This paper offers a summary of our present archaeological knowledge of the modern county of Norfolk, a large and geographically diverse tract of northern East Anglia, during the 5th–2nd millennia BC. It concludes by listing some topics deserving of future research.

It is admitted by all workers in prehistory that the human implements which are found upon the surface do not all belong to the Neolithic period, although, until recently, they have always been called Neolithic. It therefore seems better to define them clearly as a Surface Series, without prejudice to their date.

Beyond this point of general agreement, differences of opinion are strongly marked. Some workers would boldly place the majority of the Surface Series in the Later Palæolithic period, or “Cave Age,” while others are unable to accept this view.

It must be admitted that we have very little knowledge of remains belonging to a strictly-defined Neolithic period. We know that “Neolithic” implements continued to be extensively used during the Early Bronze Age, and even in later times.

The type of flint implement which we are investigating here was first distinguished by the late Sir John Evans in his Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain as long ago as 1872. Out of a total of 52 specimens noted in this paper, 12 were mentioned by Evans in his 2nd edition, 12 have been published elsewhere, and 28 are here recorded for the first time. Outlines of 50 and a photograph of another are given in Figs. 1-3,7 and 8.

They consist of long narrow blades carefully flaked over both faces, which are of roughly equal convexity, to produce two cutting edges. In plan the tip and the butt are usually defined by the more tapering character of the former, while the general outline is asymmetric. The type as thus defined is quite distinct from any other, though it differs only by its asymmetry from certain leaf-shaped blades flaked over both faces. There is, however, a further characteristic, namely a varying extent and degree of concavity of one cutting edge, which further defines our type and marks it off still more from other flint forms. We mention in this paper two examples showing asymmetry of form (Nos. 28 and 29), but lacking any degree of concavity in either cutting-edge, as they may be related to the true sickle form.

In approaching the subject of the patination of flint implements, I am profoundly impressed with the very great difficulties of the subject; so much so indeed that I feel that some initial apology is called for. It requires some courage, nay, one may say temerity, to attack a series of problems that bristle with difficulties of a most formidable kind, about which nothing is known; and for a solution of which chemical and physical knowledge of a very high order, backed up by the aid of full laboratory equipment, is required. All this is wanting in my own case; but on the other hand I have a large first-hand acquaintance with the flints in question; for many years I have devoted much attention to the conditions in which patination is found, jand to its manifold varieties—it has been my constant endeavour to co-ordinate given patinations with other factors more or less ascertainable in connection with the flints. In this way I think I have arrived at conclusions which, though by ao means complete in themselves, may at any rate serve as points of departure or of support in the further investigations which are urgently required. I propose to divide my paper into three sections—(1) General considerations bearing on the study of patina, (2) The conditions under which patina is produced, (3) The changes in flint associated with the production of patina.

In giving an account of the humanly-fashioned flints found during the excavations at High Lodge, it is proposed to deal with those discovered in exposing section A, and to proceed to describe the specimens recovered in the other diggings, which will be dealt with in their alphabetical order.

Section A. A small twisted, ovate palæolithic implement, flatter on one face than on the other, and referable, it seems, to Late Acheulean times, was found associated with the thin seam of gravel occurring under the turf at section A. This specimen, which exhibits only small signs of abrasion, is of a yellowish colour, except where areas of hardness in the flint have resisted the agent of discolouration. These areas are either of a dark coffee shade, or coloured a light brown. The specimen measures in greatest length ins.; in greatest width 2 ins.; and greatest thickness ins.

Hackpen Hill, 888-ft., is the highest ridge of the Marlborough Downs properly so called, and has already been described in my paper on the Palæoliths found on its summit. The southern hills, overlooking the Pewsey Valley, rise to 965-ft. The top of the hill, hough narrow, is flat, and bears pockets of Tertiary remains, the ub-soil being of a clayey nature almost throughout.

Until recently, five large fields were tilled, and seventeen years ago a sixth was still under the plough. The space covered by these was 1½ miles in length; and on an average, about ⅓ mile in width, two of the fields stretching a little way down the dip slope of the hill.

The data for this paper were obtained in the course of a journey round Scandinavia made during the summer of 1947 with the aid of a Leverhulme Research Grant. Most of the evidence is housed in the Tromsö Museum, the Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm, and the National Museum at Helsingfors, and I am thankful to the authorities of these for ready access to their great collections and for help in many ways. A certain amount of the material from the northern provinces of Norway is contained in the Universitetets Oldsaksamling at Oslo and, since at the time of my visit the stone age collection was still in store from the war, I was not able to examine it in detail and have relied upon the works of Nicolaissen and Gjessing, supplemented by information obtained by correspondence. In the case of the material housed in the small but important collections at Umeå and Skellefteå, which I was unable to visit, I have relied upon articles by Dr Gustaf Hallström, whose knowledge of Norrland antiquities is unrivalled. While it is certain that a number of finds have escaped me, the evidence summarised in the Appendix can at least be taken as a minimum statement of what has already been discovered in territories, which owing to their remoteness, vast size—Norrland contains approximately four-sevenths of the whole of Sweden—and scanty population are still, so far as the Swedish and Finnish regions are concerned, comparatively unexplored archaeologically, when judged by the standards prevailing in other parts of Scandinavia.

This report describes a group of distinctive earthworks in the north-east of the North York Moors (fig. 1) that, prior to investigation by the RCHME, had been categorised as double pit-alignments. The earthworks consist of two or three pairs of pits, with the spoil from the pits spread into parallel enclosing banks. The orientation of the segments is fairly consistent along an axis north-west to south-east; in each case there seems to be a tangential alignment on burial mounds, putatively Bronze Age in date, which may give a clue as to their age and function.

The excavations which, with the flint implements and other relics discovered, it is the purpose of this paper to describe, commenced towards the end of February, 1919, and continued until July, 1920. The money to pay for the wages of the excavator, Baxter, was most generously supplied by the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund, and I wish to record my thanks for their invaluable help.

I have to acknowledge also, with gratitude the assistance given me in my researches by Sir Ray Lankester, K.C.B., F.R.S., Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S., Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., Professor J. E. Marr, F.R.S., Dr. Smith Woodard, F.R.S., Dr. Charles Andrews, F.R.S., Mr. Reginald Smith, and the owners of the various properties upon which the diggings were conducted.

The drawings which illustrate this paper are reproduced from work executed by Mr. E. T. Lingwood, to whom the science of prehistoric archæology is greatly indebted for his continued and invaluable help in the matter of illustrations.

I am exhibiting a number of flakes and implements, which appear to be of Le Moustier date, from Acton on the Taplow Terrace, and West Drayton and Iver on the Boyn Hill Terrace.

The Acton specimens are from the immediate vicinity of the working floor discovered by the late Mr. Allen Brown some forty years ago. During recent excavations in Creffield Road, I picked out of the brick-earth, thrown up from a depth of 4 to 6½ feet, seventy humanly struck flints. Forty-six are unpatinated, fresh-looking and unabraded, twenty have a bluey-white patination, amongst which are several with slightly dulled edges, and four are light-ochreous. The freshness of the cortex on several of the unpatinated flints suggests that some of the raw material was derived directly from the chalk. The majority are simple flakes and spalls. The remainder consists of eighteen small Levallois flakes, varying in size from 2 by 1½ to 3½ by 2¼ inches, one small tortoise core, a small flattish core with flaking on one face at right angles to that on the other, a flint pebble which has been used as a hammerstone, one small point and two exceptional pieces. One of these is a fairly typical graver (bee de flûte) with bluey-white patination (Fig. 1); the other may be described as a busked graver, it is made from a thickish external flake and is unpatinated (Fig. 2). A few of the flakes shew slight signs of use.

Perforated plates of fired clay have long been recognised as a component of Late Bronze Age material culture in south-eastern England, but recent developer-funded excavations have produced a wealth of new evidence. These artefacts, showing a considerable degree of standardisation, are now known from more than 70 sites, which show a markedly riverine and estuarine distribution along the lower Thames. Their function is still uncertain, but it is suggested that they were parts of ovens for baking bread, a new technology for food preparation in the later Bronze Age. Some of the largest assemblages of such plates are found at strongly defended sites, and it is further suggested that the baking and consumption of bread was particularly associated with such sites of social authority. The estuarine distribution is discussed in this paper, and it presents further evidence for the regionally distinctive nature of food consumption in later prehistory.

In the absence of direct evidence, archaeologists interested in the demography of stone age hunter-gatherer societies are forced to turn their attention to sites as the unit of analysis. The distribution of sites and their varying density across space and through time have been considered to be acceptable, proxy, population records (see for example Constandse-Westermann & Newell 1984,158–64). This note is a contribution to these studies, but one which is not based on the site as a unit of analysis.

Smith & Openshaw (1989) have argued that the conventional archaeological site is a poor unit of analysis in considering regional settlement patterns. It is poorly defined and the recorded distribution of sites is potentially subject to too much distortion by post-depositional factors such as geomorphological processes and landuse practices, and biases inherent in archaeological method.

The petrological examination of stone implements from Leicestershire commenced in 1947, when Mr W. A. Seaby of Birmingham Museum, assisted by Mr F. W. Cottrill of Leicester Museum, started to record the implements from the county. The work of thin-sectioning was undertaken by Professor F. W. Shotton of Birmingham University. In 1955, Mr J. Bartlett, then Deputy Director of Sheffield Museum, began a similar study in Derbyshire, and he also called on Professor Shotton for the petrological identifications. Within a few years, all the stone implements in Leicester, Sheffield, Derby and Buxton Museums had been sectioned, as well as those in Mr J. P. Heathcote's private museum at Birchover and a number of smaller private collections. By 1958, about 200 implements had been sectioned, 170 from Derbyshire and 30 from Leicestershire, and Professor Shotton had handed over the petrological work on the Derbyshire implements to his colleague, Dr G. R. Coope. During the last few years, while mainly concerned with Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire (Cummins and Moore, 1973), we (the authors) have also examined a number of implements from Derbyshire and Leicestershire. Then, at the Implement Petrology Meeting at Birmingham in May 1972, we were invited to complete this work and prepare it for publication. Professor Shotton and Dr Coope very generously handed over their Derbyshire sections and the Leicestershire sections were kindly loaned by Leicester Museum.

A segment of earlier Bronze Age arable landscape incorporating isolated round barrows on the high chalk spur of Hog Cliff Hill became the chosen location for a later Bronze Age earthwork of considerable dimensions. The area excavated within the bank and ditch was densely occupied by two major phases of buildings of timber construction, lasting into the earliest Iron Age. Sometime during the early Iron Age the oval enclosure was replaced by a more substantial one which partly followed its line and contained a series of unusual structures comprising dry-stone flint banks or wall-footings. The site was subsequently abandoned, the land probably being returned to agricultural use, until the Roman period when the agger of the Roman road from Dorchester to Ilchester was constructed across the earthwork.

In 2015, excavations at Stainton Quarry, Furness, Cumbria, recovered remains that provide a unique insight into Early Neolithic farming in the vicinity. Five pits, a post-hole, and deposits within a tree-throw and three crevices in a limestone outcrop were investigated. The latter deposits yielded potentially the largest assemblage of Carinated Bowl fragments yet recovered in Cumbria. Lipid analysis identified dairy fats within nine of these sherds. This was consistent with previous larger studies but represents the first evidence that dairying was an important component of Early Neolithic subsistence strategies in Cumbria. In addition, two deliberately broken polished stone axes, an Arran pitchstone core, a small number of flint tools and debitage, and a tuff flake were retrieved. The site also produced moderate amounts of charred grain, hazelnut shell, charcoal, and burnt bone. Most of the charred grain came from an Early Neolithic pit and potentially comprises the largest assemblage of such material recovered from Cumbria to date. Radiocarbon dating indicated activity sometime during the 40th–35th centuries cal bc as well as an earlier presence during the 46th–45th centuries. Later activity during the Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze Age was also demonstrated. The dense concentration of material and the fragmentary and abraded nature of the pottery suggested redeposition from an above-ground midden. Furthermore, the data recovered during the investigation has wider implications regarding the nature and use of the surrounding landscape during the Early Neolithic and suggests higher levels of settlement permanence, greater reliance on domesticated resources, and a possible different topographical focus for settlement than currently proposed.

Monumental ditches and Bell Beakers are two key phenomena in later prehistoric Europe involved in the study of El Ventorro, near Madrid. In this article, we discuss and develop an analytical protocol for a thorough characterisation of the patterns of breakage, abrasion, and representation of ceramics. The procedure is tested with a large ceramic sample from ‘Pithouse 013’, an unusually rich context which challenges stereotypical accounts of the domestic sphere, feasting, and prestige goods deposition. This sunken feature was filled with a heterogeneous mixture of recently broken remains and secondary residues, and is reinterpreted here as a ditch segment instead of everyday fossilised occupation surfaces. The paper sheds important new light on depositional practices, the social biographies of Beaker pottery, and the infilling of ditched enclosures. It also allows the assessment of the potential of this integrated re-fitting and taphonomic strategy to illuminate poorly understood aspects of pottery in a range of time–place contexts.

The megalithic tomb of Pedra Branca lies at Montum, on the west coast of Portugal about 140 kilometers south of Lisbon by road (fig. 1). The tomb is the first in Portugal to have yielded Beaker graves overlying earlier burials; prior to its discovery, no Beaker remains had ever been noted further south than Palmela, in the estuary of the Sado river, approximately 40 kilometers from Lisbon. The tomb is situated on the top of a small hillock 100 m above sea level, separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a fertile undulating plain about 5 km in width. The Lake of Melides lies to the north and, to the east, the hills of Grandola rise steeply to an altitude of 300 m; an expanse of rough terrain stretches to the south, ravined by various small streams which flow into the Lake of Santo André on the coast.

When the tomb was discovered by surveyors of the Geological Services of Portugal, it was already very badly damaged; all the orthostats had been broken for use in local construction and part of the circular covering mound had already been ploughed under. The Services therefore, decided that a salvage campaign was called for, and a team made up of the authors, was invited to carry it out with funds granted by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.