In this paper we present a three-stranded investigation of all ‘archaeological islands’ (including crannogs) across Scotland, with a particular focus on the Outer Hebrides. The first strand is a synthesis and critical review of the archaeological record relating to 582 ‘archaeological island’ sites. This research enabled us to characterise the nature of any previous work (including dating evidence) undertaken on each, and thus to establish the first ever open access, holistic, accurate dataset of these sites. The second strand is new underwater survey carried out at 30 archaeological islands across the southern Outer Hebrides. This enabled us to acquire further information about and dating evidence for these sites; notably, this included new evidence for Neolithic occupation on three, increasing the total of known Neolithic islets in the region to 11. The third strand involved a thorough re-assessment of a wide body of archaeological literature relating to early excavations and finds. This research identified potential Neolithic material culture on a further 15 archaeological islands across the rest of Scotland. We conclude by discussing the potentially very significant implications of this early material, considering the possibility that crannogs could have been constructed in the Neolithic beyond the Outer Hebrides.

In 1937, in a series in honour of Sir John Myres, Professor Childe wrote an essay entitled ‘Neolithic Black Ware in Greece and on the Danube’. Childe made two major points. He clarified his position that the major direction of diffusion in the spread of the village-farming community was from south-western Asia towards Europe. Secondly, he considered the then available south-west Asiatic evidence—mainly ceramic—which seemed antecedent to similar elements in Greece and subsequently on the Danube.

In this essay in Professor Childe's honour, I propose to bring his second consideration up to date, informally, and with main emphasis on the south-west Asiatic end. Weinberg has recently covered the ground from the Greek point of view with much greater perception than I could do.

It is a bit unfortunate, in relation to Childe's first point, that this essay cannot be postponed for a year or two. During the 1954–5 field season of the Iraq-Jarmo project, we secured a series of fifty-two radioactive carbon samples. Included are specimens from the Halaf levels of Arpachiyah and Tell Halaf itself and from the basal levels of Hassuna, Mersin, and Byblos, as well as further samples from Jarmo and from several of our test excavations. Professor Zeuner has samples in hand from early Jericho, Dr Milojčić has some from Otzaki-Magula, and there may well be other pertinent samples of which I am unaware. It does seem that presently, within the range of reliability of the radioactive carbon dating process, we shall know where we stand chronologically in somewhat more precise terms. Present indications are that the whole dating system, prehistoric, as well as early historic, customarily given for south-western Asia will be depressed. In the chronological study cited, Weinberg finds this tendency will make the equations with Greece all the more reasonable.

Childe's essay implies that the early dark-faced burnished ceramic of south-western Asia must be a manifestation of a discrete assemblage, but at the time he wrote, it was impossible to speak of anything but pottery. In his Grundzüge … Kleinasiens in 1945, Kurt Bittel could do little more than suggest the antecedent rôle of the early Syro-Cilician dark-faced burnished ware to the general burnished sequence of Anatolia. Veronica Seton Williams gave further definition to the pottery and its distribution, as against Christian's rather amorphous ‘Saktschegözü- Stufe’, in her brief catalogue and map of the occurrences of the burnished ware. In 1952, my wife and I prepared a study in which we attempted to delineate what seemed to us to be the separate and distinct ‘essential’ assemblages of the earliest village range in south-western Asia.

The Palaeolithic archaeological record from current dryland contexts informs on activity across only a fraction of occupied Pleistocene landscapes. Now-submerged contexts, such as those preserved beneath the southern North Sea, allow past human activity to be considered at a more representative scale. Previous investigations have recovered internationally significant Middle Palaeolithic archaeology associated with submerged Pleistocene landscapes in the southern North Sea. Discovered through aggregate dredging in marine aggregate licence Area 240, the archaeology is associated with Pleistocene deposits of the Paleo-Yare river system. Subsequent studies have demonstrated that the Palaeo-Yare catchment extended across adjacent aggregate areas, leading to the implementation of a regional monitoring programme at aggregate wharfs to monitor, manage, and assimilate new archaeological data.

This paper reviews all new Palaeolithic lithic finds recovered between 2011 and 2022 from Area 240 and adjacent licence areas. Most are Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from Area 240. These new Middle Palaeolithic discoveries are related to previous finds and the combined collections placed within their wider Middle Palaeolithic British context. Middle Palaeolithic activity within the Palaeo-Yare catchment included multiple phases of occupation associated with different favoured technological repertoires, indicating that two groups of artefacts are present: Levallois artefacts likely to date to the early Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 8–7–6) and handaxes dating to the Late Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 5d–3).

A new engraving of a horse head has been discovered during a recent re-examination of the Magdalenian osseous projectile point assemblage from La Madeleine curated in the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale (St-Germain-en-Laye, France). Found on one side of an unmodified tip of reindeer tine, this piece was uncovered in amongst a collection of distal (tip) fragments of antler sagaies. While this piece is not unique to La Madeleine – a number of similar pieces having been recovered in early excavations at this site – it nonetheless contributes another small piece of information regarding Magdalenian mobiliary art. The horse engraving is compared with other known finds from La Madeleine, as well as several additional Magdalenian sites in order to outline its place in the current state of knowledge regarding these enigmatic artefacts.

Landscape studies offer the archaeologist a way to move towards the holistic integration of disparate aspects of research, such as excavation, survey, and specialist analysis. Because landscape perception is socially constructed, like other forms of material culture, it is possible to approach social behaviour in a way which previously was only argued for portable artefacts. Memory studies have allowed historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists to link observable human behaviour with long-term human thought. Memory is also being used as a way of linking the otherwise invisible mind with the material by-products of society, such as monumental architecture. This paper will investigate how two contemporaneous settlements of Late Iron Age peoples, situated on the northern shores of Lake Ullswater, in the Lake District, Cumbria, manipulated their material landscapes as part of the process of transmitting cultural memories. Further, this information will be used in order to find a way of approaching the similarities of their cultural practices with each other and with the wider Iron Age community of Britain.

Unmodified and modified animal remains and animal representations significantly contribute to the content of Mesolithic and, in some cases, Early Neolithic hunter-gatherer burial assemblages in Northern Europe. Though these finds have received noteworthy attention, predominant archaeological narratives focus on their economic, aesthetic, or symbolic values in relation to humans. This contribution explores ways of looking at these assemblages beyond seeing them primarily as signifiers of human identities and human symbolic and/or economic choices. Drawing on insights from Russian ethnographic literature about near-recent East Siberian hunting and gathering communities, this paper explores paths for understanding unmodified and modified animal remains and animal representations from Mesolithic and Neolithic hunter-gatherer graves as animate objects and investigates ways of recognising their personhood. The paper outlines what could be considered as the material consequences of communicative actions and performative acts in relation to artefacts and animal remains that might have been perceived as having the qualities of a person, such as their placement and arrangement within the burial and treatment prior to deposition.

A series of implements were collected during the summer and autumn of 1914 from an area of some twenty square miles lying between the Cray Valley and Kingsdown in North Kent. The specimens were not distributed uniformly over this area, but confined more or less to a few localities where they occurred in considerable numbers. It is, moreover, significant that these localities are on high land commanding extensive views of the surrounding country, and especially of the river valleys. The sites were presumably chosen for this and another reason—the local abundance of green-coated flint, a material which was largely employed in the manufacture of implements.

The sites had been inhabited by a succession of peoples who left their implements behind them. Among these the commonest are assignable to the Neolithic period, but Palæolithic implements are by no means rare. There are, moreover, localities where only Palæolithic forms are found, and these all of one pattern, namely, the pointed ovate. Many possess the familiar reversed S twist, and all are deeply patinated, either pure white, pinkish-yellow, or cream.

From the Marine Parade, Tankerton, Whitstable, looking East, one obtains a capital view of Tankerton Bay, Swalecliffe, in which my discoveries have been made which are to form the subject matter of this paper. The grassy cliff at Priest and Sow corner at the end of the road stands at 55 O.D. This height gradually declining round the arc of the bay, to die out entirely in the Long Rock occupying the middle distance and through which the Swalecliffe Brook discharges into the sea. Just beyond, a little to the right, are the disused Swalecliffe Brick Works, with Stud Hill and Hampton lying further back. To the left and edging the horizon, Herne Bay Pier is clearly discernable. The accompanying copy of (Plate I.) the 25-in. Ordnance map of this Tankerton Bay section gives the exact position of the 650 yards from the Parish Boundary Stone eastwards indicated thereon with a X in which are found the gravels and brick-earths which have proved so rich in archaeological treasure trove. The whole of this south-easterly directioned well-drained gently sloping ground, from the Priest and Sow corner to the Swalecliffe brook, forms an ideal camping site. Last April a paper was read by me before the Geological Association, at University College, London, entitled “An Examination of the Contents of the Brick Earths and Gravels of Tankerton Bay, Swalecliffe, Kent,” in which the geological aspect of this section was fairly exhaustively treated, so that in this particular it will be unnecessary for me to do more than give a brief summary of the results of that examination as to the relative age and stratigraphical sequence of the Drift material found here overlying the London Clay.

An excavation at the Iron Age Promontory Fort at Embury Beacon is described. Most of the work was concentrated on the inner rampart, its entrance and the small remaining portion of the interior, where structures revealed by post holes were associated with Glastonbury style pottery. The outer rampart was also sectioned and areas within the wide intervallum space investigated.

Volume 52 of the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society contained two articles (Salisbury 1986; Tipping 1986) critical of our paper ‘The stratigraphy of Kirkhead Cave, an upper palaeolithic site in northern England’ (Gale and Hunt 1985). Here we reply.

Before dealing with the criticisms made by Salisbury, we correct the factual errors in his paper.

1. Bolton and Morris ‘… excavated through, and ultimately removed some 5 to 7 metres of cave earth…’ (Salisbury 1986, 321). In fact, the reports indicate a maximum depth of excavation of 7 ft (2.1 m) (Bolton 1864, cclii) or 8 ft (2.4 m) (Morris 1865–66, 360, 361; 1866, 169, 170; Bolton 1869, 167–68).

2. Bolton and Morris's ‘… publications are of little value today, and both may be considered to have been “bone hunters” and collectors’ (Salisbury 1986, 321). The assertion that Bolton and Morris's excavation reports are of little value suggests that Salisbury is not familiar with the wealth of early literature on this site. The reports provide a picture of a rich and varied assemblage of artefacts and macrofauna in the unit overlying the stalagmite floor in the cave. Information is also provided on the lithology of that unit. Interpretation of these reports allows the reconstruction of the stratigraphic context of the finds: we direct Salisbury's attention to Gale and Hunt (1985, 296–97) for an indication of the stratigraphic reconstruction possible from the information given in these early publications.

A Lower Palaeolithic handaxe found a few years ago at St Catherine's Hill, Christ church, is described. Various aspects of its technology and morphology appear archaic, and although it was found in a secondary context, with no clear geological evidence for its true age, relatively old Pleistocene gravels do occur at the summit of the hill. At the Ballast Hole, Corfe Mullen, a few miles west, J. B. Calkin and J. F. N. Green recorded some 25 years ago a number of handaxes very similar to this one, in a hill-wash deposit below bluff gravels; they suggested that the implements had originally been dropped on the surface of the Sleight (170 ft) terrace while the 130 ft terrace was forming nearby. These implements were demonstrably older than the well-made later Acheulian ovate handaxes from the same pit. They were called Middle Acheulian by Calkin and Green, but it is suggested that Earlier Acheulian would be a better description. Their likely context in the British sequence is briefly discussed. Early Acheulian occurrences in situ in early deposits are rare in Britain and Europe.