A Correspondence in Man a few years ago led to the expression of various attitudes towards the nomenclature of Lower Palaeolithic finds. It was agreed that cultural names should not be used to describe distinct techniques, but it was recognised that difficulties of terminology might arise, since techniques may indicate cultural similarities and therefore perhaps connections. When the time factor enters into the problem then other authorities differ. Professor Childe says, ‘where there is the slightest danger of confusing the chronological with the cultural classification, such usage is to be deprecated.’ Yet Professor Garrod later states, ‘the time has come when the labels Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic should be used exclusively in a chronological sense,’ and she refers them to subdivisions of the geological chronology. Nevertheless, as Professor Garrod herself remarks, ‘nine prehistorians out of ten continue to use these terms as more or less synonymous with hand-axe, flake and blade industries respectively,’ so these names have a purely technical or cultural significance. It follows from Professor Childe's sage advice that their chronological application ought to be allowed to fall into disuse. There is a perfectly good chronology supplied by the geologist already, with a world-wide system of five glaciations (Geikie), or their equivalents. Moreover, since it is becoming more and more apparent that the division into hand-axe, flake and blade industries is unsatisfactory (there are blades, according to Burkitt's definition of a blade, in Lower Palaeolithic industries), the threefold division has lost its meaning. I therefore suggest that we label as Lower Palaeolithic all those industries of the Pleistocene not comprised within the purely cultural group association of those predominantly blade industries which are found towards the end of the Upper Pleistocene, and are known as the Upper Palaeolithic. It is the purpose of this paper to clarify the relationship between technique and culture in the Lower Palaeolithic industries, to define more satisfactorily the terms, culture, industry and technique as used by the prehistorian, and to define some, at least, of the major cultural assemblages in North-western Europe.

The three palaeoliths figured below have been found in the last five years in the river gravels near Oxford and are now in the Ashmolean Museum. The authorities of the Museum have entrusted them to me for figuring and record and I have taken the opportunity to discuss their significance in relation to some fundamental problems of Pleistocene correlation. Any value this discussion may have is largely due to the prolonged co-operation of Dr K. P. Oakley, both in the field and by correspondence, though he is in no way to be held responsible for any errors or shortcomings. I am also indebted to Prof. W. B. R. King and Mr D. F. W. Baden-Powell for criticisms.

The purpose of this paper is to present an adequate record of the Iron Age pottery found in 1922–23 at a site on the left bank of the river Wey, at a point east of Wisley Church, of which only a small, and not fully representative selection has yet been published. The pieces hitherto recorded were selected from material presented to the British Museum, but a larger quantity has been kindly made available by Dr Eric Gardner, F.S.A., and is here published, together with pottery from the same site, now in Weybridge Museum. Account has also been taken of the sherds in the British Museum.

The pottery is stated to have been found in a series of pits, among which were some containing neolithic B rim sherds proving earlier occupation of the site, but no plans or sections or other adequate information about the site was published, though the report states that ‘four large kilns were uncovered and one small one, made expressly for firing the largest urn.’ It is also recorded that ‘a few loom-weights were found and wattle-and-daub was abundant.’

During these four hard years of German occupation and in spite of hindrances of all kinds—preliminary permits to be obtained, censorship and severe limitations imposed on the liberty of the scientific press—research and the publication of works on our national antiquities have not meanwhile been interrupted. Excavations have been carried on with an activity, which the struggles for liberation during the summer of 1944, have not invariably retarded. The reviews and publications of the learned societies of the departments, although perceptibly reduced in bulk, continued to record discoveries and to print erudite articles. A new documentary review, Gallia: Excavations and Archaeological Monuments of Metropolitan France, was even published for the first time in 1943. Edited under the aegis of the National Centre for Scientific Research, its object is to publish, with the least delay possible, the reports of excavators upon their discoveries. Such results could not have been attained without the co-operation of all archaeologists, editors and printers, in fulfilling a single and imperative duty, namely, to assure the continuity of French archaeology in spite of the uncertainties and distress of the period. This amounted moreover, at the same time to a form of service and was one of the aspects of resistance to the invader. All were thus only following the example, set at the time of the first world war by Camille Jullian, the great historian of Gaul, who then placed his science and his eloquence at the service of his country. The book, dedicated to him by Albert Grenier, is no mere biography; it traces another page of the history and archaeology of contemporary France.

The period of the war has in Denmark, as in most other European countries, been one of difficulty and anxiety. Would it be possible to carry on the fieldwork, and, still more important, to preserve the valuable collections and carry them safe through this life- and death-battle of all the great world powers? The danger was especially obvious after the German occupation of Denmark in 1940. In the National Museum at Copenhagen we have one of the best prehistoric collections in Europe, and it was with great anxiety that we saw Copenhagen changed into an important German base. Air raids and invasion by the Allied forces were both expected, and, still worse, the enemy threatened to bomb the museum as vengeance for the sabotage done by the Danish Resistance Movement. A good proportion of the collections was dismantled, some of it evacuated to safe places, and some of it deposited in the cellars of the museum. Fortunately the National Museum—and also all the prehistoric museums in the small towns—came through the war without damage.

The museum authorities tried to save the prehistoric remains in the country—protected by law—from violation through the German fortification works. We got a promise from the German military authorities that nothing would be destroyed without very important military reasons; but a good many barrows from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age had to be removed at the large new flying bases, especially in Jutland. Although we got a chance to excavate most of the barrows before destruction, many others—more than 200—were destroyed or damaged by the various fortifications, mostly in western Jutland. It will, however, be possible to restore a good many of them.