, incorporating elements of visual surprise in addition to constant visual relationships with earlier monuments. By the later phase, somatic experience becomes less important, with the cursus forming a more naturalised role in harmony with the natural landscape and less structured for movement. The results of this analysis have wider implications for the study of both cursus landscapes elsewhere and prehistoric landscape archaeology more generally.

This paper examines interactions between co-occupants of riverine niches in north-west Europe during the Late Upper Palaeolithic using both ecological and archaeological data. It is argued that consideration of both the Lateglacial record and autecology of eel, beaver and horse supports a reinterpretation of some famous but enigmatic panels of Magdalenian mobiliary art as representations of eel fishing, along with horse and beaver exploitation in disturbed riverine habitats. It is further suggested that this constitutes a humanly co-constructed niche in ecological, nutritional, and symbolic terms, which was also particularly advantageous for human well-being and social development in this time and place.

This paper is based on the 2012 Europa Lecture and discusses the relationship between the forms and structures of domestic buildings and those of public monuments. Its chronological scope extends between the Neolithic period and the Viking Age in western, northern and central Europe, with a special emphasis on the contrast between circular and rectilinear architecture. There were practical limits to the diameters of circular constructions, and beyond that point they might be organised in groups, or their characteristic outlines were reproduced in other media, such as earthwork building. By contrast, the main constraint on building rectangular houses was their width, but they could extend to almost any length. That may be one reason why they only occasionally provided the prototype for specialised forms of monument such as mounds or enclosures. Instead rectangular buildings played a wide variety of roles from domestic dwellings to ceremonial centres.

In 1934 a schoolboy found ‘under a rubbish heap, but practically on the surface’ within the boundaries of the city of Norwich a socketed sickle (fig. 1, and pl. xxv, 14). The type is familiar to students of the Bronze Age since Wilde published an Irish example in his Catalogue of Antiquities in the National Museum at Dublin.

The present handsome and perfect specimen, which I publish by courtesy of the Corporation of Norwich, and of the Curator of the Norwich Museum, Miss G. V. Barnard, measures 5.9 inches in greatest length, and 3.0 inches in height. The blade is double-edged: its bold curved outline is emphasized by raised beads defining a central rounded rib which expands towards the socket. On the socket, above a moulded necking from which the lower edge of the blade springs, is a decorative pattern in the form of an M, the upper angles of which extend to form outward-curving scrolls on which the headings of the blade are aligned more or less tangentially. The outer scroll, which is more complete than the inner, forms a moulded rim to a large circular hole. The hole was probably a loop for a thong; the sickle then may have dangled from the owner's waist.