bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Earliest Bronze Swords in Britain and their Origins on the Continent of Europe
Authors: Cowen J. D.
Published: February 2015

Notable advances have taken place on the continent of recent years in the study of bronze types of the Late Bronze Age, and of their distribution both in time and space. In Britain, too, progress has been made. We have some while since distinguished a Late Bronze Age II (roughly equivalent to Hallstatt B) from a Late Bronze Age I (roughly Hallstatt A), and latterly even begun—though still dimly—to envisage a Late Bronze Age III, which would be the counterpart with us of a true Hallstatt period (Reinecke's Hallstatt C and D, or Montelius VI).

In regard to swords we recognize the intrusive Carp's-Tongue variety, characteristic of the opening of our Late Bronze Age II, and certain native weapons that are contemporary with it. We have also long been familiar with the later Hallstatt bronze swords of Gündlingen type. But the series as a whole has not yet been studied, and its origins are vague and ill-documented. It is the object of this paper to offer a reasoned starting-point for the sequence of development in Britain, so that we may be the better equipped to determine which of our sword-types can properly be assigned to our own Late Bronze Age I, and even, possibly, to throw some light on the chronology of the period.
Swords and Scabbards of the British Early Iron Age
Authors: Piggott Stuart
Published: February 2015

Although among our most striking antiquities, the swords and daggers of the British Early Iron Age, with their accompanying scabbards, have received no systematic study in the light of recent archaeology. The artistic qualities of many of the ornamented bronze scabbards had led to their becoming collectors' pieces from the 18th century onwards, and the basic treatment of the types (and indeed the only publication of many examples) is that of A. W. Franks when he was engaged in defining the ‘Late Celtic’ art style in his articles of 1863 and 1880. On this basis, Déchelette was able to include the British material in his classic treatment of European La Tène swords in 1914, and this was followed and amplified by R. A. Smith in 1925. Since then, the British scabbards have received incidental mention by such students of Iron Age metal-work as Leeds, Ward-Perkins and Fox, but they have not been treated as a group. The purpose of this paper is to review the available examples, to attempt a classification, and to determine the relationships of these products of the armourers' craft in Early Iron Age Britain to what is known of the stylistic development of other decorative metal-work, and to the areas of settlement and trade interchanges of the various Iron Age tribal groups or distinctive communities. The absence of any recent comprehensive treatment of the enormous series of continental La Téne swords, and the distinctively insular character of the British groups, has led me to restrict this study almost entirely to the British evolution, with the minimum reference to prototypes or parallel developments on the European mainland.
Notes on the Bronze Age in the East Midlands
Authors: Powell T. G. E.
Published: February 2015

The English Midlands (fig. 1) as a natural region, and for the purposes of environmental archaeology, form a more restricted area than that to which the term is usually applied in modern geography. Fox (1943, 68) has written of ‘… the great triangle of forest lands which form the Midlands …’ and reference to the maps in the same work shows this triangle as roughly lying between the Dee estuary at Chester, the confluence of the Severn and the Avon at Tewkesbury, and a point in the vicinity of the watershed between the Trent and the rivers of the Wash. For convenience of reference it is suggested that the approximate eastern point should be represented by the site of Belvoir Castle for here the plain has narrowed between the southern tip of the Pennines, and the uplands of Leicestershire, to the effective basin of the Trent. This river in its course below Nottingham flows through ancient forest lands, but it is no longer Midland country.

The most uniform frontier of the Midlands, as here defined, is that provided to the south and east by the great sweep of the Jurassic uplands from the Cotswolds to Lincoln Edge. To the west, the Severn and the hill country of the Welsh borderlands form a zone which provides natural communications north and south and into the Welsh massif, but which, as it were, turns its back to the east. The northern confines of the Midlands are altogether less definite, but may be said to creep round the edges of the southern Pennines from the south bank of the Mersey to the middle course of the Trent.
Preliminary Report on Excavations at Star Carr, Seamer, Scarborough, Yorkshire (Second Season, 1950)
Authors: Clark J. G. D. , Walker D. , Corner E. J. H. , Fraser F. C. , King J. E.
Published: February 2015

The first season's digging at Star Carr, Seamer, was confined to the examination of a single cutting and a lateral extension from this, the whole area amounting to no more than 475 square feet. The second season's work carried out in June and July 1950 was aimed first and foremost at learning more about the character of the brushwood flooring revealed in 1949 and in increasing the range of data bearing on the culture of the mesolithic hunters and on the wild animals on which they subsisted. Cuttings (II and III) were accordingly opened on either side of the original one, but three-foot balks were retained so as to prevent loose peat and water pouring from the original cutting into the new workings (fig. 1). The width of cuttings II and III was maintained at three yards so that the peat overlying the archaeological level could be dumped without harrowing. The new cuttings were started three yards south of datum, in view of what had been learnt in the previous season about the limits within which organic materials survived. Cutting II was extended southward well out into the lake bed, but cutting III was not carried out so far owing to the seepage of water from the lateral extension from the original cutting. The total area examined in cuttings II and III was approximately 747 square feet.
Textiles and Weaving Appliances in Prehistoric Britain
Authors: Henshall Audrey S.
Published: February 2015

This paper is an attempt to bring together the rather scanty evidence for prehistoric textiles in the British Isles, whether in the form of surviving fragments, impressions on bronze corrosion, or implements associated with spinning and weaving. While the material cannot compare with the rich series from Scandinavia or Switzerland, it has, nevertheless, considerable points of interest in its own right.

Surviving woven textiles are first discussed, with such evidence of spinning and weaving techniques as can be deduced from the fragments. The archaeological material representing weaving appliances (e.g. spindle whorls, loom-weights, weaving combs, etc.) is then reviewed, with a special note on the curious technique of tablet-weaving, and finally there is a consideration of the evidence for basketry and allied fabrics. The material discussed is listed with references in a series of tabular appendices at the end of the paper.
The Birch as a Source of Raw Material during the Stone Age
Authors: Vogt Emil
Published: February 2015

It is hardly necessary to point out that birch was one of the common trees of the younger stone age and that its wood was much used for technical purposes. This must have been even more the case in mesolithic times and during the upper palaeolithic period, when during a certain period this tree dominated the landscape to such an extent that we can even speak of a Birch period.

The use of birch wood soon made men acquainted with its own special properties. If at present we are first able to demonstrate a knowledge of these for the neolithic and later stages, it is not to be doubted that this merely represented a continuation of a mesolithic accomplishment. There are two properties of birch which are particularly well exhibited by the pile-dwelling finds. The bark can be detached from the tree in thin layers, is extraordinarily easily worked and can be sewn like fine leather. But, secondly, it is possible to obtain a pitch from the bark, which after correct preparation makes a particularly useful glue. The pitch occurs especially in the bark and allows rolled up pieces of this to burn with a clear flame. These so-called birch-bark tapers, which even in modern times played an important part in illumination, are found not uncommonly in the Swiss pile-dwellings.
Stone ‘Maceheads’ with Mesolithic Associations from South-Eastern England
Authors: Rankine W. F.
Published: February 2015

The purpose of this brief article is to review the evidence concerning stone ‘maceheads’ with hour-glass perforation found in apparently Mesolithic associations in south-eastern England.
Neolithic House—Types in Temperate Europe
Authors: Childe V. Gordon
Published: February 2015

Ten years ago the prehistoric soil of Europe was literally riddled with ‘pit dwellings’ in which our ancestors slept and cooked, huddled together like soldiers in a bell tent. I suppose it was wraithes from Tacitus and Xiphilinus combining in the minds of 16th century antiquaries with more exact travellers' tales of the earth lodges of the Red Indians that caused this overcrowding of the pits. For the holes in the ground are there right enough: it is only in the last ten years that Bersu and Paret have evicted their human occupants to make room for the pigs and weevils these would properly accommodate. Thanks to them we realize that neither Stone Age Danubians nor Iron Age Britons were housed in subterranean silos or semi-subterranean sties. But it is only fair to remark that Laszlo and Marton in Hungary and Schuchhardt in Germany before the first world war had identified commodious houses built above the ground on a frame of stout posts. Today it is plain that such farm houses were normal from the beginning of the new stone age wherever excavators' technique is adequate for their recognition, and it is to their description that I must devote most of this sketch.
A Late Bronze Age Hoard from Blackrock in Sussex and its Significance
Authors: Piggott C. M.
Published: February 2015

The hoard of bronzes from Blackrock near Brighton, was first published in 1916, and later received treatment by Curwen in his Archaeology of Sussex. The obviously foreign elements in the hoard have not been clearly recognised in the past, and in view of their significance it is desirable that a more detailed description of the finds should be put on record, and that some attempt should be made to fit them into the existing pattern of the Late Bronze Age of the British Isles.

The following objects (all of bronze) were found in the hoard:

I. Three ‘Sussex Loops.’

II. Two plain armlets.

III. Eight unlooped palstaves.

IV. Rapier blade with three rivet holes.

V. Dirk handle.

VI. Decorated spiral finger-ring.

Unfortunately the exact locality and conditions of finding cannot be determined with certainty, but there is good reason to believe that the discovery was made at Blackrock, about two miles to the east of Brighton. There is little doubt that all these objects were found together, and that they comprised the whole hoard.

Of these objects, the Sussex loops can be fairly closely dated in the British Bronze Age, and the bronze dirk handle and decorated spiral finger-ring are imports from Schleswig-Holstein or North Germany. The origin of the other objects is less certain, but it is immediately clear that a study of this hoard may be of value in cross-dating between our own Bronze Age and that of the Northern Countries.

First we will discuss the ‘Sussex Loops’ and their chronological position in the British Isles.
Gallo-British Colonies the Aisled Round-House Culture in the North
Authors: Scott Lindsay
Published: February 2015

In a former paper, ‘The Problem of the Brochs,’ the writer sought to review the culture which appeared in the Western and Northern Islands and on the Northern Mainland in the 1st century B.C. and to clear away some preconceptions which seemed to hinder a realistic understanding of it. It was there suggested that a clue to the real nature of the culture might be found in a study of the ‘wheelhouse,’ a building which had not accumulated round itself those more romantic conceptions of 19th century archaeology, which made of every house a castle and of every mound a tomb; but was accepted for what it was, a dwelling of a working population. In the present paper this clue is followed with the aim of answering some of the questions which the former paper merely posed. A firm point of departure is sought in a farmstead excavated by the writer in Uist, and thence the inquiry is followed through the abundant, if unequally valuable, reports of earlier excavators to a survey of the culture as a whole.

The survey will be seen to owe much to the earlier one published by Professor Childe in his ‘Prehistory of Scotland’ in 1935, where, for the first time, elements in the material culture were distinguished which were plainly of South-west British origin and the result of immigration thence. To Dr Alex. Curle it owes a debt which will be apparent without reference to footnotes. It is due to Dr Curle's wide ranging excavations in the wheelhouses, the wags, the brochs and the hut circles of the culture, and to his earthfast judgment in regard to them, that we know more of the Iron Age dwellings in the North, and of the life lived in them, than we know of the habitations of any other part of Britain.
The Final Bronze Age in the Near East and in Temperate Europe
Authors: Childe V. Gordon
Published: February 2015

When ten years ago I discussed the absolute chronology of the European Bronze Age, I took the amber beads from Kakovatos as providing a terminus ante quem about 1450 B.C. for its ‘Early’ phase and accepted the appearance in the East Mediterranean area of cremation burial in urn-fields, cut-and-thrust swords (fig. 1), safety-pins (fig. 3), turban dishes and urns with ribbed or twisted handles as indicative of a similar limit about 1250 B.C. for the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. The first date has subsequently been confirmed and given precision in a satisfactory manner. In his paper on ‘The Early Bronze Age in Wessex’ Piggott showed how his Wessex culture could be cross-dated by Aegean contacts. On the one hand many Wessex graves contain segmented faience beads imported from the East Mediterranean and plausibly dated there about 1400 B.C.: on the other, graves of the same culture at Normanton and Manton were furnished with gold-bound amber discs identical in form and size with one from a L.M. II tomb at Knossos. Assuming the latter to be a British import, it gave 1450 as a terminus ante quem for the rise of the Wessex culture. At the same time British types in Central Europe and Unětician types in Wessex barrows, established a synchronism between the Wessex culture and the advanced phase of the Early Bronze Age cultures of the Danubian area (in typological terms Reinecke's phase A2), to which phase the Perjamos grave at Ószentivan, containing imported segmented faience beads, identical with those from Wessex and therefore also datable about 1400, should be assigned.
From Bronze Age to Iron Age: Middle Europe, Italy, and the North and West
Authors: Hawkes C. F. C.
Published: February 2015

This paper is intended as a sequel, reaching into the Early Iron Age, to the preceding one by Professor Childe on ‘The Final Bronze Age in the Near East and in Temperate Europe.’ When he and I were invited to prepare these papers first, as addresses to the Prehistoric Society's Conference in London in April 1948, we purposely agreed to do most of our work on them separately, he approaching the problem of the European Bronze—Iron Age transition from its Bronze Age end, and I from its Iron Age end. But now, through his kindness, I am writing with his paper in its final form before me; and I want therefore to begin by considering what he has written, in order to fit my contribution squarely into his. I shall then turn to Italy, and to its relations with Europe beyond the Alps and with Greece and the Orient, and so approach the Hallstatt question and the Final Bronze Ages of the North and West, upon which the Iron Age, in due time, supervened. I am most grateful to Childe for his approval to this course; and his paper is truly so important, that I cannot but make it the starting-point for mine.
Objects of South Scandinavian Flint in the Northernmost Provinces of Norway, Sweden and Finland
Authors: Clark J. G. D.
Published: February 2015

The data for this paper were obtained in the course of a journey round Scandinavia made during the summer of 1947 with the aid of a Leverhulme Research Grant. Most of the evidence is housed in the Tromsö Museum, the Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm, and the National Museum at Helsingfors, and I am thankful to the authorities of these for ready access to their great collections and for help in many ways. A certain amount of the material from the northern provinces of Norway is contained in the Universitetets Oldsaksamling at Oslo and, since at the time of my visit the stone age collection was still in store from the war, I was not able to examine it in detail and have relied upon the works of Nicolaissen and Gjessing, supplemented by information obtained by correspondence. In the case of the material housed in the small but important collections at Umeå and Skellefteå, which I was unable to visit, I have relied upon articles by Dr Gustaf Hallström, whose knowledge of Norrland antiquities is unrivalled. While it is certain that a number of finds have escaped me, the evidence summarised in the Appendix can at least be taken as a minimum statement of what has already been discovered in territories, which owing to their remoteness, vast size—Norrland contains approximately four-sevenths of the whole of Sweden—and scanty population are still, so far as the Swedish and Finnish regions are concerned, comparatively unexplored archaeologically, when judged by the standards prevailing in other parts of Scandinavia.
The Problem of the Brochs
Authors: Scott Lindsay
Published: February 2015

It is twenty years since Dr Alex. Curle published his conclusions on the problem of the brochs and it does not diminish our regard for the great services which he has given to the study of the Scottish Iron Age that his article did not end the discussion. About the same time Dr Watson and Professor Brögger expressed their views, and the Scottish Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments summarised the results of their survey, a summary which they have brought up to date in their recently published volumes. In the intervening years Professor Gordon Childe has made important contributions, and one valuable broch excavation has been reported. And yet it cannot be said that the central difficulty has been resolved.
Studies in the Palaeolithic Succession in England, No. III: Palaeoliths from St. Neots, Huntingdonshire
Authors: Paterson T. T. , Tebbutt C. F.
Published: February 2015

Palaeolithic artifacts were recorded from a terrace on the Great Ouse, near St. Neots, Huntingdonshire, in 1927, the chief source being a group of pits dug in what was formerly part of Paxton Park, on the left bank of the river in the parish of Little Paxton. Mr Tebbutt has since recovered many more artifacts from this site. Taken together, the material constitutes a working industry, which will be described in this paper.

A twelve-foot section, fig. 1, shows a basal layer (1) of boulders and large pebbles resting upon undisturbed Oxford Clay. One boulder of limestone measured two feet in length, and many other erratics showed the derivation of this layer from drift deposits of a preceding glacial stage. Bones and teeth of Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros antiquitatis, Rangifer tarandus, and Equus caballus were found here. This basal bed is not a solifluxion level in place, though it may represent a solifluxion layer which has been re-washed and sorted. Certainly the Oxford Clay has not been caught up into it, and the elements are uniformly water-laid, passing up, without break, into nine feet of compact, well-bedded, fluviatile gravels.
The Technique of Blade Production in Mesolithic and Neolithic Times
Authors: Barnes Alfred S.
Published: February 2015

This paper deals with the production of long blades of obsidian and flint and with the techniques employed in the production of short blades in Mesolithic and Neolithic industries. Owing to the exigencies of war and the inaccessibility of material the range and the treatment of the subject have necessarily been restricted. Nevertheless the existence of identical techniques in England, Scotland, France, Denmark, Hungary, the Mediterranean, India, America and S.W. Australia, may not be without interest.
A Cemetery of the Ronaldsway Culture at Ballateare, Jurby, Isle of Man
Authors: Bersu G.
Published: February 2015

The excavation of a Viking mound in the north of the Isle of Man during October and November, 1946, led to the discovery of older remains beneath and around the mound. The site was in the yard of the disused farmstead of Ballateare (formerly called Killane) in the parish of Jurby.

It lies on a slight rise some 50 feet above sea level half a mile distant from the sea, which is now eroding this region of the west coast at an estimated rate of one yard per year. To the south the ground slopes down to the Killane river which runs a quarter of a mile away in a broad marshy valley. To the north and east the ground is flat, and from the site there is a wide view over the sea, the distant mountains to the south, and the plain to the north. In this district the light sandy soils alternating with more clayey soil are good for agriculture. The sub-soil in the farmyard is a fine yellow diluvial sand with some bands of coarser gravel. The ground around the mound had been much disturbed by agricultural activities, and for a long time the yard had been used for storing potatoes in clamps: only superstition had preserved the mound undisturbed.
Prehistoric Research in Switzerland, 1939–1945
Authors: Keller-Tarnuzzer Karl
Published: February 2015

Although Switzerland and its population had the good fortune to be spared from the second as from the first world war, it was not possible to continue archaeological research from 1939–1945 on a peace-time footing. The mobilisation of the people for guarding the frontiers, the closing of the foreign markets and the drive for greater production absorbed so many men and women, that cultural pursuits had of necessity to be curtailed. Foremost in the efforts to maintain a certain level of research were the Swiss Prehistoric Society and the Swiss National Museum, but in this work they were assisted by local museums of all grades.
Prehistory in Ireland, 1937–46
Authors: Ríordáin Seán P. Ó
Published: February 2015

This paper, written at the kind invitation of the Honorary Editor of our Proceedings, has as its original aim the review of activity in Irish prehistory during war-time, thus to provide a résumé such as has already been furnished by other writers for other countries in Europe. It has, however, been agreed that a slight extension of the range of the period has in this case certain advantages, since an admirable summary of the position of Irish prehistory was provided in 1937 by Dr Mahr's Presidential Address to the Prehistoric Society (Mahr, 1937). The present paper cannot aim to give as full a treatment as did Mahr's, which has in many aspects served as a summary text-book of Irish prehistory, nor can it devote lengthy space to any theory—new or otherwise—as Mahr did for his Riverford Culture, yet it must be its aim to summarise the work which has been done since the publication of his ‘New Aspects,’ and to indicate as far as possible, the advances and modifications of outlook which have resulted during the intervening years.
Core, Culture and Complex in the Old Stone Age
Authors: Paterson T. T.
Published: February 2015

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.
Three Oxfordshire Palaeoliths and their Significance for Pleistocene Correlation
Authors: Arkell W. J.
Published: February 2015

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.
Report on Excavations carried out in the Cave known as ‘Bosumpra’ at Abetifi, Kwahu, Gold Coast Colony
Authors: Shaw C. T.
Published: February 2015

The cave of Bosumpra is one of a long line of numerous caves and rock-shelters in Voltaian sandstone, facing east at about 1,800 ft. O.D., on the eastward slope of the hill on which the Christian quarters of Abetifi stand. The cave takes its name from the spirit formerly believed to be resident there. It can be reached by following downhill for about a quarter of a mile the bush-path which leaves the eastern side of the road from Abetifi old town to the Government Rest House, less than ¼ mile from the Rest House: the cave lies some hundred yards to the north of the point, where this path descends the rocky line, on which the caves are situated, and comes out of bush into farming land.

The cave was formed by the dissolving action of water which seeps out of the rock at this level during the wet season, although during the dry season it is quite dry. In the centre of the cave the distance from the back wall to the drip-line is 27 ft.; at this point the rock overhang is 12 ft. above the present level of the floor of the cave. On either side of the centre portion of the cave, the rock overhang gradually curves back to the vertical cliff wall on either side, thus gradually diminishing the depth of the cave. The total width of the cave from north to south is about 60 ft. The floor of the cave is lowest in the centre, where there is comfortable room to stand upright in the front portion; it rises gently towards the north, but more steeply towards the southern end, so that there is barely room to get between the floor and the roof (Pl. 1).
Excavation of Fifteen Barrows in the New Forest 1941–2
Authors: Piggott C. M.
Published: February 2015

The excavations to be described were carried out in the autumn and winter of 1941–42, and a total of fifteen barrows was examined. Of these, ten were on Beaulieu Heath, to the south of the Brockenhurst–Hatchet Gate road, and the remaining five near Stoney Cross to the north-west of the New Forest. All the barrows were about to be destroyed in the course of building operations, and it was due to the urgency of the situation that none of the barrows could be more fully excavated. The time of year, and, in the case of Beaulieu Heath, the lowness of the site, made the undertaking in wet weather at least, an extremely difficult one. It is therefore with full knowledge of its incompleteness that I must present this report.

Six men were employed at both sites, with Mr Rogers as foreman. I would like to express my gratitude to him for his very willing co-operation. Other helpers included Messrs Richard Atkinson, Philip Suggett, L. V. Grinsell and Aubrey Parke, Miss Jocelyn Morris and Miss B. de Cardi, and Mr and Mrs Maxwell-Hyslop. I am most grateful to all of them, and more especially to Miss Jocelyn Morris and Mr Atkinson, to whose skill and patience is largely due the recovery of rhe remains of the mortuary-house in Barrow II. Mr B. H. St. J. O'Neil visited both sites several times. Thanks are also due to Dr F. E. Zeuner for his remarks on the soil specimens, to my husband for a note on the Barrow II mortuary-house and to Sir Cyril Fox for his pottery report.
A Report on the Late Bronze Age Site excavated at Minnis Bay, Birchington, Kent, 1938–40
Authors: Worsfold F. H.
Published: February 2015

The Isle of Thanet, no doubt on account of its proximity to the Continent, has during the flow of the centuries experienced its full share of the tide of human immigration and invasion. The Birchington district in particular appears to have been singled out for settlement in ancient times. Flints ranging in age from Palaeolithic to Neolithic have been recovered from various localities, whilst out on the Flats directly facing Minnis Headland, pottery of Roman, Jutish and Saxon character has been found. The most recent addition to the sequence is the considerable occupation area of Late Bronze Age date found by the late ‘Jimmy’ Beck opposite the Minnis Bay esplanade slipway some 210 yards from dry land. The exact position of the site is marked by a black dot on fig. 1. During the Late Bronze Age, no doubt, the present Minnis Bay Flats, scene of the excavations described in this paper, formed the floor of a seaward extension of the valley flanked on the one hand by the Minnis Headland and on the other by the Rifle Range land, both of which must have stretched considerably further out in the Thames Estuary than they do to-day. The fact that the site could only be excavated between tides, being covered by several feet at high water, imposed a severe limitation on the excavations described in this paper.
Excavations at the Cave of Shukbah, Palestine, 1928
Authors: Garrod D. A. E. , Bate Dorothea M. A.
Published: February 2015

The village of Shukbah lies at 1,058 ft. above sea-level among the Judaean hills, approximately 17½ miles north-west of Jerusalem and 10½ miles NE. of Ramleh. About half-a-mile to the south of the village a broad winding valley, the Wady-en-Natuf, dry for the greater part of the year, runs westward through the hills towards the coastal plain, and in it is situated the cave to be described.

The cave of Shukbah was first noticed by the late Père Alexis Mallon S.J., Director of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, in the course of a journey from Jemmala to Lydda in September 1924. Père Mallon was not able at that time to make any soundings, but he picked up a number of flint implements, and noted the presence of masses of breccia containing flints and bones. At the beginning of 1928, when I arrived in Palestine for the first time, he generously suggested that the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem should undertake the excavation of the site, which he rightly considered to be promising. Thanks to the generosity of the late Sir Robert Mond the British School was enabled to do this, and in April 1928 I went to Shukbah with two collaborators, Mr George Woodbury, afterwards Research Associate at the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, and the late Mrs Edna Thuner Woodbury, who share with me the responsibility for this piece of work. Excavation was carried on from the beginning of April until the middle of June, when we left with the intention of returning in the following year. At the beginning of 1929, however, the British School was asked by the Director of Antiquities in Palestine to undertake at once the excavation of a group of caves in the Wady el-Mughara, Mount Carmel, then threatened with destruction by quarrying. This work was carried out in collaboration with the American School of Prehistoric Research, and the two schools planned to return to Shukbah after it should be completed. In the event, however, the Wady el-Mughara turned out to be an extraordinarily important site, and excavations were carried on there until 1934, while the study of the material and its preparation for publication lasted until 1937. As there is no prospect at present of continuing the work at Shukbah, it has been decided to publish without further delay the results of the excavations of 1928.
First Report of the Sub-Committee of the South-Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries on the Petrological Identification of Stone Axes
Authors: Keiller Alexander , Piggott Stuart , Wallis F. S.
Published: February 2015

For many years past on both formal and informal occasions, archaeologists and others, including Mr W. F. Grimes (1932 and 1935) and Dr F. J. North (1938), have been stressing the importance of a scientific examination of the numerous stone axes in public and private collections. It has been urged that an exact determination of the rock material and its original provenance, together with a knowledge of the locality at which the tool was found, would lead to far wider and more exact information concerning early trade routes and other factors of economic and social importance in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age times.

A major hindrance to the realisation of these anticipations lay with owners who required the petrologist to identify the rocks by macroscopical characters alone. It was of little avail for the geologist to point out that grinding, polishing and patination had often obliterated the few surface features available and that even if fracturing of the specimen were allowed, no real progress could be made until a thin section of the axe was obtained. Pressed for an identification even on the above unsatisfactory grounds, geologists have at times given answers which are really little better than reasoned guesses, and the archaeologists have based some equally speculative deductions upon them.
The Deverel-Rimbury Settlement on Thorny Down, Winterbourne Gunner, S. Wilts
Authors: Stone J. F. S.
Published: February 2015

A preliminary report on the discovery and partial excavation during 1936 of the Late Bronze Age farmstead or settlement site on Thorny Down, Winterbourne Gunner, in South Wiltshire has already been published. Sufficient material was there recorded to prove beyond question the approximate date of the site. This was assigned to phase B of the Late Bronze Age (c. 750 B.C.), the culture being that of the Deverel–Rimbury immigrants which for convenience was described as the Cranborne Chase culture, since it was so closely connected with the sites excavated by Pitt Rivers. Further, it was emphasized that this more westerly culture was distinguishable from such sites of similar date in Sussex as New Barn Down and Plumpton Plain in that the highly ornamented globular vessel appeared to be more characteristic of the culture than are the widely diffused barrel- and bucket-shaped vessels. Such local differentiation of ceramic forms during the Late Bronze Age is a well known feature of the period, and Mr C. F. C. Hawkes in his analysis of the Plumpton Plain pottery has called attention to the fact that the Late Bronze Age immigration was not a single event, but a multiple process, in which the Deverel-Rimbury family of urns need be no more than a component.

The available evidence which is rapidly accumulating clearly points to the introduction at this period of a developed and highly organized agricultural system, one feature of which was the small enclosure or compound, a type of earthwork constructed as required either for human or for animal occupation.
A Belgic Cremation Site at Stone, Kent
Authors: Cotton M. A. , Richardson K. M.
Published: February 2015

The Belgic Cremation site at Stone, Kent, was discovered during the week of January 31st to February 4th, 1939, by workmen engaged in quarrying operations in the Cotton Lane Pit, about one mile west of the village of Stone on the south bank of the Thames between Dartford and Greenhithe. The area is being worked by the Associated Portland Cement Company, who had the finds carefully collected and reported them to Mr S. Priest, F.G.S., Curator of the Dartford Public Museum. The writers are most indebted to Mr Priest for drawing their attention to the site at once, and for all the information he has supplied. The Committee of the Associated Portland Cement Company, through their Manager, Mr Double, most kindly arranged for us to visit the Pit, and lent us all the material for investigation. We should like to acknowledge here our thanks to them for their interest and co-operation and for rescuing this valuable evidence from the fate it so nearly suffered in the jaws of the mechanical excavator.

Cotton Lane Pit lies on the slope of the Boyne Hill (100 ft.) Terrace on the south bank of the Thames at about 85 O.D. (fig. 1). In this field the Terrace gravels slope away over an outcrop of Thanet sands which in places overlies the chalk. The pottery was found in a pocket of dirty ballast overlying clay loam on top of the chalk.
Studies on the Palaeolithic Succession in England No. II. The Upper Brecklandian Acheul (Elveden)
Authors: Paterson T. T. , Fagg B. E. B.
Published: February 2015

The excavations here under review were undertaken on behalf of the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. We have to express our deep gratitude to the Earl of Iveagh, on whose estate the brickyard lies, for his kind permission to excavate and his generosity in providing the whole time services of two workmen during the seven weeks of the excavations. Mr Dow, the Estate Manager, was always a source of help and his interest was constantly a stimulation to effort throughout the work.

The Elveden brickyard began production in the late nineties primarily to supply material for the new Elveden Hall which was finished in 1900. So successful was the brickyard that it continued to be worked until the war of 1914–1918, when it finally fell into disuse. It was in the first three years of production 1897–1900, that the greatest number of specimens was found. The vast majority of specimens saved were bifaces of very obvious and attractive shape, for each of which there were probably discarded at least a hundred flakes, as well as cores.

The present condition of the brickyard bears full evidence of twenty-five years' neglect. Large silver birches and smaller trees and shrubs have grown in the pit and a large section of the cliff face has been overgrown with ferns and infested with rabbits. Much of the cliff surface has collapsed and there are spoil heaps in one or two places. The condition of the pit has in fact inhibited easy excavation except in the small areas which were actually dug.
Excavations at Brundon, Suffolk (1935–37)
Authors: Moir J. Reid , Hopwood A. Tindell
Published: February 2015

For several years prior to 1935, the Ipswich Museum, through the kindness of Mr P. H. Jordan, had been enriched by gifts of fossil mammalian bones and teeth found in a gravel pit at Brundon, near Sudbury, Suffolk. From my occasional visits to this excavation, it was clear that a very rich bone bed existed there, and discoveries from time to time, of flint implements in the gravel, led me to conclude that excavations conducted at this site would yield good results. This was confirmed by the geological features of the section, which appeared to show a stratified gravel resting upon, and overlaid by, glacial deposits, thus affording an opportunity of examining that by no means common phenomenon—a true inter-glacial bed.

I communicated with my friend Professor P. G. H. Boswell, F.R.S., who, after an examination of the section, agreed with me that it would repay detailed research. Work was begun by means of a grant from the British Association, which appointed the following as a committee to undertake the research: Professor W. B. R. King, O.B.E. (chairman), Mr Guy Maynard (Secretary), Mr D. F. W. Baden-Powell, Professor P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E., F.R.S., Mr J. Reid Moir, F.R.S., Mr K. P. Oakley, Mr C. D. Ovey, Dr J. D. Solomon, and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, F.R.S.
The Lower Palaeolithic Industries near Warsash Hampshire
Authors: Burkitt M. C. , Paterson T. T. , Mogridge C. J.
Published: February 2015

For many years past Mr Mogridge, of the Winchester Museum, has been indefatigable in collecting Lower Palaeolithic flint implements from a number of gravel pits lying between the villages of Warsash and Hook, in the district of the Lower Hamble river, Hampshire. From time to time he has brought up selected specimens to meetings of the Prehistoric Society in London, and exhibited them to members at the conclusion of the formal lectures. These Warsash finds are extremely numerous, show very fine workmanship, and exhibit certain special features which make them of exceptional importance to all students of Lower Palaeolithic cultures in England. Some time ago I suggested to Mr Mogridge that his valuable finds ought to be placed more permanently on record. He at once consented to the writing of a joint article for our Proceedings, and placed all his information at my disposal. Together we visited the sites, examined the sections, and talked to the workmen, from whom, of course, most of the implements are in the first instance obtained. I also consulted with my former pupil, and now colleague, Mr T. T. Paterson, and he very kindly consented himself to study the Quaternary geology on the spot, and to write a brief account. The drawings are from my wife's pen.
Excavations at Farnham, Surrey (1937–38): The Horsham Culture and the Question of Mesolithic Dwellings
Authors: Clark J. G. D. , Rankine W. F.
Published: February 2015

The scene of the excavations described in the first part of this paper is the Sewage Farm of the Farnham (Surrey) Urban District Council, situated on the gravels of the old course of the Blackwater River to the north-east of the town at an elevation of c. 250 ft. O.D. (fig. 1). The surface of the gravel within the area investigated is level, but to the west it slopes upwards to Farnham Park. From here there issues the course of a stream, which, skirting the site on the south-west, turns south to join the Wey half a mile to the south. In recent years the Park stream has been captured near its source by a system of swallow-holes, and to-day its effective source is the spring which breaks out from the Chalk below the gravel spread in the immediate neighbourhood of the site. The Bourne Mill Spring, as it is usually known, has cut its way back an appreciable distance, having formed a small valley of its own, so that it can lay claim to a fair antiquity; indeed, there is every reason for regarding it as a main attraction of the site from Mesolithic times onwards (pl. VI). At the present day the spring retains its purity unaffected by the disposal of sewage and is still a well-known stopping place for tramps. For an account of the site written from a geological point of view the reader is referred to Appendix I, kindly supplied by Dr K. P. Oakley, F.G.S.
Iron Age Metal Horses' Bits of the British Isles
Authors: Ward Perkins J. B.
Published: February 2015

Ever since the complexity of the Early Iron Age civilization in the British Isles was first realized, the accepted classification of its cultures has been based primarily upon pottery-types. In its present form, as stated by Mr Hawkes in 1931, that classification is, with modifications, likely to remain a basis of research for many years to come. Not only is pottery the most universally durable of the domestic articles then in common use, but it is, from the conditions of its manufacture, particularly sensitive to narrow regional and cultural differences. Nevertheless the very success of the pottery-criterion demands that we should bear in mind its obvious limitations. Not only were several culturally important areas apparently almost devoid of any but the crudest pottery, but the essentially domestic character of the potter's craft, which makes it so faithful a mirror of the constituents of everyday life, at the same time precludes it from reflecting, save in a very general fashion, the wider cultural and political contacts which must have played so large a part in the history of the period.
The Passage Graves of Ireland
Authors: Powell T. G. E.
Published: February 2015

Megalithic monuments take an important place amongst the relics of early civilization in Ireland, and within recent years efforts have been made to collect the much-needed information about their distribution and typology. Pride of place in this work must be given to Estyn Evans and others who have made important discoveries in the northern highlands, and have published a distribution map of the Segmented Gallery Graves (Horned Cairns) which they found in that area. The present paper endeavours to give a brief account of some recent work on Irish Passage Graves and to summarise the information available about this type of Irish chambered tombs, which includes such famous sites as New Grange and Dowth.

It is clear from the accompanying distribution map (fig. 1) that the primary settlement area of the Passage Grave builders was on the east coast, and here four foci as well as a number of scattered sites can be distinguished. These foci and the inland tombs derived from them may for convenience be called the Dublin, Boyne, Armagh, and North Antrim groups. A list of the tombs, together with map and bibliographical references, will be found in the Appendix to this paper (p. 247).
Notes on Excavations in Éire, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, during 1938
Authors: Leask H. G. , Clark J. G. D. , Evans E. Estyn , Childe V. Gordon , Grimes W. F.
Published: February 2015

The authors of these notes acknowledge the ready co-operation of the numerous excavators who have contributed information concerning their work carried out during the present year.