The main object of this paper is to draw attention to the existence of Late Stone Age sites in South West Africa where perishable organic remains are preserved, and in particular to the ‘Big Elephant Cave’, discovered by Dr E. R. Scherz in the Erongo Mountains.

These lie some 10 to 15 miles north-north-east of Usakos, at approximately 21° 40′ S., 15° 40′ E., in a region of open grass steppe with stands of thornbush, mainly Acacia, with low sclerophytic scrub supported by an annual rainfall of between 150–200 millimetres. These mountains rest on Basement Complex rocks and consist of Karroo sediments through which have been introduced granites of post-Karroo Age. The western face of the Erongo forms the edge of the plateau escarpment, and looks out to the Namib Desert and the Atlantic Ocean.

The cave, to which we were conducted in May, 1959, by Dr Scherz, is situated in a commanding position on a kopje of rounded granite boulders near Ameib. It was first shown by its discoverer to the Abbé Henri Breuil when he was copying the Erongo rock paintings, but no study of the settlement was made and it was not revisited in the interim. Although the name ‘Big Elephant Cave’ has been adopted from Dr Scherz, it is, in fact, a deep rockshelter rather than a cave. It contains no paintings, but a line of male and female figures, in faded red paint, is drawn low down on a protected rock at the north side of the kopje. These have been published by the Abbé Breuil.

Some time before 1845 a remarkable hoard of Early Iron Age metalwork, almost entirely in bronze, was accidentally discovered in the vicinity of the parish of Stanwick St John, North Riding of Yorkshire, and near the great earthworks of the same period later to be excavated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler. The hoard was presented to the British Museum in 1847, and though well known, has never been studied or published in its entirety, despite its importance in the history of Celtic art in Britain. The present paper essays such a full treatment, discussing first the complicated circumstances of the actual find-spot, the probable nature of the deposit, and its technological aspects. This is followed by a descriptive survey and analysis, and a catalogue with a full set of drawings by the writer. References in the text and footnotes are to the bibliography on pp. 55–8.

Since the publication in 1951 of an article upon native copper considerable progress has been made concerning the occurrence and use of the metal in prehistoric Europe. In 1955 an important paper appeared by Professor Nestor dealing with the prehistory of the metal in Roumania and in 1957 Professor Pittioni published an outstanding survey and technical discussion upon the subject.

As archaeological research continues we may expect to learn more about the extent to which native copper was used by early man. It is generally agreed that some utilization of the native metal goes back even to Neolithic times, and that the first phase was that of cold hammered native copper, very shortly to be followed by its more extensive working in an annealed condition. The question of what quantity of native copper would have been available to prehistoric man, and was in fact used by him in different countries has hardly been touched upon as yet. No doubt in certain regions the quantity of native metal was very appreciable. For instance, Professor Nestor considers that in Roumania, and certain neighbouring countries, important deposits of copper minerals and notable quantities of native copper existed, and still exist. From Professor Nestor's discussion it appears that there was quite an intensive utilization of the local deposits of native copper in Roumania, not only as a ‘forged’ native copper phase, but leading on to the melting and casting of the metal culminating with the remarkable shaft-hole axe hammers and axe adzes so well known to archaeologists.

For a long time the study of the history of ancient metallurgy and mining in the Caucasus could not be conducted satisfactorily in the USSR due to the lack of adequate scientific analysis of metallic complexes from archaeological sites.

In his work devoted to the history of metallurgy in the Caucasus a well-known archaeologist A. A. Yessen justly remarks that for solving a number of problems connected with those questions the then existing data on chemical analysis was insufficient, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Because of this indeed it later became apparent that a number of questions investigated by A. A. Yessen were not always correctly elucidated. Even so, it should be certainly mentioned here that his monograph provided a rich historical material and already indicated the direction to be followed by further investigation of the history of ancient metallurgy and mining in the Caucasus, always assuming that sufficient chemical investigation was carried out.

Systematic investigation of metallic objects from the monuments in the Caucasus began in 1933. It was at this time that work on chemical analysis began to develop at Leningrad in the Institute of Historic Technology at the then existing Academy of Material Culture named after N. J. Marr. The purpose of this research, carried out under the guidance of A. A. Yessen and V. V. Danilevsky, was to find out the history of the use of tin.

This is a subject to which scarcely any detailed attention has hitherto been paid. Parker Brewis pronounced the accepted theory when he said that the rapier ‘evolved by lengthening the dagger little by little, keeping step with the ever-growing command of metal and ability to make longer castings’. This general explanation has been accepted, since it conforms with the canon of technical evolution and is supported by the available evidence of associations. It is not, however, sufficient to explain the form taken by British rapiers, since comparison of the daggers of the Wessex and Food-vessel cultures with the daggers and dirks of the early part of the Middle Bronze Age reveals so great a difference between them that the latter cannot be considered simply to have evolved from the former. The Early Bronze Age daggers are much smaller and broader, they have three or more rivets, and ornamental hilts with separate pommels. Middle Bronze Age dirks are longer, stronger and almost invariably have two rivets in a simple hilt. Also, the distribution of weapons in the two periods differs: in the Early Bronze Age the chief concentration is in Wessex, but this area has produced hardly any rapiers.

The Perak River rises on the Siamese border and flows southward to meet the sea near Teluk Anson in Perak. At Chenderoh, 70 miles north of the estuary, the valley has been dammed since 1930 and a large lake formed upstream. The Kota Tampan estate lies in the main valley about 4 miles north of the northern end of Chenderoh Lake (fig. 4 inset).

At Kota Tampan (fig. 1) the Perak River is incised in the bottom of a valley between two and three miles wide, the floor of which lies between the 200- and 250-foot contours. The surfaces of the narrow modern flood terraces lie just below the 200-foot contour. Small hills of granite, rising to about 330 feet m.s.l., project above the general level of the valley floor which is also cut by steep-sided ravines running out into the modern river. These ravines are usually dry, or slightly swampy, except at the mouths where the artificial raising of the water-level by the Chenderoh dam has flooded them. The residual parts of the valley floor form long, almost flat-topped, ridges between the ravines and the hills, covered by a skin of soil washed from the neighbouring higher land.

The pottery illustrated on Plates XXI-XXII and figures 1 and 2 was found some forty years ago by the Rev. W. Budgen at Green Street Drove, Eastbourne (Budgen 1922). It is displayed in the Lewes Museum, and I must thank the curator Mr N. E. S. Norris for permission to study and republish it.

Three of the vases stand out from the others because they are misformed wasters—‘cripples’ Budgen called them. It is most likely that they were fired at the same time and it seems reasonable to treat this small series as a closed group. They appear, in any case, to have been found in the same pit (Budgen 1922, 355). The rest of the pottery, or at least the more complete vessels, could have formed part of the same assemblage, but there does not seem sufficient evidence to insist on any further associations within this material.

Whether associated or not, the pottery merits republication as a whole, both for its intrinsic interest and as a tribute to the skill and patience bestowed on its reconstruction by Budgen, and one purpose of this paper will be simply to present this material. However, the small group of three ‘cripples’ raises some fundamental problems of interpretation and the main part of the paper will attempt to discuss some aspects of the British Iron Age and its classification in a more general way.

This paper is primarily concerned with the large series of Bronze Age shields known in central, north and western Europe, but, for purposes which will become apparent, some attention has also been paid to certain shields of the Mediterranean world. The first part will be devoted to a culture-historical study of the shields and the second to the methods used in their production.

The origin and the development of the Series II tools is one of those problems of Indian prehistoric archaeology which has evaded solution so far. This culture is comprised of scrapers of all sorts—side, hollow, endpoints, borers and burins (very rare) generally made on jasper, agate, chert and sometimes chalcedony also. The position of this culture in relation to other prehistoric cultures remains confused since its stratigraphical position has still to be worked out. And it awaits dating like other lithic industries because one has yet to find out the tools in association with fossils in situ in the horizons which are likely to yield them.

In the following pages, is presented the data, collected from the Narmada and its tributary valleys, which tends to throw light on this culture and an attempt is made to ‘fix’ this culture in the stratigraphy and to date it with the help of fossils, which were found along with it in plenty in this area. These observations were made by the writer when he was conducting the fieldwork in the Hoshangabad-Narsinghpur region of the Narmada river in Central India, in search of Fossil Man, under the auspices of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Govt. of India. This Narmada data, apart from ‘fixing’ it in its proper context, illustrates also its relationship with the Handaxe-cleaver complex on one hand and the Microlithic industry on the other.

Near the conclusion of the Third Report, which summarized the work on 710 specimens, the authors stated that it was ‘likely to be the last major report of the South-Western Sub-Committee’, and so it seemed at the time. During the 10 years that have elapsed since then, another 490 specimens have been examined, from the following counties and museums or collections:

This report therefore extends the list of specimens examined by this Committee from 710 to 1200, and it is believed that this really is the last major report of this body.

The site of the early prehistoric farming settlement at Nea Nikomedeia, Western Macedonia, was first noted in 1958 by Mr Photios Petsas, Ephore of Antiquities of the area for the Greek Archaeological Service: he investigated the reported discovery of archaeological finds exposed during the course of removing earth from an inconspicuous mound to make a road embankment, and forthwith stopped further destruction of the site. His willing advice and assistance, and the most generous cooperation of the Greek Archaeological Service under the direction of Dr John Papadimitriou, and of the Ministry of Agriculture, made possible the five-week excavation season in the summer of 1961. The excavations were carried out under the aegis of the British School at Athens. Thanks are due to the British Academy, the Crowther-Benyon Fund administered by the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research for providing the necessary funds. I wish to acknowledge help and guidance both in the field and in the preparation of this report from Professor Grahame Clark, under whose supervision I worked at Cambridge University during the academic years 1959–60 and 1960–61. Grateful acknowledgment is also made to Mr R. W. Hutchinson for his valuable help in the field, and to the undergraduates and research students from the University of Cambridge who willingly undertook most of the field and laboratory work. The ready assistance of the Curator of the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and his staff in shipping matters and the loan of equipment is greatly appreciated.

This report describes the excavation of a small complex of earthworks on the Dorset chalk upland (fig. 1) associated with fields and droveways. Several banked and ditched enclosures were present, the main one of which contained two sub-circular houses. The lay-out of these houses may be ascribed largely to the Deverel-Rimbury occupation of the site, but the main earthworks of the farmstead are dated on the evidence of the pottery to the early Middle Bronze Age, if not to the Wessex Bronze Age. From the plans of similar settlements with fields and droveways, then thought to belong to the Late Bronze Age (but now assigned to the Middle Bronze Age), Curwen (1938) deduced the existence of settled cultivation with the two-oxplough. The use of some form of plough during the Bronze Age has since received confirmation from the discovery of marks of cultivation in the fossil soil beneath barrows and other monuments. The placing of the houses in hollows cut into the slope recalls the Itford Hill settlement (Hollyman and Burstow, 1958) and the enclosing ditches, the Cranborne Chase sites mapped by Mrs Piggott (1951). The round houses seem to be the universal type in the Middle Bronze Age of southern England and the farmstead with 2–3 houses is comparable with Thorny Down, Plumpton Plain, Trevisker (St. Eval) and Trewey, to quote only the better known examples. It is uncertain how far we should distinguish these from what appear to be villages with up to 20-30 houses, such as occur on Dartmoor (Radford 1951).

The area examined is in the parish of Newbury, Berkshire, nearly a mile from the village of Thatcham, South of Lower Way on the Sewage Outfall Works of Newbury Corporation. The Mesolithic settlement extended along the bluff of the 8-foot gravel terrace, immediately North of the Moor Brook and the railway (SU 502668 to SU 504667).

Thatcham is only one of several sites known in the Kennet Valley to have produced a Maglemosian flint industry.

Since 1922, when Peake and Crawford, first described a flint factory from Thatcham in Berkshire, the area has become increasingly important for comparative studies of the British Mesolithic, and more specifically the Thames Valley, Clark 1932, 1936, Rankine 1956.

At Thatcham, a number of Mesolithic camping sites occur along the edge of a gravel terrace which borders a reed swamp at the junction of the Moor Brook and the Kennet river. The valley of the Kennet joins the Thames at Reading nearly fifteen miles downstream. The early excavations of Peake and Crawford and the more recent ones of Wymer (1959), were confined to the occupation site on the terrace. However from these scattered terrace hearths it was not possible to estimate the commencement of the occupation, its duration or cultural development. With the prospect of recovering a stratified sequence of artefacts, a coffer dam was therefore sunk into the swamp sediments at the foot of the terrace bluff. Inside the dam it was then possible to excavate (pl. XLIX) below the water level of the swamp (Site V).

A stratified sequence of artefacts, animal and plant remains was found, and sufficient fossil pollen and wood were preserved to enable pollen zonation and radiocarbon dating of the profile. It was apparent from the C14 dates that the algal marl accumulated for a period of the order of 500 to 1000 years.

After more than a century of work in the field a wealth of archaeological material has been recovered for analysis and interpretation by the prehistorian in his continuous attempt to understand the cultural traditions and relationships of his own ancestors. A varied array of analytical methods have grown to aid him in his task of defining ancient cultural groups. In many cases these methods have grown without their underlying principles being perfectly understood or clearly stated: they were used first and understood later. A typical example of this process has been the changing implications of the ‘Three Age System’. Curiously the position often taken today seems to suggest that no principles underlie the study of prehistory, since when these are defined they are never used and those used are rarely defined. This position is contrary to the observations of Social Anthropology and Ethnology and the pioneer work of the late Professor Childe. Wherever human actions or their fossil results, the artefact, can be studied they show distinctly non-random action conditioned by the peculiarly human attributes, namely foresight and transmitted culture. In other words they obey certain limiting principles. The present position in the study of prehistory is similar in many ways to the position of the emergent Natural Sciences in the 17th and 18th centuries; data has been amassed, but the principles remain dimly perceived or are even denied existence.