A complex of settlement and ritual monuments with chronological depth covering a core area of c. 4 km2 on the western side of the Monavullagh mountains in Co. Waterford is described. The morphology of the monuments is portrayed and the development of the settlement and ceremonial areas is elucidated. The ritual monuments are situated in three cemeteries or sanctuaries, one of which is united through elaborate geometric themes. This ritual geometry and the religious insights which this affords raises the importance of this complex to an international level. Analogies with similar monuments from Ireland and the upland regions of Britain are discussed. The overseas parallels demonstrate close contact throughout the Early Bronze Age with many parts of Britain, especially Wales. The unique character of the complex amongst Irish prehistoric landscapes is stressed as it fills an apparent gap in the Irish monumental record of the period.

Jacquetta Hawkes in a paper called ‘The Proper Study of Mankind’ (Hawkes, 1968) has made an impassioned plea against what she considers to be the ‘dehumanization’ of prehistory at the hands of those who have sought to apply to it numerical methods and the techniques of the natural sciences. There can be few who do not sympathize with her denunciation of aimless manipulation of data and the use of techniques for their own sakes; and many must share Clark's fear that prehistoric archaeology will serve merely ‘… to provide intellectual games for the meritocracy’ (Clark, 1967, 472). But such comments as these only prompt the question ‘what are we studying prehistory for?’ or ‘what is prehistory about?’

The well-being of any academic discipline depends upon the posing of questions like these, for if a subject is to develop at all, it must undergo periods of self-analysis when some of its practitioners take stock of what they themselves and others are doing. The analysis may be concerned with methods and techniques and may either tacitly or openly accept the existing philosophy. Or it may consider the philosophy of the subject directly, by asking if the priorities of a past age are still acceptable or whether in the different climate of thought of the present, they must be changed. Self-analysis of this kind may however produce a state of unease and disquiet.

Responding to recent advances in knowledge about the first arrival of woollen sheep in Europe and linked investigations of textile remains on the Continent, this paper argues that our insight into the role of wool in the English Bronze Age needs rethinking. We argue that the relevant questions are: when did the procurement of and working with wool become a routine aspect of settlement life, and did the change from plant fibres to wool affect communities differently? The paper outlines some of the core research questions we need to consider and points to the necessity of triangulating between the evidence provided by textiles, faunal remains, and textile working tools to reach more comprehensive insights. The paper ends by indicating a further research question – namely whether the apparent differences in the ‘wool economy’ in different parts of Bronze Age Europe may suggest differences in ‘body politics’.

The pottery of the later prehistoric period in the Western Isles of Scotland displays a variety of decorative styles and forms not found elsewhere on the Scottish mainland. Traditional approaches have attempted to define stylistic sequences or to identify wares to which chronological and cultural labels may be attached. In this study neutron activation analysis was utilized to examine if the distinctions which had been drawn were mirrored by chemical composition. Analysis of clay beds had indicated that the analytical and statistical techniques which were employed were sensitive enough to identify patterns which existed within the data. The results for the later prehistoric ceramics indicated that pottery was probably locally produced and locally distributed and that the clays involved in the manufacture of metalworking moulds and crucibles were different in terms of source or method of preparation from those employed in the manufacture of the more mundane range of domestic vessels.

A recent monograph written by three prominent Korean archaeologists reports on the results of the past 20 years of research on Korean palaeolithic sites. Discussed are tasks completed, projects underway, and suggestions for future work to be done on palaeolithic remains in the Korean Peninsula. Particularly significant is the chapter on the archaeology of the Jǒngok-ni site which has produced many palaeolithic artefacts; among these the excavators find a high percentage of handaxes and other core bifaces, a cultural phenomenon claimed to be unique in East Asian prehistoric technology.

In recent decades some archaeologists have come to doubt key components and properties of the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (EBA) Avebury monument complex. By site excavation of the Beckhampton Avenue, Silbury Hill, and the West Kennet Palisades the idea of an integrated group of contemporaneous monuments has been thrown into doubt. In this paper these critiques are themselves critiqued and further tested by an inter-disciplinary exercise integrating archaeology, landscape phenomenology, and archaeoastronomy. It is suggested that the emergent properties of this procedure reveal that these recent doubts are unfounded and that this monument complex was designed for rituals to initiate neophytes by simulating journeys through a virtual underworld.

The Bronze Age in Britain is now a term often used to include both the first use of copper c. 2400 bc and also tin-bronze from c. 2100 bc, all of which required the extensive use of copper. Prehistoric mining for this metal has been identified in surface and underground workings in Parys Mine, Mynydd Parys, Anglesey, although almost all of the surface workings are now obscured by the extensive deep spoil from more recent mining in the industrial period. These copper-bearing ores are in bedded lodes, together with some intruded vein deposits. The Bronze Age workings have been exposed underground where they have been intersected by the early 19th century industrial workings on and above the 16 fathom and 20 fathom levels in the Parys Mine. Spoil exposures contain stone hammers (‘mauls’), wood fragments, and charcoal; samples of the latter have been radiocarbon dated with chronological modelling suggesting activity took place in the first half of the 2nd millennium cal bc. Although relatively limited in extent, these important prehistoric mining sites are among the earliest found in the UK. They have survived due to their protection from surface erosion and limited accessibility.

Ever since the complexity of the Early Iron Age civilization in the British Isles was first realized, the accepted classification of its cultures has been based primarily upon pottery-types. In its present form, as stated by Mr Hawkes in 1931, that classification is, with modifications, likely to remain a basis of research for many years to come. Not only is pottery the most universally durable of the domestic articles then in common use, but it is, from the conditions of its manufacture, particularly sensitive to narrow regional and cultural differences. Nevertheless the very success of the pottery-criterion demands that we should bear in mind its obvious limitations. Not only were several culturally important areas apparently almost devoid of any but the crudest pottery, but the essentially domestic character of the potter's craft, which makes it so faithful a mirror of the constituents of everyday life, at the same time precludes it from reflecting, save in a very general fashion, the wider cultural and political contacts which must have played so large a part in the history of the period.

Parc Le Breos House stands in the south and centre of the Gower peninsula in West Glamorgan, about a mile north-west of Parkmill and a mile north of Penmaen, two small villages on the main road from Swansea westwards to Port Eynon and Rhossili. In the extensive woods surrounding the house is a small valley leading from Llethrid in the north to Parkmill in the south, and variously known as Parc le Breos Cwm, Parc Cwm, Green Cwm, and Happy Valley. A rough track leads up this valley from Parkmill to Green Cwm cottage, and, immediately to the west of this track and a little over half-a-mile north-west of Parkmill is the chambered barrow which forms the subject of this paper. Iron railings run round the greater part of the barrow, and inside these railings the barrow is covered with a heavy growth of trees. The sides of the Cwm are heavily wooded but the valley bottom is free from trees and the barrow thus stands out very clearly. It lies about a mile and a half from the sea at Oxwich Bay, and a little over fifty feet above sea-level. It is in the parish of Penmaen and is marked as ‘Tumulus’ on the current 6 inch (Glam. 22 S.W.) and 1 inch (100 G 11) maps; it is number IOI on the recently published Map of South Wales showing the distribution of Long Barrows and Megaliths, and number 122 in Mr Grimes's recent paper in these Proceedings.

Highly as I feel the honour of having been asked to occupy this Presidential chair, I accepted that honour with some diffidence, for I recognise that my studies in Pre-history.have not been carried very far. As, however, these studies have convinced me that the application of geology to prehistoric problems is even yet fraught with many difficulties, it appears to me desirable in this address to call special attention to some of these difficulties.

Having devoted nearly half a century to geological researches of various kinds, I can state with confidence that those geological problems with which we are concerned are among the most difficult with which the geologist is confronted, and their investigation cannot be lightly undertaken.

At present, what we above all require is the collection of facts, and I therefore hailed with pleasure the foundation of this Society, and congratulate its members upon the amount of valuable work which they have already performed. Among these members the name of Dr. Allen Sturge stands out pre-eminent. He may be regarded as the Father of the Society, and all members must deeply deplore the loss which the Society has sustained by his death.

The sub-Crag detritus-bed, sometimes called the nodule bed, or the Suffolk bone bed, was first brought to the notice of geologists by the late Prof. Henslow, who, in 1843, discovered that the Crag contained many nodules rich in lime phosphates, of great agricultural and commercial value—mostly known as “Coprolites,” though not of coprolitic origin, unless the spirally-formed bodies are the coprolitic rejectamenta of sharks or other animals having a spiral intestine.

The detrital bed is principally made up of the following constituents:—(1) Phosphatic nodules (the so-called Coprolites). (2) Sandstone nodules or box-stones. (3) Rocks of various ages earlier than the Crag. (4) Large chalk flints, many unrolled. (5) Rolled and waterworn bones, usually much mineralised. (6) Cetacean beaks, and other bones. (7) Bones and teeth of land mammalia. (8) Wood and other items, chiefly of uncertain age.

The above groups are of very different periods, and I propose treating each one separately, their origin and mode of occurrence as far as is known, or suggested.

Before studying the significance of the series of implements generally known as ‘discoidal polished flint knives,’ I should like first to acknowledge printed sources of informatıon, and secondly, assistance rendered by correspondents and curators of various collections. Many years ago Sir John Evans recognised the type and described and figured several examples in his ‘Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain,’ and later, in Volume XLIV., pages 97–100 of the Wiltshire Archæological Magazine, Dr. R. C. C. Clay collected some sixty odd records, which he classified according to their shape. The excuse for this paper is that it is an attempt to extract from as wide data as possible the significance of the forms and distribution of the type as a whole. In accumulating the necessary evidence I have received especial help from Mr. Burkitt, who has enabled me to handle the fine series in the Museum at Cambridge; from Mr. Leeds, who gave me access to the specimens of the Evans Collection now in the Ashmolean; from the Curators of London, Norwich and Ipswich Museums, who sent me interesting records; from Mr. Graham Callander, who not only checked my list for Scotland, but who also contributed new records and helpful suggestions. In addition, several private collectors have kindly let me have records of their specimens, and, in many cases, illustrations.

In discussing the points of contact between Neolithic Britain and the Continent, it is desirable from many points of view to begin at the beginning, and to conclude with the introduction of metal. I prefer this to the method adopted in our leading text-book, even though it brings us at once into an area of conflict, where nothing should be taken for granted, and general agreement is not yet in sight. In Scandinavia there seems to be a definite terminus a quo, though even there some elements of doubt can be detected. It is generally assumed that human life began in the peninsula soon after the last or Baltic glaciation came to an end; and the first question is whether the same holds good for Britain, and if so, to what extent, for an ice-free area in the south of England is recognised by most authorities even during the severe glaciation that accounted for boulder-clay at Finchley, only three miles north of the Thames.

As will be seen later, intercourse with Scandinavia was lively during two phases of the Megalithic period, but there is nothing to shew that the Neolithic civilisations east and west of the North Sea had a common origin or began at the same date.

On the 3rd of October, 1909, I found on a stone heap in Messrs. Bolton and Laughlin's brickfield near Ipswich a large flint implement fashioned from a cylindrical nodule and flaked to a cutting edge at one end. This implement, which is obviously very massive, weight 8¾lbs., is deeply patinated on its worked surfaces a yellowish-brown colour, and has a very hard ferruginous deposit attached to portions of its crust.

Following on this discovery I commenced, searching for others, and eventually found them lying on the London Clay under a seam of decalcified crag, and associated with many bones and phosphatic nodules such as are met with at other ordinary bases of the Red Crag. This decalcified crag occurs in two basin-shaped hollows, one 56 yards wide and the other 45 yards, in the London Clay. The general arrangement of the beds (Plate I.) in the hollows is as follows:—

1. Top sand and gravel, in places up to 9 feet in thickness.

2. Middle Glacial Sands, with sarsen stones, maximum thickness 12 feet to 15 feet.

3. Decalcified crag, with casts of shells up to 3 feet. This is very hard in the eastern hollow, and rests upon an uneven floor of London Clay, containing pockets filled with pebbles, and boulders of flint and micaceous sandstone.

The excavations described in the Preliminary Report were, through the generosity of the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund, and with the co-operation of Dr. R. V. Favell, resumed in 1924 and further efforts made to discover evidence of the earliest mining activities at Grimes' Graves. Summarised briefly the work of 1923 had already established the following facts:—

(1) The existence on the southern slope of the valley, north of the Graves, of primitive flint mines roughly circular in shape and sunk to the Floor-stone, at that point 12 feet 6 inches deep.

(2) That the two pits examined were devoid of galleries, the shafts being belled out at the base to obtain as much flint as possible.

(3) That Hand Picks of a form not hitherto recognised and formed of the long bones of animals, had been used for excavation purposes assisted by wedges and choppers of flint.

(4) That Deer-antler picks, or fragments of deer antler were entirely absent.

(5) That access had been gained to the pits by rude staircases cut in the shaft walls.

(6) The nature of the valley deposits was established by a series of sections and the almost complete erosion there of the Floor-stone, by glacial agencies, proved.

(7) The limits within which Floor-stone exists in situ on the south side of the valley was defined and an outcrop of contorted Floor-stone discovered.