Banjo enclosures are an important archaeological site type within British Iron Age studies, particularly for southern England. Significant numbers of these sites have been discovered through aerial survey but only a comparatively small number have been explored through additional survey and excavation. Chronologically these sites wholly exist within the Middle and Late Iron Age periods, c. 400 bc to ad 43. As yet there has been no standard interpretive framework for these sites and our understanding and discussion has often been based on the theoretical model most popular at the time of investigation. A key aim of his paper is to question this piecemeal approach and incorporate more recent interpretations from a much-expanded dataset. Since the 1990s large-scale landscape surveys have increased considerably the numbers of sites identified and subsequently the regions in which they are located. Tying this in with recent excavations, we have begun to redefine our understanding of banjo enclosures as more complex in their site development and function, while also providing a simplified framework which accounts for the diversity of forms, locations, and relative associations. Ultimately these enclosures are more complex than previously realised, potentially serving a multiplicity of functions with different phases of use throughout a period of significant change at the end of prehistory.

The remarkable series of deposits, known as “The Cromer Forest Bed,” is of never-failing interest to a great number of people. So far as we know no other part of England, and possibly no other part of the world, can boast of an accumulation precisely comparable to the Forest Bed. It was laid down when the present river Rhine flowed northwards through what is now the North Sea, and at a time separated from to-day by several hundreds of thousands of years. East Anglia, and no doubt other parts of the northern hemisphere, was then enjoying a warm climate, and was inhabited by herds of great game animals, and hunting people who left behind them a vast number of flint implements which delight, and in some cases, puzzle modern archaeologists. But there are other things than flint implements which puzzle archaeologists. In these days the mere finding of a humanly-flaked flint in a geological deposit is not the alpha and omega of the archæologist's task.

This paper deals with the production of long blades of obsidian and flint and with the techniques employed in the production of short blades in Mesolithic and Neolithic industries. Owing to the exigencies of war and the inaccessibility of material the range and the treatment of the subject have necessarily been restricted. Nevertheless the existence of identical techniques in England, Scotland, France, Denmark, Hungary, the Mediterranean, India, America and S.W. Australia, may not be without interest.

Prehistoric cemeteries on the Upper Rhine appear to reflect changes in used land, but variable factors influence the recovery of information. Despite these limitations, it appears that marginal land was taken in after the Neolithic, and the extensively colonised loess soils were deserted. Other parts of the North Alpine zone experience similar abandonment of primary Neolithic areas. River terraces may then have been kept open by reduced settlement or seasonal grazing, inviting renewed attention in the Late Bronze Age and further colonisation of the valley soils in the Iron Age. Major shifts in settled areas may have resulted from soil exhaustion induced by limited agricultural techniques.

The site (National Grid Reference 3X584622) stands on a westward spur of the Penn Beacon ridge near the southern edge of Dartmoor. As is common throughout the moor the underlying rock is granite and in the neighbourhood of Cholwichtown this has altered to ‘china’ clay. There are a number of outcrops, but in most places the granite has a light covering of soil on which a thin layer of black raw humus, peat-like in appearance, has formed. This now produces coarse grass. From the evidence provided by the small dumps of upcast at socket no. 72 it appears that only a very thin layer of humus, about an inch in thickness, covered the soil at that point when the monument was constructed.

Excavation has shown that the structure consisted of an alignment 235 yards long and having originally at least ninety-one uprights and a circle 16 feet in diameter that originally had eight orthostats. Dr Simmons has shown (Appendix) that the monument was built in a clearing, then either grassland or heathland, among the woodland and scrub, but as he points out the pollen analysis does not give any indication of date: it is not known if these clearances were made by the people who constructed the alignment and circle or if the structure was built on land cleared at an earlier date.

The monument is not situated in a conspicuous position but, nevertheless, commands a reasonably extensive view, especially towards the south and south-west.

On the 29th October, 1963, a group of bronze objects was ploughed up in the ‘Old Road Field’, Pyotdykes farm, near Dundee, Angus (Nat. Grid Ref. NO 345348). The objects recovered were a bronze spearhead and two bronze swords (fig. 1). After news of the find had been communicated to the Museum and Art Gallery, Dundee, the area around the original find-spot was excavated by museum staff, and this yielded three additional pieces of bronze wire rivets from sword (2), but no other objects. Before the bronzes were revealed by ploughing, they must have been lying about 30 centimetres below the surface, just above a hard-pan layer which forms the subsoil in that part of the field.

Cleaning and treatment of the bronzes was carried out at the museum, when a plug of material was extracted from inside the spearhead socket (see App. I). This was sent to Dr M. L. Ryder for examination along with two pieces of wood and leather which the farmer had found adhering to sword (2) (see Part III). Subsequently the wooden fragments were examined in the Sub-department of Quaternary Research, University of Cambridge (see App. II).

Rock art in Morocco is widespread and varied, but little known in English-speaking circles. The present paper aims to present a broad outline of this art — almost entirely represented by engravings — as it is known today. A brief survey of past research is given. The distribution of sites is indicated, showing the country to be roughly divided into two areas: the High Atlas mountains and the sub-Saharan regions to the south. Four major groups of engravings are identified, according to theme, technique, and, to a certain extent, style. In the absence of radiocarbon or other datings, the only clues to the chronology of the engravings come from datable material objects or events. None of this art is thought to be older than Neolithic and the most recent engravings certainly date from early historical times. Problems of conservation are discussed, along with measures being taken both to protect the sites and to extend research on this informative aspect of Morocco's past.

This short paper summarizes current knowledge concerning the palaeolithic archaeology of the Mongolian People's Republic (‘Outer Mongolia’), although the paucity of well-documented assemblages and stratified sites makes it impossible to do more than comment on the nature of the material. A few early sites can be assigned to the Acheulean technocomplex and the Kazantsevo interglacial, but there is a more extensive group of surface middle palaeolithic assemblages in the Altai-Gobi area with close and dated typological parallels in northern China. At some of these localities, for example Arts Bogd in the southern Gobi, the first beginnings of the microblade tradition which characterizes the later Shabarakh complex of sites may be seen. These later sites, which form part of a remarkably uniform circumpolar epipalaeolithic dating to between 20–11,000 BP, are associated with the gradual Late Pleistocene desertification of the Gobi.

Since the publication of the 1926 Report on these excavations much important work has been accomplished, four pits, all of the intermediate mining phase, have been completely excavated and a fifth, (Pit No. 12) commenced. In addition, 32 sections have been dug, chiefly in the West Field, which have confirmed the evidence already published and provided further important evidence as to the extent and nature of the mining activities in general.

Megalithic monuments take an important place amongst the relics of early civilization in Ireland, and within recent years efforts have been made to collect the much-needed information about their distribution and typology. Pride of place in this work must be given to Estyn Evans and others who have made important discoveries in the northern highlands, and have published a distribution map of the Segmented Gallery Graves (Horned Cairns) which they found in that area. The present paper endeavours to give a brief account of some recent work on Irish Passage Graves and to summarise the information available about this type of Irish chambered tombs, which includes such famous sites as New Grange and Dowth.

It is clear from the accompanying distribution map (fig. 1) that the primary settlement area of the Passage Grave builders was on the east coast, and here four foci as well as a number of scattered sites can be distinguished. These foci and the inland tombs derived from them may for convenience be called the Dublin, Boyne, Armagh, and North Antrim groups. A list of the tombs, together with map and bibliographical references, will be found in the Appendix to this paper (p. 247).

In this paper I shall endeavour to outline the progress which has been made recently in archaeological studies in the prehistoric periods in Wales. In the last number of the Proceedings (1931, 383–4), I contributed at the request of the Secretary a number of notes on this subject, taking as my starting point the publication of Dr. R. E. M. Wheeler's book, Prehistoric and Roman Wales, in 1925. In the present instance I propose to give a more detailed, as well as a more general account, demonstrating how recent research and discoveries have advanced our knowledge, clarifying the position in relation both to Wales herself and to the connexions of Wales with other external influences.

The publication of Prehistoric and Roman Wales in 1925 may truly be said to mark the end of one era and the beginning of a new. Drawing together the scattered threads of what had been done before, Wheeler has given them meaning and set forth the results of many years of unorganised, frequently ill-considered, work in tangible form. In so doing, he has exposed the gaps in our knowledge and suggested, specifically or by implication, a policy in the form of a series of problems the elucidation of which will lead ultimately to a more complete picture of the early cultures of Wales, and hence of Britain as a whole. Wheeler's survey therefore forms a natural and admirable jumping-off place, and the subject will be treated in the following pages in its natural chronological sequence.

Two round barrows were excavated in 1982–3 at Church Lawton near to the eastern edge of the Cheshire and Staffordshire Plain. One of the barrows was defined by a ring of nine glacial boulders and it is possible that these monoliths initially formed a free-standing stone circle. The remains constitute a rare example of the use of stone to enhance a Bronze Age barrow in the lowlands of central western England. Beneath the mound demarcated by the boulders were the burnt remains of a small, roughly rectangular turf stack associated with fragments of clay daub and pieces of timber. No direct evidence of burial was found within the monument. A radiocarbon date suggests that the structural sequence began sometime in the late 3rd–early 2nd millennium cal bc. The other barrow was principally a two-phased construction and contained urned and un-urned cremation burials. A battle-axe was placed next to one of the burials. Radiocarbon dates obtained from the cremations and associated deposits indicate that individuals were being interred from the late 3rd or early 2nd millennium cal bc, with the practice continuing until the middle of the 2nd millennium. The barrows formed part of a cemetery, consisting of three known mounds.