bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Tholos Tombs of the Aegean
Authors: Hood M. S. F.
Published: January 2016

Among the most impressive monuments of the earlier part of the Bronze Age in Crete are the great circular communal tombs which began to be built, notably in the Mesara plain but also in other parts of the island, before 2000 B.C., and flourished in use throughout the first half of the 2nd millennium. Similarly, the most magnificent surviving architectural creations of the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean area are the stupendous beehive or tholos tombs of the chief Mainland centres like Mycenae. Tombs of this type, with corbelled stone vaults sunk in the ground and approached by long entrance passages (dromoi), seem to appear for the first time in the Aegean about 1600 B.C., and reach their finest and grandest expression on the Mainland of Greece in the two centuries between 1500 and 1300 B.C. A map of the Aegean area showing the distribution of these two types of tombs accompanies this article (FIG. I).
Archaeology in New China
Authors: Nai Hsia
Published: January 2016

Archaeology as a branch of historical science has made new headway in the thirteen years since the founding of the Chinese People's Republic. The scale of its work has expanded and methods of research have been improved. Large numbers of young archaeological workers have been trained. In the course of the nation's gigantic economic construction, remains of ancient settlements and tombs have been uncovered in many places, yielding numerous important relics which have provided abundant data for archaeological research. Throughout the country, hosts of archaeological workers from research institutes, universities, museums and institutions for the preservation of ancient monuments are carrying out both field work and academic study and have already attained considerable success in their efforts to explore the history of ancient China on the basis of archaeological finds. All this has given further impetus to the advance of Chinese archaeology.

Archaeological finds made in New China are so rich that the present article can attempt to discuss only some of the most important problems.
A Sarmatian Royal Burial at Novocherkassk
Authors: Kaposhina S. I.
Published: January 2016

There is a large cemetery of barrows near the town of Novocherkassk, and one of the barrows, locally known as Khokhlach, was partly excavated about a hundred years ago. The finds from this Khokhlach excavation are generally known as ‘the Novocherkassk hoard’. In the autumn of 1962 a systematic study was made of the whole cemetery, and in August-September of that year two barrows standing close to each other (to the west of and 2.2 km. from the Khokhlach barrow) were excavated. One of them contained burials of Bronze Age date; the other turned out to be Sarmatian. The Sarmatian barrow is of the most exceptional interest as the finds from it are closely paralleled by the finds of ‘the Novocherkassk hoard’ from the Khokhlach barrow.

This Sarmatian barrow, known locally as the Sadovy Kurgan, was a low mound 2.20 m. in height. The top of the mound had been removed in recent times, and part of the remaining barrow had been ploughed away: the original dimensions of the barrow are therefore unknown. Excavation revealed one burial in a rectangular pit dug into the natural soil, covered with wooden planks which were in turn covered with reeds. This burial had already been robbed in ancient times, but during the original burial ceremony a ritual feast had taken place, and objects from this feast were preserved under the barrow on the original ground level. These included a large cast-bronze cauldron such as are commonly found in Sarmatian barrows, and a wrought-bronze cauldron decorated with an iron rim and ringshaped iron handles stood by the burial. Both cauldrons were covered in soot and clearly the food for the funeral feast had been cooked in them. Also placed around the burial pit were an ornamental bronze vase and a terra-cotta amphora which had once held the wine drunk at the feast. In the heaped-up soil of the barrow was a grey pottery hydria and also some other interesting objects. During the burial rites the barrow had been gradually heaped up, at first as a ring round the tomb, and then over the burial as well. During ail this the fire continued to bum, but when the feast was finished, several golden phalerae and eight silver bowls were placed in the mound. The silver bowls lay bottom upwards one on top of the other, and alongside were piled up the phalerae of gold (decorations for horses’ bridles). All this was covered by a silver louterion set upside down.
New Discoveries of Rock Paintings in Ethiopia Part I
Authors: Graziosi Paolo
Published: January 2016

Professor Paolo Graziosi is Professor of Anthropology in the University of Florence, and also Director of the Istituto di Paletnologia in that University. He here describes new discoveries of rock paintings which he saw in Ethiopia in 1961, and relates these discoveries and earlier ones from that country to prehistoric European and African art in general. In order to allow space to illustrate this article as fully as possible, it is being published in two parts. The rock art of the Adi Caieh and Karora regions will be described in the September number of ANTIQUITY, together with Professor Graxiosi’s discussion of Ethiopian rock art as a whole.
The Greek Vision of Prehistory
Authors: Phillips E. D.
Published: January 2016

The tradition of Greek thought with which we are concerned here is quite different from the mythology that preceded it, and, as it develops, has to contend with philosophical and literary traditions no less sophisticated than itself, but inspired by other interests than scientific curiosity. It treats occasionally of human physique in a manner which is scientifically interesting, but does not anywhere, in my opinion, present a theory of man's physical evolution from animal ancestors. It foreshadows much of the speculation about cultural progress which has been current during the last 150 years, touching also on the origins of religion and language, Its rather scanty remains represent a period of seven or eight centuries, the same during which medicine and some other branches of science were actively pursued or initiated by the Greeks.
The Pleistocene Colonization of Australia
Authors: Mulvaney D. J.
Published: January 2016

The Australian continent was peopled during the Pleistocene epoch. Positive evidence for this migration is lately emerging from that limbo known to archaeologists as (suspense account', a void into which many oddments have been shot over the years. Probably the most exotic claims were coincident with Dubois' revelation of Pithecanthropus in Java, when Australian optimists exhibited casts of the imprints left by (human' feet and buttocks, in allegedly Pliocene dune limestone from Victoria. This prompted Otto Schoetensach, progenitor of Homo heidelbergensis, to pronounce Australia as the probable focus of human evolution; both he and H. Klaatsch saw, in aboriginal techniques of tree-climbing, direct vestiges of arboreal ancestry [I].
Folklore of Fossils Part II
Authors: Oakley Kenneth
Published: January 2016

There are several kinds of fossil sea-urchin that are the subject of folklore, the commonest in the south of England being casts in flint, derived from the Chalk, of the heart-urchinMicraster, and of the helmet-urchinEchinocorys. Both of these, but more commonly the latter, are known to the country people as shepherd's crowns or fairy loaves (PL. xxib). Formerly at least, the Essex labourer believed that so long as one of these fossil sea-urchins was kept in the house, his family would never go short of bread (Johnson 1908, 149). At a number of localities in southern England fossil echinoids are traditionally placed on dairy shelves to keep milk from going sour. This practice is clearly linked with the ancient idea that these fossils are thunderstones.

The earliest known case of fossil echinoids being used in a ceremonial burial is in the Early Bronze Age tumulus on the Dunstable Downs, where nearly IOO shepherd’s crowns, mainlyMicraster, had been arranged to encircle the bodies of a woman and child (Worthington Smith 1894, frontispiece, 337-8). H. S. Toms collected evidence that up to the middle of the last century fossil sea-urchins were called thunderstones throughout Sussex, whereas they are now simply regarded as ‘lucky’ (PL. XXIIb), and if seen in the soil and not brought home, at least one should spit on the shepherd’s crown and throw it over the left shoulder. Even the idea of luck being attached to sea-urchins found on the fields has disappeared latterly from many villages. As there were still scattered traces of the thunderstone belief in Sussex in 1930, it is probable that more than a century ago the thunderstone aspect was dominant there. This idea survived longer in West Sussex than in East Sussex, and oral tradition can be traced back to 1860.
The Mohenjo-daro Floods
Authors: Raikes R. L.
Published: January 2016

In a recent paper a theory was put forward to account for the end of Mohenjo-daro and of other, smaller, Indus Civilization cities in Sind and along the Mekran Coast.
The Ezero Mound in South-East Bulgaria
Authors: Georgiev G. I. , Merpert N. J.
Published: January 2016

Very little work has so far been done on the Bronze Age in South-East Bulgaria. This is an area which is of the greatest importance in the prehistory of South-Eastern Europe, a fact which has been often stressed by archaeologists working in the Eastern Mediterranean [I]. Geographically linked closely to Asia Minor and the Mediterranean lands, and especially to the Troad, South-East Bulgaria should provide important data for the establishment of relations between these lands in the Bronze Age. With these aims in mind the village settlement of Ezero, a site which even before excavation was obviously one of many periods, presented itself clearly as a place for excavation. Ezero, also known as Dipsis, is 3 km. south-east of Nova Zagora: it is not far from the well-known settlement site of Karanovo and 24 km. from the Azmak mound described in a recent number of this journal [2]. Preliminary excavations carried out from 1952-8 at Ezero showed that the settlement had a great thickness of occupation levels dating from the Early Bronze Age. Systematic excavation was restarted in 1961 and continued in 1963 and 1964.

The site is bordered by swampy ground and large open water-meadows. The damp, easily worked soil was well suited to primitive agriculture, and the meadows to stock-rearing.
Recent Work in Corsica
Authors: Grosjean Roger
Published: January 2016

Corsica is now, without any doubt, regarded in the Mediterranean as 'the island of statue-menhirs'. These Corsican monumental statues are 2 to 3 m. in heightwell above the size of a normal human beingand are the work of artists belonging to the last phase of the island's megalithic culture which we would date from the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. [I]: These statue-menhirs of which at least 60 are now known from all over the island, are almost all of a very hard granite: all were worked without the use of metal tools. Since the first publication of the important site of Filitosa [2] there have been many excavations, and we can now see clearly the succession of cultures in prehistoric Corsica, and particularly the succession and interrelation of the two important cultures which interest all prehistorians so much, namely the Megalithic Culture, that is to say the culture of the builders of the megaliths, and the Torrean Culture, that is to say the builders of the torre or stone towers. This latter, the civilisation torrknne as it is described in French, was entirely unknown in Corsica before 1954. The author has now excavated and studied ten sites of the Torrean cultures-cult-sites, fortified towers, and living sites-of which at least a hundred are known south of a line from Ajaccio to Solenzara [3].
Parasite Eggs in Medieval Winchester
Authors: Pike Alan W. , Biddle Martin
Published: January 2016

The only previous report of parasite eggs from archaeological excavations in Britain is that of Taylor (1955), but their occurrence in ancient deposits and human remains in other parts of the world has been known since 1910, when Ruffer reported Schistosoma haematobium eggs in the kidneys of two Egyptian mummies. Szidat (1944) found eggs of the roundworms Ascaris and Trichuris and structures resembling eggs of the tapeworm Diphyllobothrium latum in the bodies of a girl and a man recovered from a bog in East Prussia. Pizzi and Schenone (1954) recovered eggs of the roundworm Trichuris trichiura and cysts of the protozoan parasite Entamoeba from the frozen body of an Inca child found in a tomb in the Andes. T. trichiura eggs were also observed by Helbaek (1958) in the stomach contents of a corpse recovered from a peat bog in Grauballe, Denmark.
Mortuary Houses and Funeral Rites in Denmark
Authors: Kjærum Poul
Published: January 2016

In 1954 a stone and timber-built mortuary house belonging to the Funnel-Beaker (TRB) culture was excavated at Tustrup, in the county of Randers in Eastern Jutland. At that time such structures were unknown in the area of the Funnel-Beaker culture, but, five years later, a very similar mortuary house was found at Ferslev, just south of the Limfjord, in the neighbouring county of Aalborg. From the archaeological evidence Tustrup dates from the very beginning of the period when Passage Graves (Jættestuer) were being built in Denmark. The structure and the ritual carried out in both the mortuary houses, as it could be deduced from the content and disposition of the grave goods, adds very considerably to our knowledge of the burial practices of the megalith builders of Denmark. Quite apart from this, the discoveries at Tustrup and Ferslev provide us with good fixed points in the relative and absolute chronology of the Funnel-Beaker culture since each house contained a large number of highly ornamented pots as well as charcoal from the walls and roofs of the houses, which could be dated by the C14method.
A Cosmetic Palette from Umm el-Biyara
Authors: Bennett Crystal-M.
Published: January 2016

The main purposes of the excavations conducted on the summit of this mountain were three-fold: to check the commonly accepted equation of Umm el-Biyara with the Biblical Sela' of the Edomites; to determine the character, extent and duration of the Edomite settlement, and to obtain, through stratigraphic excavation, a well-dated series of Edomite pottery and other artifacts.

As general reports on the excavations have been published elsewhere and a preliminary report appeared in the Revue Biblique, it is sufficient in this paper to give only a summary of the findings.
Colonialism and Megalithismus
Authors: Renfrew Colin
Published: January 2016

Ideas and theories in prehistory often seem to have a life of their own, surviving and flourishing quite independently of the evidence upon which they might be supposed to rest. The biblical Lost Tribes, the Etruscan migrations of Herodotus, and the Phoenician merchants of Strabo, for example, served for centuries as a model for the explanation of Europe's remote past, unsupported in many cases by any evidence whatsoever.
New Thoughts on the Belgae
Authors: Hawkes Christopher
Published: January 2016

Late Celtic Europe is discernible along three lines: from sources in texts, in coins, and in general archaeology. Where all converge, on any portion of its story, visibility ought to be good. Such a portion is the tale of the folk whose name was (in the Romans' spelling) Belgae. Julius Caesar, within the Gaul that he conquered in 58-51 BC, met Belgae first in the basin of the Marne, and then throughout between the Seine, the sea and the Rhine [I]. Their distinctness from neighbour Celts, which he opened hisMemoirs on the Gallic Warby stressing [2], was afterwards declared in Strabo’sGeographyto have been quite slight in language [3]. Yet they themselves could account for it by old tradition, which Caesar learnt, on approaching the Marne, from envoys sent him by their tribe the Remi. ‘Germani,’ beyond the Rhine, had been ancestors of most of them, and these had crossed it and acquired their present good lands with eviction of Gallic occupants. In the north-east part of the country, towards the lower Rhine and in the Meuse/Maas basin, tribes could still use ‘Germani’ as their common name [5]; one supposes them therefore ‘more Germanic’ than the rest. None the less, the envoys reckoned them Belgae in the broader sense [6]. In that same sense, after Caesar’s war was won, the Roman government called all the province ‘Belgica’. But there is something more to add. TheGallic Waremploys another land-name, ‘Belgium’. What did this mean?
The Tartaria Tablets: a Chronological Issue
Authors: Neustupný Evžen
Published: January 2016

In the June number of ANTIQUITY Mr Sinclair Hood introduced to the readers of this journal the sensational find of the so-called Neolithic inscribed tablets from Transylvania. When this find was announced for the first time [I], it made a great impression upon everybody who appreciated its significance. It was a kind of deus ex machina which seemed to solve once and for all one of the crucial issues of Central European archaeology: the absolute chronology of the Neolithic Period.
Rudolf Virchow: an appreciation
Authors: Ottaway J. H.
Published: January 2016

Rudolf Karl Ludwig Virchow was born in Pomerania on 13 October 1821 of German parents. He became a pathologist, the leading medical scientist in Germany, and attained world-wide fame through establishing the correctness of the ‘cell theory’ that now underlies all biological and medical thought. He was also a radical politician, in the 1860s one of the few effectual opponents of Bismarck, and for 25 years chairman of the Finance Committee of the Prussian Landtag.
The Chiltern Grim's Ditch
Authors: Dyer James F.
Published: January 2016

In 1931 Dr O. G. S. Crawford published his survey of the Chiltern Grim’s Ditch in ANTIQUITY, and in the following issue Mr M. W. Hughes related it to Cuthwulf’s expedition to the Chilterns in A.D. 571. It is my intention in this paper to show that Mr Hughes had no evidence for so dating the earthwork and to demonstrate that it most probably belongs to the Iron Age. Closer study on the ground has shown that it is cut by two Roman roads, and is more extensive than Crawford realized, although he had credited it with a Berkhampstead section that cannot belong to it. The only question which really remains to be considered is whether the Ditch belongs to the Belgic Iron Age, since the Belgae are known to have dug cross-country dykes, or to the pre-Belgic Iron Age, since I have recently assigned this date to a number of cross-ridge dykes not far away in the eastern Chilterns.
Dilmun: Quest for Paradise
Authors: Kramer S. N.
Published: January 2016

The land known by the name of Dilmun (or Telmun) in the cuneiform documents has been identified by most scholars with the island of Bahrein in the Persian T Gulf (note 1), and for the past nine years a large and competent Danish expedition has been excavating on the island in the hope of uncovering there the origin of the Sumerians and their civilization (note 2). Several scholars have located Dilmun in Iran, south of Elam, and have taken it to be a land bordering on the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf, whose hinterland included the province of Persis (note 3). This was the localization of Dilmun which seemed most likely to me when preparing the article 'Dilmun and the Land of the Living' some two decades ago (note 4). In recent years, however, new inscriptional material has become available which indicates that whatever its western boundary, Dilmun extended much farther to the east and included much, if not all, of that part of Iran, Pakistan, and India on which flourished the Indus or Harappan civilization (note 5). The following pages will sketch the pertinent cuneiform evidence for this identification of Dilmun in the chronological order in which it came to my attention over the years.
Pen-y-wyrlod: a new Welsh long cairn
Authors: Savory H. N.
Published: January 2016

When Mr P. P. Griffiths of Pen-y-wyrlod Farm, Talgarth, Breconshire rang the National Museum of Wales in June 1972 to announce the discovery of human remains in a stony mound on his farm, not previously recorded as an antiquity, I assumed that this must be one of the not uncommon new discoveries of Early Bronze Age round cairns. To my consternation, the following day, I was shown, in a field close to Pen-y-wyrlod (SO 151316) a long cairn far more substantial then any other previously recorded member of the Cotswold-Severn group in the Black Mountains area: it was fully 60 m. long, 25 m. wide at the widest part, and about 3 m. high—but, alas, already severely damaged by the growth of a small quarry which the farmer had been developing, in all innocence, for several years past, as a source of rubble for his yards and gateways. After all, as the farmer pointed out, the site is not recorded as an ancient monument on any map and he had concluded, as the Ordnance Survey must also have done, that it was a natural feature.
The beginning of Chinese civilization
Authors: Tê-K'un Chêng
Published: January 2016

The origins of man and the beginnings of culture in China were taken for granted in traditional Chinese history. Man was either simply evolved in the creation of the world or created by supernatural beings. In historical times all the peoples of China were recognized as the descendants of Huang-ti, the Yellow Emperor, and the basic cultural practices were attributed to the various rulers in remote antiquity. They formed a continuous sequence with its beginnings in the third millennium BC, followed by a succession of dynasties for some 5,000 years until the present day.
An open letter to archaeologists
Authors: Wilson D. G.
Published: January 2016

This letter had its origin in an after-dinner discussion with fellow-scientists, in which the trials of working with archaeologists were ruefully compared in full and horrendous detail. Being the only one present with formal training in archaeology as well as in science, I found myself to some extent playing the role of devil’s advocate, but it still seemed to me regrettable that while the scientists were making genuine efforts to understand and illuminate archaeological problems, many archaeologists make little effort to understand the limitations and difficulties of scientific techniques.
The Celtic Chariot
Authors: Stead I. M.
Published: January 2016

Spectacular discoveries in Marnian in Marnian graves, an ambiguous reference by Caesar, and the attentions of modern scholars such as Fox and Piggott have led to a great deal of interest and speculation about the Celtic chariot. The discovery of a number of chariot fittings at Llyn Cerrig Bach prompted Sir Cyril Fox to attempt a reconstruction, and the result has been generally accepted as a fairly accurate representation [I]. The material used for the Llyn Cerrig model was drawn from all over Europe, and much of it came from socalled ‘chariot-burials’. But whether or not the vehicle buried in La Thne graves was identical with the war-chariot has never been seriously questioned and is worth considering.

In Champagne and Western Germany, where the two-wheeled vehicle is found in La Tène graves together with weapons, there are two possible interpretations of its purpose. On the one hand it could be associated with the weapons, and regarded as the dead warrior's chariot; on the other, it might be linked rather with death and the corpse, thus being either a hearse or a vehicle from a funeral procession. In Yorkshire this choice is less open. Weapons are never found in the same grave as the wheels and other fittings, and it would be more reasonable to identify the vehicle with a funerary cart.
The Origins of Agriculture: a Reconsideration
Authors: Higgs E. S. , Jarman M. R.
Published: January 2016

In recent years increasing attention has been focused on the economic aspects of the changes that took place in human groups in their evolution from 'Palaeolithic' to 'Neolithic' ways of life. Braidwood and Howe carried out valuable pioneer work in this field and it is appropriate to quote their view of the problem [I]. How are we to understand those great changes in mankind's way of life which attended the first appearance of the settled village-farming community? The appearance of the village-farming community marked a transition, in cultural history, of great import for what was to follow. Before it were some half million years of savagery during which small wandering bands of people . . . led an essentially 'natural' catch as catch can existence. This statement emphasizes the static nature of the original, supposed 'natural' way of life, and contrasts it with a relatively sudden development which led to sedentary village communities. It implies a number of assumptions: that before the changes took place 'natural' man lived quite a different life, a life of random nomadism, exploiting his environment haphazardly ; that the changes entailed
Archaeology in Nigeria
Authors: Shaw Thurstan
Published: January 2016

A quarter of a century ago Antiquity carried an article by A. J. Arkell (194.4) on 'Archaeological Research in West Africa'. This was the text of a memorandum submitted by request to the Commission on Higher Education in West Africa (the Elliott Commission), which recommended that in the then Gold Coast, now Ghana, the existing Achimota College should continue its originally envisaged development into a full university college and that the University College of Ibadan should be founded in Nigeria. Not only did these developments take place, but both institutions have since become autonomous degree-granting universities ; in addition two more universities have come into being in Ghana and four in Nigeria. Three of the universities in Nigeria and one of those in Ghana concern themselves with archaeology.
The Sutton Hoo Lyre, Beowulf, and the Origins of the Frame Harp
Authors: Bruce-Mitford Rupert , Bruce-Mitford Myrtle
Published: January 2016

The old reconstruction, widely publicized and discussed by specialists, has been on exhibition in the British Museum since 1949. It is now replaced by the new reconstruction (PL. I). The change of this very early stringed instrument, the earliest reconstructible stringed instrument in Europe, from harp to lyre, is of great archaeological and musicological interest.
Neolithic Comments
Authors: Green Charles , Bellwood Peter , Hammond Norman , Case Humphrey
Published: January 2016

I have done some varied seafaring in different kinds of odd craft and so have some idea of the difficulties involved in earlier days. In the summer of 1925 I was at sea in a Fleetwood trawler, which was fishing the Ioo-fathom line from St Kilda to the Blaskets. On I July, we were off Galway Bay; it was a fairly calm day with a big Atlantic swell running. A three-man curragh from Inishmore (one of the Aran Islands) came alongside and the crew begged for fish.
British Faience Beads Reconsidered
Authors: Newton R. G. , Renfrew Colin
Published: January 2016

The ‘faience’ beads of the British Bronze Age have since the last century been appreciated as the product of a somewhat sophisticated technology. Although the possibility of local manufacture was seriously considered by earlier antiquaries, especially for the Scottish beads, in more recent years-since the writings of Childe and Piggott-a Mycenaean or Egyptian origin has been widely assumed for them.
Archaeological Classification by Metal Analysis
Authors: Slater E. A. , Charles J. A.
Published: January 2016

Over the last few decades, much interest has centred on the use of spectrographic analyses of Bronze Age objects as a means of classification to produce groups for subsequent archaeological assessment. Separate research teams have used differing systems to classify their results, the most comprehensive work being that of the Stuttgart school, published in two volumes, SAM I and SAM 2 by Junghans, Sangmeister and Schroder (1960; 1968).
Megalithic Answers
Authors: Daniel Glyn
Published: January 2016

The writers of this important and interesting symposium did not set out to answer all the questions that they ask, and this was wise and modest. They wanted to think afresh themselves about old problems-problems of the inter-relationships and origins of British megalithic tombs that have been discussed for over a hundred years-in the light of new knowledge, and to make all other megalithic enquirers do the same. In this they have succeeded: this stimulating and thoughtprovoking book must be read by all concerned with the prehistory of western Europe in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC.
The earliest Neolithic in the West Mediterranean: a new appraisal
Authors: Guilaine Jean
Published: January 2016

The principal fact to emerge in recent years is the antiquity of the first neolithic cultures in the western Mediterranean. Listed below (Table I) are radiocarbon dates from sites with impressed ware (occasionally, in southern Italy, associated with painted pottery).

There are thus quite a number of dates available. The three seventh-millennium dates are questionable: the Coppa Nevigata date (6200 bc) has often been criticized; the Cap Ragnon date (6020 bc) is certainly too early; and the Velderpino date (6000 bc) remains to be confirmed. The same is true of the Camprafaud date (5950 bc). The sixth-millennium dates are more numerous and come from southern Italy, Corsica, Provence, Languedoc and even Spain (Los Grajos). But without doubt the main bulk is provided by the fifth-millennium dates which convince by their sheer numbers (more than 50). The fifth millennium was the Golden Age of the impressed ware groups of the West Mediterranean.
Rattus rattus: the introduction of the black rat into Britain
Authors: Rackham James
Published: January 2016

The subject of this article, ‘Rattus rattus’ (Linnaeus, 1758), or the black rat, has, in Mr Rackham's estimation, considerable archaeological importance, especially in view of recent discussions on plague and the end of Roman Britain, and subsequent plagues of the Anglo-Saxon period. We learn that some recent finds suggest a Roman date for the introduction of the black rat into Britain. Mr Rackham is a Senior Research Assistant in the Biological Laboratory, Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, with a research interest in late Pleistocene vertebrate fauna. Current work in the Department involves the environmental analysis, particularly zoological, of archaeological sites of all periods in the northern five counties of England.
Hoyle on Stonehenge
Authors: Moir Gordon
Published: January 2016

In 1966 [Sir] Fred Hoyle published two papers on the possible use of Stonehenge as an eclipse predictor (1966a,b). He has now (Hoyle, 1977) returned to this theme with a very clearly written and well-illustrated book that is essentially an expansion of the material in the two 1966 papers. In brief, Hoyle proposes that the extant features of Stonehenge I provide the necessary means systematically to observe the sun and moon and to keep track of the nodes of the lunar orbit. This would provide sufficient information to allow eclipses of the moon to be predicted. He also proposes that by the time of Stonehenge III this method was superseded by the use of the Saros cycle of 18 years 11 days to predict eclipses. This last method almost certainly implies that written records of events at full moon were kept. Since there is no evidence from the British Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age of writing or numeracy this proposal is purely speculative.
Dartmoor reaves: a nineteenth-century fiasco
Authors: Fleming Andrew
Published: January 2016

In April 1972 Mr Fleming, Lecturer in Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Sheffield, and his colleague Dr John Collis, were able to demonstrate the prehistoric date of a system of reaves, or low walls, on south-west Dartmoor. Further research showed that the true date and function of the reaves had been suggested in the early nineteenth century, but that they gradually come to be ignored by prehistorians of more recent times; Mr Fleming, Director of the Dartmoor Reave Project, here documents this curious case of lost knowledge.
Some problems in the study of Jomon subsistence
Authors: Richard  , Pearson Kazue
Published: January 2016

The Jomon Period of Japanese prehistory, which extends from the 11th millennium BC to about 300 BC, has been termed ‘Neolithic’ in the tradition of the archaeology of North-eastern Asia since diagnostic artifacts include ceramics and polished stone tools. In more general terms, however, the subsistence pattern may be seen as Mesolithic, with the utilization of shellfish, fish, nuts, and roots. In recent years, Japanese archaeologists have raised the question of the possibility of early cultivation, and this has become one of the main problems in Jomon research. Richard and Kazue Pearson prepared this general survey of problems in Jomon subsistence for the Symposium on Japanese Archaeology held at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Boston, 3 April 1974. It was further revised during the tenure of a Research Fellowship of the Japan Foundation, Tokyo, during the summer, 1974, as part of a broader study of prehistory of the broadleaf evergreen forest zones of eastern Asia. Richard Pearson is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Kazue Pearson is co-translator of the English edition of Jeong-hak Kim's book on Korean archaeology (Kankoku no Kokogaku, 1972; Kawade Shobo Press) which will appear in 1978 as the ‘Prehistory of Korea’, from the University Press of Hawaii.
Resources and population in the British Neolithic
Authors: Whittle A. W. R.
Published: January 2016

Various ways of dividing up the chronological and cultural content of the Neolithic of the British Isles have been proposed. Thus Piggott assigned the Windmill Hill culture to Early and Middle phases, and the Peterborough and other cultures to a Late phase (1954); Clarke proposed similar Early, Middle and Late phases, with the addition of a Final phase (1970,275); Case divided the Irish Neolithic into a beginning, a middle and an end (1969a) (a scheme recently further subdivided by ApSimon (1976)), his stages marked by various cultural innovations and developments. Though based on such cultural changes, these schemes—necessary as they are—all tend to create the impression of steady and consistent human activity, though manifesting itself in different ways at different times, over the by now vast span of the British Neolithic. Nor has this impression been altered greatly by the large number of radiocarbon dates-over 150—available for cultural activity over the period from at the latest 3500 bc down to 2000 bc or soon after.
Trouble at t'mill: industrial archaeology in the 1980s
Authors: Clark C.M.
Published: January 2016

Despite the ‘archaeology’ in its name, industrial archaeology is a world of its own which barely figures in ANTIQUITY or the other general archaeology journals. A consistent trend in recent archaeology has been an interest in landscapes and the physical contexts of settlement, studies by survey rather than excavation of rich spot sites for their own sake. That landscape is usually rural, and its industry – mills, olive presses, or building-stone quarries – of a pastoral nature. Here, an approach is presented in that same spirit, as the archaeology of a more fully industrial landscape.
Wooden sculpture from Gallo-Roman Auvergne
Authors: Vatin Claude
Published: January 2016

It would be an exaggeration to say that until recently the sculpture of Celtic and Roman Gaul has remained unknown. Espérandieu’s catalogue (Espérandieu, 1907) and the collections at St-Germain (Benoit, 1969) provided numerous illustrations, often of exceptional quality. Nevertheless, the recent finds of votive deposits at the Source of the Seine in Burgundy and Chamalihres in Auvergne (Martin, 1963; 1964; Deyts, 1966; Vatin, 1969a; 1969b) have extended our knowledge to an unexpected degree, and in a field with which we were previously almost entirely unfamiliar, that of sculpture in wood (EspCrandieu, no. 2970 ff. (Montbouy), 3412 (Essarois), 5347 (Luxeuil); Mansuelli, 1967, fig. 115; Louis, 1950; 1954). The Chamalihres deposit alone yielded more than five thousand wooden ex-votos: the figure speaks for itself.
Radiocarbon chronology of the Danish Mesolithic and Neolithic
Authors: Tauber Henrik
Published: January 2016

For some years it has been obvious that the new tree-ring-calibrated radiocarbon dates would necessitate a drastic revision in conventional time scales and in the whole structure of cultural relationships developed for the European Mesolithic and Neolithic. The full assessment of the new pattern, however, has to await the time when relative archaeological sequences, based on stratigraphy and supposed cross-datings, become supplemented with or replaced by approximately absolute chronologies covering each of the major cultural provinces of Europe.
The brooches in the Pietroasa treasure
Authors: Brown David
Published: January 2016

The Pietroasa treasure is a late fourth-century hoard of jewellery and gold plate; it is normally associated with the Visigoths, and is thought to have been buried at the time of the advance of the Huns into Europe. The surviving pieces of the treasure were shown in the splendid exhibition of ‘Treasures from Romania’ in the British Museum last year; the objects were briefly described in the exhibition catalogue and many were illustrated, but there were no details of the finding or significance of the hoard, and the visitor was left to speculate on the very battered state of many of the pieces. In fact, when found, the treasure comprised 22 pieces and, by all accounts, all were in excellent condition; the poor state of the twelve survivors is due to an unhappy chain of events.
The first decade in New Guinea archaeology
Authors: Allen Jim
Published: January 2016

Immediately to the north of Australia, the island of New Guinea forms the largest single land mass in the cultural area known as Melanesia (FIG. I). Politically the island is divided; to the west is the Indonesian state of West Irian, to the east is the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, at present administered by the Australian Government. While such political boundaries are disregarded as a matter of course in attempting to reconstruct the prehistory of the area, the development of archaeological research reflects, and has been impeded by, this artificial division.
Harvest selection and domestication in seed plants
Authors: Wilke Philip J. , Bettinger Robert , King Thomas F. , O'Connell James F.
Published: January 2016

In recent years research has been directed to looking for the origins of agriculture and to finding the causes of the transition from hunting and gathering to food production and the domestication of plants and animals. From these studies it has become apparent first, that the transition occurred several times and in several places in prehistory; secondly, that the mechanisms underlying the transition are quite complex; and thirdly that the transition occurred in some regions but not in others, in spite of the prevalence of similar environmental conditions and patterns of exploitation.
The Coppergate helmet
Authors: Addyman Peter V. , Pearson Nicholas , Tweddle Dominic
Published: January 2016

Coppergate, one of the many York streets with a name of Scandinavian derivation, runs through the heart of modern York, though it lies some way outside the Roman legionary fortress. Evidently the Roman Ouse Bridge had, by the Viking Age, been replaced by another, further downstream, and this had caused the city centre to shift. In the mid-1970s York City Council decided to clear and develop five of the long narrow properties which run back from Coppergate towards the nearby River Foss. York Archaeological Trust carried out preliminary investigations which showed that well-preserved Anglo-Scandinavian buildings were to be found on the site, with organic remains excellently preserved in the waterlogged deposits. The Trust therefore chose to excavate four of the tenements before development began. Five years of continuous work on the site produced an occupation sequence which began with timber buildings of the first century AD, canabae outside the Roman fortress.
Trapping reindeer in South Norway
Authors: Barth Edvard K.
Published: January 2016

Very soon after the ice withdrew from the higher levels of the Scandinavian Peninsula the vegetation invaded. Even up to at least 1,100–1,20 m above sea-level the pine forest was in existence about 8,500 years ago (Barth et al., 1980).

Radiocarbon datings from human sites in the high mountains of southern Norway also go back 8,500 years BP (Moe et al., 1978, Bang-Andersen & Kjos-Hanssen, 1979). It seems probable that the reindeer has been ‘the only possible resource that can explain man's presence in the highlands during the Early Mesolithic’ (Moe et al., 1978). There is little doubt that for groups of people in the Norwegian mountains, reindeer was the most important food during thousands of years (Barth 1981a).
South Lodge after Pitt Rivers
Authors: Barrett John , Bradley Richard , Bowden Mark , Mead Barry
Published: January 2016

Between 1880 and 1893 General Pitt Rivers excavated two Bronze Age sites inside his park at Rushmore. In 1880 and 1884 he investigated a cemetery of six barrows at Barrow Pleck, and in 1893 he went on to examine the small enclosure known as South Lodge Camp, which is situated about 130m to the south. These excavations are reported in his volumes on Cranborne Chase, which are still referred to as a model of 'total publication' (Pitt Rivers, 1888, 1898; Alcock, 1978). The results of this work raised the possibility that here was a rare case of a prehistoric settlement associated with its cemetery, but other aspects of the sites, in particular the nature and chronology of the enclosure, have aroused greater interest among later generations of archaeologists. Until recently, it has been uncertain how far this published record can be reinterpreted. Since 1977 we have carried out fresh excavations on both sites. These have taken in the entire enclosure, parts of its field system and selective re-examination of the barrow cemetery. With the completion of that work we are able to offer a summary of the results and a comparison between our findings and those of the General. The first section of this account reconsiders Pitt Rivers's excavation and summarizes our main conclusions concerning his working methods. It is also a contribution to the current debate on the nature of archaeological publication. The second part describes the results of our own work on these sites between 1977 and 1981.
Maiden Castle: excavation, education, entertainment?
Authors: Wainwright G. J. , Cunliffe B. W.
Published: January 2016

In its developed or final form Maiden Castle, some two miles (3.2 km) south-west of Dorchester in Dorset, is an iron age hillfort, of great complexity, which takes in two knolls of a saddle-backed spur of Upper Chalk, the highest point of which is about 440 ft (c.134 m) above OD. The defences enclose47 acres (c.18 ha) and consist of three banks and two ditches with an additional bank inserted along most of the south side. There are two entrances, at the east and at the west, each with double openings elaborately defended by outworks. The outstandingly imposing character of Maiden Castle is derived from the size and complexity of these earthwork defences rather than from its altitude or the natural defensive advantages of its position. Ptolemy has been thought to supply a hint as to the ancient name of Maiden Castle. The conventional identification of Roman Dnrchester is with theDurnovaniaof the Antonine Itinerary. Ptolemy omits that placename, but mentionsDuniumin the same region as the one city apparently worthy of mention in the territory of the Durotriges (GeographiaI, 103, ed. C Müller (1883)).Duniumwas long ago identified with Maiden Castle. This may well be so, although recently Hod Hill and Hengistbury have also been put forward as possibilities. Part of the hillfort lies on the site of a neolithic causewayed enclosure and it also surrounds a unique ‘long-mound’ of the same period, a bronze age round barrow and the foundations of a Romano-British temple and accompanying buildings.
Mariette Pacha and Verdi's Aïda
Authors: Humbert Jean-Marcel
Published: January 2016

Aïda est en effet un produit de mon travail; c'est moi qui ai d#x00E9;cidé le Vice-Roi à en ordonner la représentation; Aïda, en un mot, est sortie de mon cerveau, et il me semble qu'avant d'en disposer aussi complètement, on me devait au moins la déférence de m'en écnire (Mariette, 1871a).

Auguste Mariette, born in Boulogne-sur-Mer on 11 February 1821, is one of the most endearing characters of Egyptology. Very far ahead of his time, he did all he could to prevent Egypt being further plundered by archaeologists, and to enable it to learn how to conserve its treasures and use them to its advantage. He was given the title of Bey after his discovery of the Memphis Serapeum, and was later raised to the high rank of Pacha, a rare distinction for foreigners, on 5 June 1879. He died on 18 January 1881, and was buried at Boulaq, afterwards Cairo. A monument in his honour was set up in his native town which held glittering celebrations on the centenary of his death.
Archaeological retrospect 8
Authors: Becker C. J.
Published: January 2016

In this, the eighth contribution to our archaeological retrospect series, Professor Carl Johan Becker describes the development of Danish archaeology in the last fifty years, how it affected him and how he affected it, since his first excavation in 1932. He retired this year as Professor of Nordic Archaeology in the University of Copenhagen: in this wide-ranging and most informative article he says that a ‘new survey of Danish prehistory… will not be forthcoming’ from him, but we have good reason to believe that he is mistaken.
George Dennis and the Etruscans
Authors: Ridgway David
Published: January 2016

It is well enough known that readers of English enjoy unimpeded access to 'the greatest book written about the Etruscans' in George Dennis'sCities and cemeteries of Etruria(Strong, 1968, 140). Well enough known: but not entirely true. Dennis's references to the Etruscans themselves have rather less evocative charm and lasting value than his guide to their country: 'he (and his contemporaries) got thehistoryhopelessly wrong' (Finley, 1972, III; and see Dennis himself, 1893, on Phoenicians in America).
A survey of Memphis, Egypt
Authors: Smith H. S. , Jeffreys D. G.
Published: January 2016

The Egypt Exploration Society's Survey of Memphis was begun in 1982, the aim being to provide a full documentation for the past study of a much-neglected national capital of the ancient near east: indeed, as the authors of this article remark, ‘A history of ancient Egypt which omitted Memphis would be like a history of ancient Italy which omitted Rome’. The programme of investigation is being undertaken in the face of encroaching agricultural and residential development, and an ever-rising water table. Excavation may be regarded as auxiliary to broader survey and environmental questions. The authors are Professor Harry Smith, Edwards Professor of Egyptology, who has worked in Egypt for the last 30 years, including the groundwork for the Unesco-backed Nubian survey in the 1960s; and David Jeffreys (Research Assistant at UCL) who has worked for 16 years on sites in the UK, Egypt, Syria and Jordan.