The pursuit of radiocarbon dating is one of those elegant exercises in pure science that is fully justified as an end in itself and has justly brought world renown to its inventor. The purpose of this communication is merely to examine one of its many applications, namely the light it has thrown on the westward spread of farming from the ecologically focal regions of south-west Asia to Europe and north Africa. Because of its impact on the evolving ecosystem the spread of farming is of special concern to botanists. Even more so is it a preoccupation of students of man, since it symbolizes a transformation of human society of which the effects are still being felt. The evidence for this phenomenon itself falls into two broad and partly overlapping categories: first there is the indirect evidence afforded by plant ‘indicators’, notably fossil pollen, and second, the direct evidence gained through the investigation of materials from the actual settlements of the prehistoric cultivators themselves.

A number of recent discoveries have focused attention on questions relating to when and for what primary purposes fire was first used.

The claim made in 1947 by Professor Raymond Dart (1952) that Australopithecus was a fire-user has been re-examined, but without confirmation. Briefly the relevant evidence is as follows.

In 1925 Professor Dart received pieces of bone breccia which had been collected by Mr W. I. Eitzman at limeworks in the Makapansgat Valley near Potgietersrust in the Central Transvaal. As some of the fragments of bone had a charred appearance Professor Dart suspected that the breccia was a cave deposit containing hearths of early man. He submitted some of the blackened fragments for analysis to Dr J. Moir of the Government Chemical Laboratory, and to Dr F. W. Fox of the South African Institute for Medical Research. They found that when the material was dissolved in acid there was a residue of black particles which could be transformed into carbon dioxide. This was proof that the blackness of the bone fragments was due to free carbon, and in the circumstances it was naturally held to indicate that the bones were charred (Dart, 1925).

In 1956–57 the remote and almost unexplored desert terrain that stretches for hundreds of miles north and west of Lake Mackay—a great salt morass that lies across the border between Northern Territory and Western Australia—was in the grip of a severe drought which had lasted for more than a year. This great tract of spinifex desert and red sand hills that extends westward to the Canning Desert was named the Great Sandy Desert by Colonel Warburton in 1873.

During 1956 and again in the following year, reports had been coming in sporadically through Alice Springs of the existence of primitive nomadic aborigines far out in the sands beyond Lake Mackay. Some of these nomads were said to have come in to Mt. Doreen Station, which lies 225 miles to the west of Alice Springs on the fringe of the desert, but no accurate information was available.

Having experienced tropical areas of high rainfall with their regular hunting and food-gathering cycle, I had always wanted to work in the arid interior of Australia, where the rainfall is not only extremely low but unpredictable. I had hoped to live and to hunt with a nomadic people of the desert and semi-desert, and to study the background ecology, the adaptation of these people to this arid terrain, and especially their hunting and food gathering, and so to understand the effect of these factors on the territorial grouping and on the social and ceremonial life of the aborigines as I had come to know it.

Clacton-on-Sea is a coastal town in the County of Essex, England. It is 75 km northeast of London, 18 km southeast of Colchester (fig. 1). The archaeological site which is the subject of this report comes within Clacton Urban District (civil parish of Great Clacton) although associated earlier discoveries extend to Jaywick Sands, and in the opposite direction, northward, to Holland-on-Sea, both in the same Urban District. The National Grid Reference for the site is TM 157134.

The Pleistocene deposits at Clacton have attracted attention since the first half of the nineteenth century when John Brown of Stanway collected mammalian remains from the foreshore (Brown 1838, 1840). Flint artifacts first appear to have been recognized at the end of the century (Kenworthy 1898). Hazzledine Warren watched exposures between Clacton Pier and Lion Point from about 1910 to 1950, and collected the large quantity of artifacts and faunal remains now in the British Museum. His many papers give much of the history and details of the site and surrounding area (especially Warren 1922, 1923, 1924, 1951, 1955). The only previous controlled archaeological examination in the Clacton area was conducted by Dr K. Oakley and Mrs M. Leakey in 1934 on behalf of the British Association, and their report was published in volume 3 of these Proceedings (Oakley and Leakey 1937). More recently, pollen data relating to these excavated deposits have been obtained from boreholes behind the cliff on West Marine Parade and the foreshore (Pike and Godwin 1953; Turner and Kerney 1971).

Following Wheeler's excavations at Maiden Castle, the multivallate hillforts of Wessex came to be seen as responses to a specific form of warfare based around the massed use of slings. As part of the wider post-processual ‘rethink’ of the British Iron Age during the late 1980s and 1990s, this traditional ‘military’ interpretation of hillforts was increasingly subject to criticism. Apparent weaknesses in hillfort design were identified and many of the most distinctive features of these sites (depth of enclosure, complexity of entrance arrangements, etc) were reinterpreted as symbols of social isolation. Yet this ‘pacification’ of hillforts is in many ways as unsatisfactory as the traditional vision. Both camps have tended to view warfare as a detached, functional, and disembedded activity which can be analysed in terms of essentially timeless concepts of military efficiency. Consideration of the use of analogous structures in the ethnographic record suggests that, far from being mutually exclusive, the military and symbolic dimensions are both essential to a more nuanced understanding of the wider social role of hillforts in Britain and beyond.

In this paper we apply geochemical sourcing methods to an assemblage of ochre from archaeological excavations at the Puritjarra rock shelter in western central Australia. Our work indicates that the red ochre in Late Pleistocene contexts at this rock shelter is from Karrku, a subterranean ochre mine still worked today by Walbiri people. Archaeological finds at Puritjarra indicate that exploitation of this source of high-grade red ochre had begun by 32,000 BP and has continued without significant interruption since then. Changes since the Late Pleistocene in the type and quantity of red ochre reaching the Puritjarra shelter, from various sources including Karrku, provide means to test current models of regional prehistory in this part of arid Australia and illustrate some of the potential of this approach for regional studies.

The samples to be discussed in this paper derive from a series of late Mesolithic shell-midden sites on the island of Oronsay in the Inner Hebrides. Despite the small size of the island (less than six square kilometres) at least six separate middens have now been identified on Oronsay, of which all except one are located along the south-east-facing coast of the island (fig. 1). Radiocarbon dates ranging from 3695 ± 80 to 3200 ± 380 bc have been obtained on samples of charcoal from the middens, and point to a considerable measure of chronological overlap in the occupation of the different sites (Mellars 1978).

Archaeologically, the chief interest of these sites lies in the excellent conditions for the preservation of faunal remains, which provides a unique insight into the economic activities of coastal-living groups shortly before the appearance of formally ‘Neolithic’ communities in northern Britain. In addition to a wide range of molluscan, mammalian and bird remains, the sites have yielded exceptionally large numbers of fish bones. While the total range of fish exploited from the sites is impressive (comprising at least 12 species), analysis has shown that by far the major emphasis in the fishing activities was placed on the exploitation of a single species—the saithe or coalfish (Pollachius virens L.). In all the samples so far analysed this species accounts for at least 95 per cent of the total fish-bone material, and in many of the samples it is the only species represented.

In July 1970, the complete skeleton of a male elk (Alces alces L.) was discovered at Poulton-le-Fylde in a series of aquatic deposits. Uncontrolled excavation recovered most of the skeleton and part of a barbed bone or antler point of ‘Star Carr’ Proto-Maglemosian appearance. Subsequent investigation recovered the remainder of the skeleton and part of a second barbed point, all in situ. These lay in an organic detritus mud which pollen analysis has shown to belong to Zone II of the conventional NW European sequence, assigned to the Allerød Interstadial. The date is therefore likely to lie between 1000 and 2500 years earlier than that of Star Carr.

Study of the bones showed at least 17 lesions, of which 3 were probably made some weeks before the animal died. The remainder were probably approximately coincident with death. These lesions were of types which implied the existence of sharp, hard-pointed projectiles (? flint-tipped arrows) and chopping blades (? axes). They were almost exclusively on limb-bones and ribs. The death had occurred in winter, both antlers having a splinter of pedicle attached, and the animal had evidently escaped butchery to die in a pool. The finds have been placed in the Harris Museum Art Gallery, Preston, by the owners Mr and Mrs J. Divine.

Wood was one of early man's most valuable and important raw materials. It furnished him with shelter, heat and a range of tools and weapons necessary for his survival. It was perhaps the first material to be employed for tools, even before stone was actively worked, yet wood hardly figures in the minds of many archaeologists, and it plays no part in the traditional, outmoded but convenient Three Age system of European Prehistory: Stone-Bronze-Iron. Yet there is hardly a tool or weapon used by Stone Age, Bronze Age or Iron Age man or woman which did not have a wooden part, and it is the purpose of this paper to point out the wealth of information that is available, or could be obtained, from studies of wooden artifacts.

The reason for neglect of such studies is obvious. Wood is perishable; it decays if left exposed, it is easily broken, it burns to nothing, it rots in the soil, it loses its surface in moving water. Its survival for long periods of time is exceptional, and requires certain conditions of deliberate or accidental burial. Yet wood as a fact and a feature of prehistoric economy cannot be disputed. Without the survival of wooden remains, our knowledge of the Neolithic and Bronze Age lake-side settlements in Switzerland would be quartered, and our information about the Iron Age villages at Glastonbury and Biskupin would be substantially reduced. Only in circumstances where conditions are exceptionally favourable has wood survived in an identifiable state, and in these situations it can tell us much about economic life. Grahame Clark expressed the view long ago that ‘less attention (should be) paid to amassing residual fossils from sites unfavourable to the survival of the organic materials which play so important a part in the economy of simple societies, and more to exploring sites where these materials are likely to survive’ (Clark 1940, 58).

The Later Bronze Age site at Black Patch consisted of hut platforms and enclosures set in a system of rectangular fields. The settlement area is overlooked by round barrows. Area and sample excavations of the settlement revealed circular huts and activity areas within a C-14 date range of 1070 ± 70 bc–830 ± 80 bc. Extensive economic data in the form of seeds, animal bones, foreign stones and artefacts were recovered. These formed the basis of an economic resource-area analysis undertaken around Black Patch and other contemporary occupation sites on the South Downs. From this an economic activity model is proposed.

The acquisition of domestic animals was an epoch-making event in cultural evolution. When did man arrive at such a cultural standard that he was able to live in fairly peaceful coexistence with wild animals, and start the process of taming which finally produced genuine tame or domestic animals? It appears that for hundreds of thousands of years man lived as food-gatherer, hunter or fisherman without domestic animals of any kind. At least the presence of domestic animals was not shown in any of the many palaeolithic settlements known today, nor from the palaeolithic cave-drawings. Only from the Mesolithic is there the first certain, but weak evidence of any domestic animal and the finds show that the dog was among the first animals to be domesticated and attached to human settlements.

Among the oldest and best-known skeletal material of the domestic dog are the Danish finds from the Maglemosian settlements from the bogs at Mullerup, Svaerdborg, Holmegaard, Lundby and Aamosen near Halleby river, all in Zealand. Very few dog bones were found, although tens of thousands of bones have been excavated from these settlements. The dog bones, like those of other animals used for food, were very fragmentary, and several showed marks where they had been cut.

The Maglemosian settlements date from the Boreal period, pollen zones V and VI, i.e. they go back to the time when Denmark was covered with vast pine forests and was part of the European continent.

When Europeans entered the New Guinea Highlands in the 1930s, they discovered peoples using two main kinds of stone implements—polished axes and simple flake tools. The prominence of the axe has been well documented (S. Buhner, 1964; R. and S. Bulmer, 1964; Salisbury, 1962; Tischner, 1939; Vial, 1940 et al.). Crucial to subsistence, it was also used widely in exchanges and payments of all kinds and had a value as a ceremonial object. This seems to have been the case throughout the Highlands. Nevertheless, there were probably variations in the precise range of uses to which the axe was put, and consequently in its ‘value’. This comment is prompted by a consideration of two societies—Hagen in the Western Highlands and Wiru in the Southern Highlands Districts—whose traditional evaluations of the stone axe seem to have had differing emphases. In the past the axe was probably less important as a ceremonial object to the Wiru than it was to the Hageners, and its use as a tool more limited. The situation seems to have been correspondingly reversed in the case of the flake tool, however, which had generally more importance in Wiru.

The material discussed in this paper was obtained during 1966 from the region to the west of Lake Baringo. Excavations were conducted in two areas about a mile apart, on either side of the Kapthurin River. The positions of these excavations are to be found on the 1: 50,000 Survey of Kenya map, Sheet 90/4 of Series Y731, Edition I-D.O.S. The first is located at ZR 314/637 and the second at ZR 316/621. Fig. 1 is based on a small section of Sheets 30/4 and 31/3 and is reproduced by permission of the Director of Surveys, Nairobi. A hominid mandible and a living site were discovered in the first area whilst in the second a factory site was found. These sites lie in the Kapthurin Beds of the eastern area of the Kamasian Hills. The beds are possibly upper Middle Pleistocene and are divided from the underlying Chemeron beds which are of Plio/Pleistocene age.

The geology of the area was first described by J. W. Gregory (1921). It was subsequently studied and re-assessed by V. E. Fuchs (1939 and 1950) and by McCall, Baker and Walsh (1967). The most recent study has been made by Mr J. E. Martyn of Bedford College, London, who was engaged in geological mapping of the area west of Lake Baringo in 1966 and 1967. A report on the Kapthurin Beds by J. E. Martyn follows this introduction.

During the course of mapping, J. E. Martyn and his assistants found a number of fossils in the Chemeron beds. He showed these to Mr Jonathan Leakey who noticed an incomplete hominid temporal bone amongst them.

For the last 50 years the site of Star Carr has retained a role of considerable importance within Mesolithic studies. Recent archaeological and palaeoenvironmental survey of the Vale of Pickering (Schadla-Hall 1987; 1988; 1989; Lane & Schadla-Hall forthcoming) permits an understanding of the regional context of Star Carr and indicates the site itself now needs to be re-evaluated. This paper will focus on the lithic evidence recovered during the recent excavations and field survey in order to explore the nature of peoples' engagement with the landscape of the Vale of Pickering during the Early Mesolithic.

The excavations carried out between 1949–51 at the Proto-Maglemosian site of Star Carr, near Seamer, Yorkshire, yielded abundant remains of the wild animals hunted during the Pre-boreal stage phase of the Post-glacial period in north-eastern England (J. G. D. Clark, 1949, 1950, 1954). Examination of this material has thrown much light on the methods used to make implements and weapons from the antlers and bones of animals killed primarily for food. The particular object of this paper is to draw attention to the technique used by the Star Carr people to obtain material for barbed points by cutting strips or splinters from stag antlers and to consider its significance in relation to some of the main developments of European prehistory during late Pleistocene and early Post-glacial times.

Distinctive obsidian artefacts from West New Britain appear sometime before 3950 cal BC and terminate abruptly at 1650 cal BC. We propose that they had a wide range of meanings for their users and functioned in both utilitarian and ceremonial contexts, similar to more recent ground stone axes from Highland New Guinea. They therefore represent the earliest evidence for valuables in Papua New Guinea. Here we draw together studies of the technology, spatial distribution, and chemical sourcing of the artefacts, along with considerations of fragility and brightness, to evaluate competing models for their function as utilitarian items and as exchange goods. Whereas many artefacts were probably useful tools integrated within a mobile settlement pattern, others were clearly reserved for special functions, and many may have operated in both the utilitarian and ceremonial spheres.

The complex of sites that forms the subject of this account lies in the extreme north-east corner of England, about 10 km south-east of the river Tweed in the parishes of Kirknewton, Ewart, Akeld and Milfield, district of Berwick-upon-Tweed, county of Northumberland (fig. 1). The sites have mainly been discovered by means of air photography, but some were recorded as earthworks in the last century while two standing stones survive to this day. The modern discovery of the complex can be attributed to St Joseph during aerial surveys in the late 1940s, when a henge monument 1 km south-south-east of Milfield was located; this was subsequently included by Atkinson (1949–50, 64–5; 1951, 105–6) in his list of henges. It was recorded as a class II monument, and the presence of a pair of roughly parallel ditches (a ‘droveway’) passing through the site was noted. Further aerial survey work revealed that this site was one of several in the area around Milfield. In 1971 McCord and Jobey published further sites of henge type at West Akeld Steads, Ewart Park, East Marleyknowe and Milfield North (1971, 123–4), bringing the total of hengiform sites to five, and recording the full known extent of the ‘droveway’. The remaining sites were located by St Joseph and McCord but not published; they were noticed by the present author (among others) in the course of examination of all air photographs of the area, and appear on the plots of air photographs in the archives of the Northern Air Photography Committee, held in the Department of Archaeology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne (fig. 2).

Multi-disciplinary field investigations were undertaken in 1972–7 and 1998–9 at Kuk Swamp in the upper Wahgi Valley in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Multi-period finds dating from the early Holocene to the recent past and interpreted to represent human manipulation of a wetland margin for plant exploitation were documented. The archaeological remains dating from the early to mid-Holocene have partially grounded contested claims for the emergence of early and independent agricultural practices on the island of New Guinea. In this paper, the early to mid- Holocene archaeological remains at the site (ie, those allocated to Phases 1, 2, and 3) are reported in detail. The authors of this paper all agree that plant exploitation began at Kuk at c. 10,000 cal BP, however they hold different interpretations of the archaeological evidence from the swamp, which have in turn led to diverse claims for the antiquity of agriculture in New Guinea by at least c. 10,000 cal BP (Golson and Hughes), or by at least 6950–6440 cal BP (Denham). Divergent readings of the archaeological remains are presented at length in order to clarify the evidential bases for the varying claims and to promote future discussion.

Estimations of population density, which consider regional variability, are an important key variable in archaeology as they have consequences not only for the environmental but also for the economical and social domains. In this paper, a ten-step procedure of a consistent group of methods is described which deals with the data required for estimations of population density at different scale levels (from excavation to large-scale distribution maps). For distribution maps, a method is presented by which densities of sites are displayed using optimal isolines. These demarcate so called ‘settlement areas’ at scales of between 1:25,000 and 1:2.5 million. Our knowledge of the density of households from key areas with the most complete archaeological records is upscaled for the regions within these isolines. The results of this procedure are estimations of population density for the early Neolithic (Bandkeramik, 51st century BC) and the Roman period (2nd century AD) for regions with some 10,000 km2.

A simple statistical/graphical method is developed to analyse the relationship between settlement areas, soils, and precipitation. Taking into account the aspects of preservation of sites and the intensity of archaeological observations, an analysis of patterns of land use shows that in prehistory not all areas suitable for use were in fact incorporated into settlement areas. For prehistory, the idea of a most optimised use of land up to its carrying capacity (as it has been proposed for at least 50 years) can be falsified for specific areas. A large number of empty regions with good ecological conditions but lacking in settlement activity can be discussed as resulting from culture historical processes. As an example, the separation of areas inhabited by groups of different identities is discussed. The amount of used space (in terms of ‘settlement area’) however, increases from the early Neolithic to the 4th century BC from 5% to more than 40%. The increase between the Neolithic and the Iron Age is understood in terms of technological developments in farming systems. The percentage of areas with suitable conditions actually utilised between the Bandkeramik and Iron Age increases from 31.1% to 67.5% in the area covered by the Geschichtlicher Atlas der Rheinlande, and is much higher still in the Roman period (84.3%). State societies seem to use the land more efficiently compared to non-state systems. This is becoming even clearer on consideration of the intensity of human impact.

Large-scale distribution maps dividing the Neolithic in five periods were analysed. In each of the periods large settlement areas seem to be characterised either by the development of specific cultural innovations or by exchange of a specific raw material. In the course of time, the size of settlement areas in a specific region fluctuates markedly. It is most plausible to assume that this is due to a remarkable mobility of seemingly sedentary populations. Individual families recombine to new socio-cultural units every few hundred years.

The relationship between size of settlement areas and the number of households can be used to develop ideas relating to the flow of exchange goods. An example for the Bandkeramik considering the Rijckholt-Flint is presented. The combination of the number of households and the percentage of this raw material in the specific settlement areas visualises the amount needed and the amount transferred to other settlement areas in the neighbourhood. A future economical archaeology could use this information to develop ideas relating to the importance of the economic sector, ie, ‘procurement of flint’ in relation to the ‘production of foodstuffs’ according to the time required for each group of activities.

In the last section, the relationship between settlement areas and human impact is discussed. For the periods of subsistence economy, it is argued that the size of the population and its farming system are the two most important factors. For example, in Bandkeramik settlement areas, approximately 2% of the forest covering the landscape was cut down; in Roman times, and depending on the intensity of farming, this reaches magnitudes of between 20% and 50%. Although some of the methods and arguments used in this paper may be exchanged for better ones in the future, it is already apparent that a consistent system of methods is essential to transfer results of analyses on a lower scale level as input on a higher level and vice versa.

Non-hominid faunal remains associated with cultural deposits have long been of interest to archaeologists. Recent archaeological work (Coutts and Higham, 1971; Daly, 1969; Drew et al., 1971; Flannery, 1966; Higham and Leach, 1971; Shawcross, 1967; Ucko and Dimbleby, 1969) is showing an increased utilization of these associated faunal remains for detailed analysis of prehistoric man's environment, hunting techniques, dietary habits, the effects of domestication upon animals, changes in these over time, and seasonal dating.

As analysis becomes more detailed and the need to extract increased amounts of relevant and sophisticated data from faunal remains grows more demanding, the representative quality of our samples of faunal remains becomes more critical. Many of the demands made upon our samples require that increased attention be paid to the recovery and analysis of some of the less obvious constituents of these faunal assemblages.