Llwyn Bryn-dinas (SJ 172247; Clwyd Archaeological Record CAR 999) is the only hillfort of substance in this part of the Tanat Valley, lying almost midway between the major forts of Craig Rhiwarth and Llanymynech Hill (fig. 1). Craig Rhiwarth, enclosing an area of about 35 ha/86 acres, lies above Llangynog, about 12 km to the west, where the head of the valley cuts into the rugged uplands of southern Clwyd. The very large hillfort on Llanymynech Hill (56 ha/140 acres) lies about 9 km to the east, near the confluence of the Tanat and Vymwy, which feed into the Severn a little furtherdownstream. Two smaller neighbouring sites of later prehistoric type are known from aerial photography - a small double-ditched enclosure known as Plas Uchaf, on a hillock at the very foot of Llwyn Bryn-dinas (SJ179245; CAR 1002), and a square double-ditched enclosure on the banks of the Tanat about 1.5 km to the south-west (SJ 156245; CAR 1433); both enclose about 1 ha/2.5 acres. The site now lies within th~ community of Llangedwyn, Clwyd, but before Local Government re-organisation in 1974 it fell within Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Denbighshire.

During the Last Interglacial Middle Palaeolithic industries of Crvena Stijena-type rich in side-scrapers with Levallois technique of recurrent type are specific to the Balkans. These industries have analogies in Anatolia and the northern part of the Middle East (Zagros-Group), but are different from industries typical of the middle Danube basin (Taubachian) and northern Central Europe (Moustero-Levalloisian). In the period preceding and immediately following the Lower Pleniglacial the Balkans were dominated by typical Mousterian and Moustero-Levalloisian, frequently with leaf points, similar to the industries of the lower Danube and Dniester basins, but unknown in western Anatolia. During the same period Eastern Micoquian developed in the middle Danube basin and northern Central Europe. Moustero-Levalloisian with leaf points persisted until the Early Interpleniglacial, but only in exceptional cases developed some Upper Palaeolithic features, and always without typical Aurignacian forms. The Aurignacian, unless it appears as a first Upper Palaeolithic culture in the Balkans with earliest dates in Europe (>40,000 years BP), seems to be an intrusive unit without any roots in the local Middle Palaeolithic. After 30,000 years BP, parallel to the Late Aurignacian, the first industries with backed blades appear. In the early stage these developed independently from those of Central Europe. Only after 26,000/24,000 BP were they followed in the eastern Balkans by assemblages strongly linked both morphologically and by raw materials to the Gravettian of the middle Danube basin. In the western Balkans, after 20,000 years BP, assemblages with shouldered points appeared, also probably of middle Danube origin. During the Last Interglacial and Interpleniglacial the territory of Balkans played an important transitional role between Anatolia and Central Europe; in the two Pleniglacials of the Würm this territory became some kind of cul-de-sac as the refugium for population groups from the middle Danube and northern Central Europe.

Choppers and chopping tools have long been associated with the Clactonian industries of Britain. They have either been dismissed as cores, or often described as woodworking tools, but have rarely been studied from a functional perspective. The purpose of this paper is to publish the results of a series of experiments which has been carried out to investigate the functional efficiency of choppers or chopping tools as compared to other alternative tools. These results are then reviewed in the light of the archaeological information from Clactonian and other Lower and Middle Pleistocene sites.

Due to the problems of definition, for the purposes of the experiments both chopping tools and choppers have been taken to be small nodules of pebbles which have had several flakes removed bifacially along at least one edge. The morphology of the working edge is identical to that found on the edges of many of the Clactonian cores. For this reason, chopping tools, choppers and cores are regarded as artefacts with potentially an identical function. In the experiments they are termed simply as chopping tools.

1. Structure: partially accommodated channels (0.16 to 0.80mm in width) above the pan; no aggregates; fewer channels below the pan; channel pattern - straight to curved; vughs (spherical to elongate, not normally connected) 0.4 to 0.8mm in diameter and are not orientated and have random pattern: above pan channels and vughs partially connected; pellicular grain microstructure - weakly developed.

2. Mineral components: coarse fraction: quartz grains range in size from silt to fine/medium sand (<lmm). One large quartz (200mm). Dominance of single and compound quartz grains; instances of biotite and plagioclase; quartz grains -angular/subangular and smooth. Fine fraction: brown, optically amorphous iron oxides, isotropic.

An Upper Palaeolithic engraving of a female figure has recently been discovered on the base of a naturally hollowed limestone slab possibly used as a bowl or lamp, found in the cave of Courbet (Penne-Tarn, France) and preserved in the British Museum. The slab, decorated on the dished side with linear incisions, and the female figure are described in detail. The occurrence of a female engraving on a utilised slab is found to be unique to date but the relationship of the figure to the support is questioned and discussed. The female engraving is compared with others known from Germany, as well as Quercy and Périgord, France. On the basis of these comparisons and radiocarbon age estimates, the engraved slab is attributed to Magdalenian VI.

Several short seasons of excavation were carried out on the hillfort in the years 1954-56 by Mr L. M. Stephen, a schoolteacher, with the help of pupils from his school at Wolverley, Worcestershire. It appears that he may also have returned to the site in 1958, after he had taken up a new appointment at Dover College, Kent. The results were never published, but the work was mentioned briefly in print by Dr H. N Savory (Savory 1976, 260-1). Following the excavations by the Trust in 1983, Mrs Stephen kindly made available two notebooks, a series of photographs, correspondence, typescript notes, and a small box of finds from her late husband’s effects. Dr Savory also helped by providing various notes and correspondence relating to the earlier work.

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 line chosen for the access track cut through the rampart at an angle of about 30° at a point where it had already been partially eroded by animals, just north of the entrance gully on the eastern side of the fort. The uneroded parts of the rampart here stood little more than 50 cm high above the interior, and even allowing for the accumulation of material behind the rampart it seemed unlikely that the total depth of core material would be more than about a metre. It was thought that a section about 3 m wide could be dug in about a fortnight with a small team seconded from work elsewhere, allowing the basic structural character of the rampart to be recorded, testing the underlying ground surface for the possibility of earlier (palisaded?) lines of defence, and seeking dating material from either the rampart core or the deposits behind or beneath it. The presence of the external ditch might also be tested, either in the excavation trench or in the subsequent bulldozing work for the access road.

Excavations were undertaken in advance of construction work at Newbury Sewage Treatment Works on the outskirts of Thatcham in Berkshire, close to the sites of previous excavations undertaken by Wymer and by Peake and Crawford. Worked flint of Mesolithic date was recovered from a sandy layer overlying river gravel in two distinct concentrations suggesting two distinct episodes. Use wear analysis of the flint suggests that the sites were used as home bases at which a wide range of activities took place, with an emphasis on the processing of plant foods. A 14C date of 9100±80 BP was obtained from a sample of hazel-nut shells from within one of the concentrations. Analysis of the soil and sedimentary sequence as well as the pollen indicates constantly changing localised environments in the early Holocene in the Thatcham area, with sporadic occupation by Mesolithic communities on the drier areas at the edge of the floodplain.

This study examines the archaeological significance of the material from a group of Neolithic chipping floors rescued during the rebuilding of the Antrim coast road, at Mad Mans Window, south of Glenarm, Co. Antrim. It shows that the lithic production strategies vary significantly between assemblages although it is presumed that they are all Neolithic in date and come from the same area of coast. It is apparent that flint axe production was of limited importance on these sites and that in spite of the abundance of flint available along the Antrim coast, relatively few polished flint axes were manufactured. Instead the numerous flint caches found in adjacent parts of the north-east of Ireland tend to produce scrapers and blades. Hoards containing arrowheads may be confined to the Bronze Age.

Around 300 polished flint axes and roughouts are known from Ireland. These are frequently small and only partially polished. A limited number of highly polished axes with ground flat side facets have been designated sub-type A. The tendency to use porcellanite rather than flint for axe manufacture may be due to its ability to withstand robust shock.

During the last 100 years, the role of flint as a key resource in the stone age of north-eastern Ireland has always been recognized but this has usually led to an uncritical assumption as to the paramount importance of flint. Work in recent years has shown that its significance in attracting and retaining Mesolithic settlement may have been over-emphasized.

The role of the flint industries in the Irish Neolithic in this region has never been properly assessed, either in relation to older Mesolithic manufacturing traditions or in the broader context of supply to the Neolithic communities of this part of Ireland.

In particular, good or even reasonable quality flint is usually only exposed in Cretaceous outcrops along a narrow strip on the edge of the basalt plateau and, therefore, has a very limited availability in parts of Co. Antrim as well as parts of Counties Down and Deny. As a contrast, erratic and beach flint is available in some quantity down the east coast of Ireland from Co. Down to Wexford. A second potential constraining factor is that unlike Britain, where flint was exploited for axe manufacture in the east and other rocks in the west, flint sources and porcellanite for axe manufacturing are both found adjacent to each other in the same corner of Co. Antrim. In particular, a number of more substantial chipping floors of Neolithic age are known, e.g. the opencast quarry sites at Ballygalley Head. The purpose of this study is to assess the role of flint production on the Antrim coast with particular reference to its significance in the Neolithic. This topic will be developed in the context of an analysis of the material found at Mad Mans Window near Glenarm.

Samples were taken from the ditch and various pits within the enclosure and processed foi carbonised remains. All samples were wet sieved using mesh sizes of 1mm and 300ji and the material from the coarse flot (1mm) was sorted. Of the thirty six samples taken, twelve produced small amounts of carbonised plant material. The results from these seven ditch and five pit samples form the basis of this report.

A list of the species identified in each context is given below in Tables 6 and 7. Evidence for cereal grain is scant. Emmer (Triticum dicoccum) and barley (Hordeum sp.) are present. Both are known from the Bronze Age in Britain and in Scotland emmer appears to remain the commonest wheat into the Roman period and beyond (Jones 1981, 106). The evidence for emmer comes from a single grain and fragments of chaff from the ditch (context 1002A) near the entrance of the enclosure. A fragment of hulled barley was also found in the SW section of the ditch (context 1003). This fragment appeared to be twisted which suggests that the six-row variety is present. One other fragment of barley (possibly hulled) is present in context 1103A in Pit 10 (a large pit to the S of the enclosure).

See main report in printed text. The following sections give a full catalogue of metal-working debris from the site, together with descriptions and analyses of different categories of material.

Steven Mithen's ‘Ecological Interpretations of Palaeolithic Art’ (PPS 57, 103–14) reminded me of a Chinese meal — initially satisfying, but it doesn't stick with you for very long. While I subscribe to broadly similar paradigmatic biases at the level of the metaphysic, the ‘thoughtful forager’ model itself, proposed to relate various aspects of the art under the aegis of a particular kind of adaptationist perspective, seems to be conceptually muddled and operationally problematic. Also, Mithen's starting-point, the notion of an inherent contradiction between human creativity and an adaptationist point of view, is a red herring—wherever did he get it?! I will confine these brief remarks to three points that bear on different conceptions of adaptation and how they effect construals of pattern and the meaning of pattern in Palaeolithic art. I also respond to referees' comments.

Mithen takes me, Straus and Gamble to task for omitting the individual and individual decision-making in our conceptions of adaptation (pp. 104, 105). A conception of adaptation that is focused on the group is juxtaposed with one invoking selection operating at the level of the individual organism in a direct analogy with group vs. individual selection in biological evolution.

Recent arguments about the origins of the Predynastic in Upper Egypt have posited connections between the lithic industries of that region and those of the Western Desert. It has been further claimed that a mid-Holocene arid period may have led the inhabitants of the desert regions to migrate to the Nile Valley. This essay argues that the evidence of stone tools, as well as ceramic evidence from Dakhla Oasis, fail to support the ‘desert migration’ model, at least as it applies to Dakhla Oasis.

Purpose of the examination

The identification of distinctive suites of pollen types within the cist floor at Loanleven and several other Bronze Age ‘cemeteries’ in Scotland (see Loanleven report below) led to the need to investigate the possibility of similar patterns within the Balneaves complex.

Samples from the basal and most securely stratified fills of five of the pits at Balneaves were examined (F1110A; Pit 3: F1109C and E from Pit 6: F1107A; Pit7: F1114B; Pit 13: F1115A; Pit 14) together with the blackened encrustations from within Urns 1 and 3 (see ‘The Pottery’; Alison Sheridan) were prepared according to conventional chemical techniques (cf. Moore and Webb 1978), including the use of 10|im nylon sieves and hydrofluoric acid to remove siliceous particles, stained with safranin, and examined at mag. x400 on an Olympus BHS microscope.

See also descriptive text in printed report. The additonal notes which follow are of analysed items only.

21. Examination during conservation (conservation report on Lab. No. 3543 by Kate Hunter dated 8 March 1988, a copy of which is lodged with site archive) had suggested that the pin had been manufactured by fixing a flat, rimless iron disc several millimetres from one end of the shaft, pushing the decorative head onto the shaft as far as the iron disc and then slightly flattening the end of the shaft in order to secure the decorative head. Microscopic examination of the decorative head showed that it had no clearly defined internal structure, and that extensive decay had caused some lamination, particularly near the upper surfaces. Initial spot tests with the reagents cacothalene and potassium iodide gave negative results for tin but a good positive result for lead, and although these tests are not wholly reliable they suggested that the decorative head was of corroded lead-based enamel or glass. Spectrographs analysis, of which the results are given in the following table, shows that the decorative disc head is made of tin.

The excavation of an oval crop mark close to the Abingdon causewayed enclosure showed a complex sequence of development, starting with a rectangular ditched enclosure and most probably ending with an oval barrow of a type with parallels elsewhere in lowland England. The site included the grave of two individuals associated with a polished knife, a belt slider and most probably a leaf shaped arrowhead, and produced a series of radiocarbon dates extending from the Earlier to the Later Neolithic. A number of formal deposits around one end of the site are matched by similar material from the inner ditch of the causewayed enclosure, suggesting a direct link between the two monuments.

Bodysherd of pottery from Pit 15

This sherd of pottery is of a thin red brown fabric with small quartz inclusions. Its internal surface has a thin white slip which gives it the impression of being very well made. It does not fît into any medieval fabric type known by the writer. On balance it seems likely that this sherd is from a vessel of eighteenth or nineteenth century date suggesting a fairly modern date for the feature concerned.

From 1946 to 1952. excavations were undertaken in advance of destruction by gravel workings of a series of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age monuments at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxon. These included a long enclosure, a cursus, a double ditched henge, pit circles and ring ditches with primary and secondary cremation burials and a notable Beaker burial. Sites I, II, IV, V and VI, all pit circles or ring ditches, were published in 1951. This report describes sites III, VIII, IX, XI, XII, XIII and XIV. By the early 1950s much of the Neolithic complex had been quarried for gravel, and other adjacent areas subsequently were dug away. In 1981 the construction of a bypass led to the excavation of further surviving parts of the complex: site 1, a long D-shaped enclosure incorporated in the southern end of the cursus, and sites 2, 3 and 4.

Both sets of sites are presented together, largely following the chronological scheme proposed for the complex by Bradley and Chambers (1988). Site VIII and site 1 are long enclosures of Earlier Neolithic date, with human remains. The latter site has a calibrated date of 3773–3378 BC. Site III is a cursus at least 1600 m long which cuts site VIII and incorporates site 1. A date of 3360–3040 BC was obtained from the primary fill of its ditch. Site XI is a three-phase ring ditch, perhaps successive enlargements of a barrow, but its innermost ditch is cut by a pit circle with cremations. There are Ebbsfleet sherds in the outermost ditch, and dates of 3037–2788 and 3024–2908 BC from the innermost, perhaps primary, ditch. Site XIV is a ring ditch succeeded by the Big Rings henge. Site 3 is a post circle between the ditches of the southern part of the cursus, with some secondary cremations. It has dates from the outer wood of its posts of 2890–2499, 2886–2491 and 2872–2470 BC; dates on charcoal associated with secondary cremations were 2880–2470, 2870–2460 and 2123–1740 BC. Site 2 is a penannular ring ditch with a primary date of 2912–2705 BC, and secondary cremations. Site XII is a notable Beaker burial within a two-phase ring ditch. An adult man was laid crouched on a bier and was accompanied by a fine W/MR beaker, a stone bracer, a tanged copper knife and a small riveted knife with at least one rivet of tin bronze. Traces of a stretcher-like feature were found in an adjacent pit which cuts the inner ring ditch. Site XIII, the Big Rings, is a large double ditched enclosure with central bank and opposed entrances. There was Beaker pottery in the primary fill of the inner ditch, but very little material was found in either ditch, and there were minimal features in the interior, part of which was stripped. Site 4 consists of two conjoined ring ditches within the southern end of the cursus. It encloses cremation burials. One, accompanied by an awl and Collared Urn, has a date of 2290–1910 BC. Traces of a ditched field system (originally referred to as a droveway, site IX) of later Bronze Age date were found cutting sites III, VIII and XIII, and paired ditches on site 1 may be related.

The complex is related to its local and regional context, and the sequence of development is discussed. A timescale measured in generations is advocated, with phases of continuity and episodes of little activity both represented. Several aspects of monuments are considered: their differing scales including the monumental, their ability to endure and create tradition, and finally the choice of designs, from the locally customary to the exotic.