bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Climatic Change in Mycenaean Greece
Authors: Wright H. E.
Published: January 2016

The essence of historical research is the search for the cause of a major event. The same applies to prehistoric research, except that the documents cited in evidence lack written records and may require greater speculation.

One of the major events in the history of Greece was the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, which occurred about 1200-1100 BC and ushered in the Greek Dark Ages, when populations in the former Mycenaean lands were small and political organization dispersed. Although falling, strictly, within the historic period, thanks to the recent decipherment of Mycenaean written documents, the available records merely illustrate some of the business transactions of several flourishing kingdoms they give no clues to the cause for the abrupt demise of the culture.

It is on this subject, with its paucity of direct evidence, that Professor Rhys Carpenter introduces some speculations drawn from natural science-the notion that climatic change in southern Greece caused repeated failure of crops and the consequent breakdown of the Mycenaean economy.
The Lochhill long cairn
Authors: Masters Lionel
Published: January 2016

Scattered throughout North Britain, from Aberdeenshire to Northumberland and westward to Cumberland and Kirkcudbrightshire, is a group of long cairns which, from field inspection, lack the usual stone chamber or chambers normally associated with such long cairns. Some of these sites might still have chambers preserved beneath their covering mounds. At others, where the cairn has been robbed, the former or present existence of stone chambers seems unlikely.
The Fall of Troy
Authors: Nylander Carl
Published: January 2016

Nine superposed cities were uncovered at the mound of Hisarlik on the northwest coast of Asia Minor, where Heinrich Schliemann’s visionary search for the Homeric Troy had led him. Soon the interest of Homeric scholars concentrated upon the two cities labelled Troy VI and Troy VIIa as the most likely candidates for the Troy of Homer. Both cities yielded Mycenaean pottery, showing connexions with mainland Greece in the centuries from 1400-1200 B.C., when Mycenaean power was at its height. Both cities had been violently destroyed. However, the brilliant excavations by the University of Cincinnati under the distinguished leadership of Professor Carl W. Blegen have been able to prove that Troy VI was undoubtedly destroyed by a violent earthquake about 1300 or somewhat later.
The Chambered Cairn at Dyffryn Ardudwy
Authors: Powell T. G. E.
Published: January 2016

The chambered cairn at Dyffryn Ardudwy is one of the principal tombs in a group of six surviving monuments that stand at medium altitudes above the sea coast in this vicinity which lies midway between Harlech and Barmouth. The cairn stands close to the village school in Dyffryn Ardudwy, and the questionable safety of the capstone of the larger chamber was the principal reason for undertaking excavation and consolidation. The work was carried out by the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology of the University of Liverpool on behalf and with the close assistance of the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments for Wales. The monument has been well-known since Crawford's plan of 1920, and has been described by Grimes and Daniel in so far as surface inspection would allow.
History and technological history
Authors: Watson William
Published: January 2016

With their latest publication Joseph Needham and his collaborators, according to the plan announced in the first volume, have reached the midpoint of their magistral undertaking, and their 4,016 th page. One can only guess how many more books are to be expected, since the present one covering roads, building, bridges, hydraulics and nautics in 931 pages is only part three of volume four. Themes 30-31, military and textile technology, paper and printing, will presumably occupy part four of the same volume and three volumes will be still to come.
The Ancient Cultivation of Hemp
Authors: Godwin H.
Published: January 2016

The discovery in a long pollen diagram from East Anglia of a substantial curve for a pollen-grain referable to Cannabis sativa, L., the Indian hemp, raised the hope that we might, through palynology, have the means of tracing the history of cultivation of this important and sinister economic plant in England and in Western Europe. It was clearly essential that pollen-analytic evidence should be related fully to existing historical and archaeological knowledge, and aided by a notice in this journal (ANTIQUITY, 1964, 287), and by the notable kindness of a great many academic colleagues, I have put together a condensed historical account of the plant in antiquity as preface to a description of the pollen-analytic data.
The Guiry Cork-stone
Authors: Arnette S. , Peek J. D.
Published: January 2016

In October 1915 there was discovered near the small village of Guiry, 50 km. north-west of Paris, an example of the typical Paris Basin Gallery Grave or Allée Couverte. It came to be known as the Allée Couverte du Bois Couturier, and is a relatively small example of this type of tomb which predominates in the departments of Seine-et-Oise and Oise, and extends eastwards into neighbouring departments. The grave-goods belong mainly, though not exclusively, to the Seine-Oise-Marne culture as first defined by Bosch-Gimpera and Serra Rafols [I]. Daniel regarded the Paris Galleries as dating probably from about 1700-1400 B.C.; Bailloud, on the basis of certain radiocarbon dates available since Daniel's study, considers the SOM culture (which is of course not necessarily completely coeval with the Paris Galleries) to have begun around 2400-2300 B.c., and to have ended around 1700-1600 B.C. [2].
The Châtelperronian in French Archaeology: the Evidence of Arcy-sur-Cure
Authors: Movius Hallam L.
Published: January 2016

The Grottes d'Arcy, situated on the main road (RN 6) between Auxerre and Avallon, are the closest big caves to Paris (FIG. I). Between the 16th and the 19th centuries the most distinguished visitors, from Louis XI11 to M. de Buffon (1740), marvelled at the immense galleries adorned with stalactites at the Grande Grotte. The caves still attract many tourists. All nine of the Arcy caves have a generally southerly exposure, and they have been cut into-some of them through-the south flank of a Jurassic limestone massif, or promontory, around which the Cure River flows in a large bow between Saint-MorC and Arcy-sur-Cure. Actually this area is on the border between the southwestern limits of the Seine Basin and the extreme northwestern extension of the granitic massif of the Morvan, where the Cure has its source. This complex of caves lies on the left bank of the Cure just west of RN 6 some 12 km. south of (i.e. upstream from) the confluence of the Yonne and the Cure, at a distance of just over 27 km. south-southwest of Auxerre and about 17 km. north-northwest of Avallon. Here the Cure (the mean elevation of which at this
Druids as Fact and Symbol
Authors: Evans D. Ellis
Published: January 2016

Professor Stuart Piggott's book is the first serious attempt for over forty years to deal systematically with a full range of sources concerning the druids. Sir Thomas Kendrick's study The Druids, A Study in Keltic Prehistory (London, 1927; re-issued New York, 1966), still enjoys an enviable reputation as a comprehensive treatment of the varied source-material on which an account of the druids can be based. It would be quite wrong to suggest that scholars have not in the meantime tried to understand more fully some of the complexity of this material, but we can fairly claim that it is only within the last nine or ten years that we have had a spate of publications attempting a new critical analysis of various aspects of this field of study. Incidentally, an earlier work of considerable importance that is not included in Piggott's bibliography is J. Vendryes, 'La religion des Celtes', in Les rel%ions de I'Europe ancienne, iii ('Mana', Introduction rf I'histoire des religions 2), Paris, 1948.
Dravidian and the Decipherment of the Indus Script
Authors: Burrow T.
Published: January 2016

The Indus script has been known for a little over 40 years, and it has so far resisted all attempts at decipherment. This is not surprising in view of the fact that the inscriptions are all very short, and that no long connected texts are preserved. It is also not known what language lies behind the writing: bilinguals are nonexistent, and given the historical circumstances, not likely to be found. In the period since the discovery of the inscriptions a number of attempts at decipherment has been made, but none has carried conviction. Quite recently there has been a number of fresh attempts, of which the most sustained and ambitious, by a group of Finnish scholars, has been described in the previous issue of this journal. It is based on the assumption that the language spoken in the Indus cities was a form of Proto-Dravidian. The detailed methods used in this attempt at decipherment have been briefly described in the previous articles, and they need not be repeated here. Instead it is proposed to examine the handling of the Dravidian material, which, as will be seen, is open to considerable criticism
The Composition of Metal Artifacts: a Guide to Provenance?
Authors: Tylecote R. F.
Published: January 2016

This is probably the question most often asked of the metallurgist by the archaeologiist, and the object of this report is to show how far we have got in our attempts to answer it.

First, it must be clearly understood that we can only expect some correlation between ore and weapon or utensil, and therefore provenance in the early eras of metallurgy, where the bulk of the metal used emanated from primary sources, and where the amount of secondary re-used metal was negligible. This objection does not apply, however, in the case of semifinished products such as those ingots which have been made from ores and not from secondary material. This should include the plano-convex copper ingots of Late Hronze and Roman date in Britain and the ox-hide ingots of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Aims in Prehistoric Archaeology
Authors: Trigger Bruce G.
Published: January 2016

Not long ago the theoretical literature in archaeology dealt mainly with excavation techniques and the primary analysis of archaeological data. In recent years, the successful realization of many of these empirical objectives, plus a rapidly increasing corpus of data, have motivated a younger generation of archaeologists to investigate more carefully the problems that are involved in the explanation of these data and the study of prehistory in general. This concern has produced a spate of publications which, although they often disagree radically about particular issues, are attempting (a) to investigate the theoretical structure of prehistoric archaeology, (b) to formulate a more rigorous canon for the interpretation of archaeological data, and (c) to pioneer new methods of analysis (Binford, S. R. and L. R., 1968; Chang, 1967 and 1968; Clarke, 1968; Trigger, 1968).
Borrowed Names for Borrowed Things?
Authors: Wild J. P.
Published: January 2016

In discussing contemporary wool production the Elder Pliny comments (NH, VIII, 192): 'oddments of wool from the fullers" coppers are used for stuffing bolsters-an invention of the Gauls, I think; at any rate, the process is distinguished by Gallic terms today.'
New Light on Mycenaean Religion
Authors: Taylour William
Published: January 2016

A final season of excavation of the site at Mycenae called the Citadel House by Professor Wace (referred to as ‘Wace’s House’ by Mylonas and also known as ‘The House with the Idols’) was carried out in 1969. The following is a brief account of the finds and their context as revealed by the 1968 and 1969 excavations”.
The King's whetstone
Authors: Simpson Jacqueline
Published: January 2016

One question fundamental to the interpretation of the elaborate sceptre found at Sutton Hoo is why whetstone should have been chosen as its material. Too heavy for convenience, yet neither rare nor intrinsically beautiful, why was this substance thought appropriate for such an important item of regalia? The interpretation so far has been that it symbolized the king as war-leader, ‘the forger, giver and master of the swords of his followers’. While this is undoubtedly an attractive and appropriate interpretation, it lacks literary confinnation; I would therefore like to put forward an alternative (or supplementary) hypothesis based on the evidence of certain passages in Old Icelandic writings where whetstones are mentioned in a mythical context, or are described as being used in non-realistic circumstances suggestive of ritual. Despite their late date, Icelandic sources have often cast valuable light on Germanic religion.
Lyonesse revisited: the early walls of Scilly
Authors: Fowler Peter , Thomas Charles
Published: January 2016

The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago some 27 miles (43 km) WSW of Land’s End, Cornwall, and lie within an oval area about 12 miles (19km) SW-NE and 5 miles (8km) NW-SE. Five islands (St Mary’s, Tresco, St Martin’s, Bryher and Agnes; Fig. I) are inhabited, most of the permanent population of 2,000-plus being on St Mary’s. Some 40 further smaller isles bear vegetation, several with signs of former occupation, and there are several hundred more descending to mere rocks and reefs. The total exposed land surface at HWNT is c. 3,900 acres (1,600 ha). Scilly is almost entirely granite, the lowlying area between the isles being mainly a fine, white, granite-derived sand. Scilly is also the most southerly detached landmass of Britain and is botanically just within the extreme northern range of various species (Lousley, 1971). The islands are constitutionally quite separate from Cornwall, with a divergent recent social history (best accounts: Matthews, 1960; Gill, 1975). and a separate, only partly Celtic, linguistic one (cf. Thomas, 1979b), relevant here where place-names can reflect physical development. The archaeology of Scilly, first brought to wider notice by Borlase (1756), has long centred around the inordinate number of post-neolithic entrance-grave cairns (Hencken, 1932; Daniel, 1950), and has only recently been accorded a full length study (Ashbee, 1974).
The Mycenaean sanctuary at Phylakopi
Authors: Renfrew Colin
Published: January 2016

Professor Renfrew, who holds the Chair of Archaeology in the University of Southampton, has prepared for us an account of the sanctuary at the important site of Phylakopi in the Cycladic island of Melos, excavated by the British School of Archaeology at Athens from 1896 to 1899. The publication (Atkinson et al., 1904) was a landmark in the study of European prehistory. The person in day-to-day charge (although not nominally Director) was Duncan Mackenzie, who later assisted Evans at Knossos. Mackenzie's Daybooks have been preserved and are a useful source of stratigraphic information.

Excavation was resumed in 1974–7, directed by Professor Renfrew, for the British School of Archaeology at Athens, with the authority of the Greek Archaeological Service. The most important and altogether unexpected result has been the discovery of a sanctuary of the Mycenaean period, with a number of very beautiful finds (cf. Frontispiece)* as well as some highly unusual ones (male figurines). The only well-preserved Mycenaean shrine previously excavated is that at Mycenae itself, discovered by Lord William Taylour and first published in this journal (Taylour, 1969 and 1970).

The Phylakopi shrine is of great importance for the Mycenaean period in the Cyclades, for the understanding of Mycenaean cult and religion, and for the several works of art which it has yielded, including the Lady of Phylakopi, perhaps the most beautiful of the ceramic cult figures known from the Mycenaean world.
Home-baking in Roman Italy
Authors: Frayn Joan M.
Published: January 2016

Dr Joan M. Frayn was formerly Head of the Classics Department at Wimbledon High School (GPDST). She is at present engaged in making a study of subsistence farming in Italy in the Roman period.
Celtic Studies, Oxford, July 1983
Authors: Jope E. M. , Hawkes C. F. C.
Published: January 2016

The Congress opened with a welcoming (plenary) reception in the Ashmolean Museum, with an exhibition of the Museum’s Celtic antiquities. The Ashmolean this same year celebrated the tercentenary of its foundation, with a Symposium ‘The Cabinet of Curiosities’, at the same time as the Celtic Congress.
The reindeer in the prehistoric art of Siberia
Authors: Whitaker Ian
Published: January 2016

The relatively naturalistic representation of animals of thecervidaefamily has long been recognized as dominating much of the prehistoric art of Siberia. These animals are found in the petroglyphs which date from the Neolithic, but are, perhaps, better known in the bronze items that have been so much sought after in the last 1OO years. I t is my purpose here to examine these artistic products in an attempt to identify the species of animals the artists were intending to represent. In the analytical literature dealing with this subject one finds a noticeable lack of unanimity among the critics, who might be forgiven some biological imprecision, were they not frequently very confident in the ascriptions that they make. Identification of the species ofcervidaewill enable us better to understand the cultural background of the artists, and may lead to a greater understanding of the purpose underlying their creative activity. I can claim only one special qualification for this task, namely that I have spent almost two years of my life as a reindeer herder during anthropological fieldwork. This experience may, perhaps, better enable me to recognize the species of deer intended by the artist than can other scholars, whose acquaintance with the animal has been restricted to the museum.
Les Trois-Frères after Breuil
Authors: Bégouën Robert , Clottes Jean
Published: January 2016

Les Trois-Frères, in the French Pyrenees, is one of the classic sites of palaeolithic cave-art, and of Abbé Breuil's recording of it. A new survey, and new recording methods, are giving a different and a fuller picture of its art.
Tula, and wheeled animal effigies in Mesoamerica
Authors: Diehl Richard A. , Mandeville Margaret D.
Published: January 2016

For all an archaeologist's or anthropologist's professional training in how ancient societies organize themselves with ‘appropriate technologies’, it is not easy to grasp how very different those ancient civilizations were from any society we have experienced. Nowhere is this clearer than in Mesoamerica, where cities and empires had no need of the ‘basics’ of urban life as we know it. One of those ‘basics’ is wheels, discussed here in the sole, small context in which they are commonplace in pre-Columbian America.
Pioneer settlement patterns in the Onkaparinga District Council of South Australia
Authors: Young Gordon
Published: January 2016

With the European settlement of Australia yet to reach its bi-centennial, historical archaeology in the country is young, both in what it studies and how long it has been established. A special interest, explored here, is the range of patterns of European settlement which results from the varied national traditions of the settlers.
Complex hunter-gatherers: a view from Australia
Authors: Williams Elizabeth
Published: January 2016

One of the livelier issues in world prehistory on which there is a distinctive view from Australia and Sahul is the variety of pathways to intensification and a social complexity, not necessarily following expectations that derive from precedents in the Zagros or the Mayan forests. This may be more than a function of different ecologies or potential domesticates, for this paper, developing evidence from Victoria already known from Harry Lourandos's work, Sees the crucial impulses as more social in origin than environmentally determined.
Motivation in African rock art
Authors: Vinnicombe Patricia
Published: January 2016

A very wide field of African rock art, both paintings and engravings, is covered in Burchard Brentjes: African rock art, with special reference to South Africa, Rhodesia, the Sahara, North Africa and Egypt. Because of the general nature of the book, there is little attempt to be comprehensive or conclusive, the aim being more to foster an appreciation and awareness of the art than to solve problems or place it in an archaeological context.
The hero of Lefkandi
Authors: Popham Mervyn , Touloupa E. , Sackett L. H.
Published: January 2016

The large island of Euboea, which lies along the north coast of Attica and Boeotia, was little known archaeologically until recent years (FIG. 1). Nor, apart from its involvement in the Persian Wars, then as a victim of Athenian imperialism and later as a step in the expansionism of Philip of Macedon, does it play any prominent role in the accounts of ancient historians. Yet, they have left hints of its former greatness in an early period of which little was remembered. The island was known to have sent out the first colonies to Italy and Sicily in the eighth century BC and to have settled the region of North Greece, still known as Chalcidice, after the name of one of Euboea's main cities, Chalcis. They remembered something, too, of a war between Chalcis and Eretria, the other major city of the island, in which their respective allies took part, and it is this conflict which seems to have exhausted both sides and led to the eclipse of the island's pre-eminence.
Archaeological retrospect 4
Authors: Lloyd Seton
Published: January 2016

Almost half-a-century ago, I was once referred to by Sidney Smith as someone who had entered archaeology 'by the back door'. In those days there was no well-defined 'front door', though Smith and others were doing their best to create one; and, since I was myself then already well established in a more conventional profession, the implied reproof was perhaps justifiable. In truth, the potential advantages of an architectural training to a field archaeologist were not at that time fully understood, and one purpose of the present writing is to make their significance more apparent.
The future of Ancient Rome
Authors: Whitehouse David
Published: January 2016

Every year, on the traditional anniversary of the founding of Rome, the Mayor reviews the events of the last twelve months and outlines his plans for the future. Last year (the 2,735th anniversary), he began by describing work in progress on conservation and mise-en-valeur in the ancient city. It was wholly appropriate, for the future of classical Rome is a subject which concerns, or should concern, not only the Romans themselves, but all Italian taxpayers (who will foot the bill), town planners and conservation groups throughout Europe—not to mention all readers of ANTIQUITY. The proposals, promoted by the Archaeological Superintendent of Rome, Professor Adriano La Regina, include the creation of an archaeological park extending from the Capitoline to the Appian Way, new museums and—as a matter of extreme urgency—the protection of marble monuments disfigured by pollution. The plans involve both local and national authorities, and in March 1981 Parliament made available over a five-year period the staggering sum of 180,000 million lire (£75 m): 168,000 m for Rome itself, 10,000 m for South Etruria (the area north of Rome) and 2,000 m for Ostia.
An upper palaeolithic shrine in India?
Authors: Kenoyer J. M. , Clark J. D. , Pal J. N. , Sharma G. R.
Published: January 2016

There is little doubt that a religious belief imparting a sense of law and order and helping to control the relationships between human populations and the other components of their environment, is highly developed among present-day hunter/gatherers. Such beliefs not only help to provide a feeling of unity stretching far beyond the hunting band itself, but they afford an ordered interconnexion between the foragers and the spiritual processes which are looked upon as all-powerful forces influencing life and death (Turnbull, 1968, 25). This is well exemplified in the case of the Musahar, a Dravidian tribe of hunter/gatherers who inhabit the jungle regions of the Eastern Vindhyas in Central India. According to Nesfield, quoted by Crooke (1896, Vol. IV:34), ‘The great active power in the universe … is Bansapatti, Bansatti or Bansuri, the goddess who … personifies and presides over the forests. By her command the trees bear fruit, the bulbs grow in the earth, the bees make honey, the tussar worm fattens on the asân leaf, and lizards, wolves and jackals (useful food to man) multiply their kind. She is a goddess of childbirth. To her the childless wife makes prayers for the grant of offspring. In her name and by her aid the medicine man or sorcerer expels devils from the bodies of the possessed. In her name and to her honour the village man kindles a new fire for lighting a brick kiln. Woe to the man who takes a false oath in the name of Bansatti.’
Images of Britannia
Authors: Cunliffe Barry
Published: January 2016

In 1905 Francis Haverfield, Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford, read, before the British Academy his now-famous paper, ‘The Romanization of Roman Britain’ (later published in the second volume of the Academy's Proceedings and in book form: second, enlarged, edition 1912). It was an elegant distillation of Haverfield's painstaking researches into the minutiae of Romano-British archaeology, presented against the background of the wider Empire. His vision was clear ‘. . . Romano- British life was on a small scale. It was, I think, normal in quality and indeed not very dissimilar from that of many parts of Gaul. But it was in any case defective in quantity. We find towns in Britain, as elsewhere, and farms or country-houses. But the towns are small and somewhat few, and the country-houses indicate comfort more often than wealth . . , We have before us a civilisation which, like a man whose constitution is sound rather than strong, might perish quickly from a violent shock.
Schliemann's mendacity—a false trail?
Authors: Easton Donald
Published: January 2016

David Traill's article in Antiquity, LVII, debunking ‘Priam's Treasure’, will no doubt be seen by some as one more bullet in the chest for Schliemann. In recent years the firing-squad has been getting quite active. Now that Schliemann's archaeology has become the target it is time to ask: how accurate are the shots? Schliemann's new executioners trace their pedigree back to their nineteenth-century predecessors. This is unwise, for Hartmut Dohl has shown very clearly that the conduct of, among others, the Berlin clique was quite as reprehensible as any failing of Schliemann's (Dohl, 1981, 16-75). Perhaps their problem was indeed, as Calder has evidenced (Calder, 1972, 347-8; 1980, ‘so), that they found him just too provincial, too common and too rich. The new wave of disaffection actually has its genesis in a series of articles by W. G. Niederland, a Freudian psycho-analyst with a research interest in the psychology of exploration (Niederland, 1964- 5 ; 1965; 1966-7; 1967; 1971). Niederland's papers make fascinating reading. He highlights some very unusual features in Schliemann's writings, and pinpoints a number of recurrent themes. His work is of undoubted interest to anyone concerned with Schliemann. He also comes up with the startlingly original suggestion that Schliemann was all along suffering from an unresolved Oedipus complex. His relentless exploration of Mother Earth, his fascination with cemeteries and his libidinous recollection of his early love-play among them with Minna, indicate a life-long search for his dead mother.
A late neolithic foundation offering from Thessaly
Authors: Gallis Kostas J.
Published: January 2016

The excavation at Platia Magoula Zarkou, a prehistoric settlement in Thessaly, 30 km west of Larisa, was undertaken to clarify the problem of the exact chronological and stratigraphic position of the black burnished pottery, characteristic of the Larisa culture, which has hitherto been accepted as dating to the end of the Late Neolithic. The author became involved with this problem when he found black pottery together with grey pottery of the Tsangli phase, of the beginning of the Late Neolithic, at the neolithic cremation cemetery of Platia Magoula Zarkou (Gallis, 1982, 109-11 ; English summary, 234). The problem of the exact stratigraphic position of this black ware has now been solved. The dating of the Larisa culture to the beginning of the Late Neolithic (to the Tsangli phase) has now been confirmed by this excavation, as well as another similar excavation at the prehistoric settlement of Makrychori 2, 13km north of Larisa. A report of the results of these two excavations is forthcoming in Praehistorische Zeitschrift.
New excavations at Gavrinis
Authors: Roux Charles-Tanguy Le
Published: January 2016

The megalithic chambered mound of Gavrinis, in the Morbihan department of southern Brittany, with its world-famed engravings, was re-excavated from 1979 to 1984 by the author of this article who is Directeur des Antiquités de Bretagne. The results, here summarized, included the discovery that the capstone, hidden for four thousand years, bore engravings which show that it was originally part of a large menhir, another part being now the capstone of La Table des Marchands, four kilometres away.
Has the Trojan War been found?
Authors: Easton Donald
Published: January 2016

When BBC2 proposed to run a series of six programmes in the Spring of this year, ‘In search of the Trojan War’, with Michael Wood in the leading role as both writer and presenter, we thought it would be a worthwhile novelty, for us, to review the TV series. Then there arrived Michael Wood's book with the same title (London: BBC, 1985. 272 pp., many unnumbered plates and figs. £10.95 hardback); so we asked Donald Easton, known to our readers mainly for his contributions on Troy and Schliemann, to look at the series over six weeks, read the book, and give us his considered judgement on Wood's claim for the historicity of the Trojan War. Mr Easton, whose interests lie mainly in the history, archaeology and languages of pre-classical Anatolia, at present holds a Research Fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge.
The return of cultural property
Authors: Greenfield Jeanette
Published: January 2016

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries bore witness to the zenith of the European art of 'collecting' antiquities. The second half of the nineteenth century saw the beginnings of systematic archaeological techniques of excavation, field survey, conservation and protection. It saw what Professor Seton Lloyd has called the 'birth of a conscience' regarding the expropriation of antiquities from other countries. In the twentieth century the idea has emerged that cultural property is a matter of international concern, as being part of the 'heritage of mankind'. This concern has centred around looting from and destruction of archaeological sites, cultural heritage, the illicit traffic of art in the international market, and the return of cultural property. ildditional controls have been sought to establish the protection of cultural property in time of war as well as peace.
The British Archaeological Expedition to Qatar 1973–1974
Authors: de Cardi Beatrice
Published: January 2016

The winter of 1973-74 saw the extension of British archaeological activities to Qatar, an independent Arab state on the western shore of the Gulf to the east of Bahrain (FIG. 1). Surrounded on three sides by sea, Qatar’s inland borders lie with Saudi Arabia on the south-west and Abu Dhabi on the south-east. From the air Qatar appears to rise imperceptibly from the sea, its arid limestone plateaux stretching endlessly southward until they meet the high encroaching dunes from Saudi Arabia. Although generally flat the terrain is far from featureless and low cliffs, eroded mezas and dramatic gas flares add interest to the landscape in the west near Dukhan where the British Archaeological Expedition to Qatar was hospitably accommodated by the Qatar Petroleum Company.
American archaeology: past and future
Authors: Fagan Brian M.
Published: January 2016

Nearly two thousand archaeologists gathered in Denver in May 1985 to celebrate the first half-century of the Society for American Archaeology. We asked Professor Brian Fagan of the University of California, Santa Barbara, to report on this remarkable assembly and to review the book* published to celebrate the Society's jubilee. We add our congratulations to his, and wish the Society all success in its next fifty years.
Dilmun
Authors: Tosi Maurizio
Published: January 2016

Like Bibby’s two previous books, Looking for Dilmun is written for the general public. It is an account of the research carried out by a large team of Danish scholars, led by P. V. Glob and Bibby himself, in the Arab states on the Persian Gulf. The expeditions began seventeen years ago, and have been both intensive and productive: over the years, they have yielded an impressive amount of material which, with only a few gaps, now covers almost the whole cultural sequence of the Arab coast and its islands.
Prehistory in Northeastern Arabia
Authors: Oates Joan
Published: January 2016

In 1968 Geoffrey Bibby, then carrying out an archaeological survey in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, was shown a collection of flint implements and ‘about two hundred potsherds, of a thin, greenish-yellow ware decorated with geometric patterns in dark-brown paint’ (1970, 376). They had been found by an American school teacher, Grace Burkholder, who, together with other amateur archaeologists from the headquarters of the Arabian American Oil Company at Dhahran, had scoured the nearby desert in pursuit of archaeological remains. Bibby with considerable astonishment recognized the pottery as identical with the Mesopotamian al ‘Ubaid.
Megaliths galore
Authors: Daniel Glyn
Published: January 2016

The Inventaire des mégalithes de la France—Région Parisienne is the fourth in the French series which began with Cordier's inventory of Indre-et-Loire (1963) and continued with Gruet's inventory of Maine-et-Loire (1967) and Despride and Leymarios's inventory of Loir-et-Cher (1974). All these have been published as supplements to Gallia Préhistoire and we are now promised a fifth volume by Jean Clottes on the megaliths of the Lot. The present volume is by far the biggest and most important in the series so far and it deals with the monuments in the present six departments of Paris, Yvelines, Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de- Marne, and Val d'Oise, which used to be the departments of Seine and Seine-et-Oise.

The author of this inventory is an English civil servant, now in high international office in Brussels, who formerly was in Paris and there spent his week-ends picnicking in megaliths, and what better employment could there be for our international civil servants? As he says, with characteristic modesty, of his Paris days, ‘Au commencement vers 1955 ou 1956, la prtparation de cet inventaire servait uniquement de distraction pour mes moments perdus et n'avait aucune prétention. Ce ne fut que beaucoup plus tard qu'il m'a été suggéré de le proposer à la présente série. La distraction transformée en devoir, c'est alors que le travail a commencé pour de bon.’
Seafaring merchants of Ur?
Authors: Oates J. , Davidson T. E. , Kamilli D. , McKerrell H.
Published: January 2016

Less than ten years have passed since the first discovery in Saudi Arabia of prehistoric pottery superficially identical with that known from the earliest farming settlements in Sumer 6-700 km to the north. Some 40 sites have now been identified in the Eastern Province. More recently comparable pottery has been found at sites in nearby Qatar and Bahrain. These discoveries have provoked much speculation about the nature of the contact between Sumer and Arabia at this early period (on calibrated radiocarbon determinations by the late sixth millennium BC), and indeed on the origins of the people who created the important and distinctive prehistoric culture characterized by this pottery and known to archaeologists as ‘Ubaid.
‘Ancient Vermont’
Authors: Ross Anne , Reynolds Peter
Published: January 2016

The authors of this paper were invited to attend a conference on ‘Ancient Vermont’ held at Castleton in Vermont in October 1977, and to examine and comment upon the ‘evidence’ for the extensive occupation of New England by Celts and others in the first or second millennium BC as propounded by Professor L. B. Fell of Harvard University. The ‘evidence’ consists broadly of supposed ‘Ogam’ and ‘proto-Ogam’ inscriptions on rocks and stones and megalithic stone structures, some of the structures appearing to have specific orientation in association with standing stones which, it has been suggested, indicates possible solar observatories. The nature of some of the evidence was examined by the authors both in the field and in an exhibition as well as by way of papers delivered at the conference. The conclusions reached were negative concerning any material evidence of a Celtic presence but do not, of course, preclude the possibility that Celts reached the New World in remote antiquity, nor deny that there are numerous anomalous features in the New England landscape which need to be carefully documented, explored and analysed.
The ‘unacceptable face’ of the West European Upper Palaeolithic
Authors: Bahn Paul G.
Published: January 2016

More than a century ago the publications of Gdouard Lartet laid the foundations for the nomenclature and stratigraphy of the French Upper Palaeolithic. Academic debate arising from Lartet's work continued until the 1930s by which time the framework and classification of the period were fixed. They have remained fairly static ever since. Indeed, the French system appeared unimpeachable, so that scholars strove to apply it, unchanged, to widely differing areas. Since the 1930s most work on the French sequence has been designed to confirm the results of old and 'untrustworthy' excavations, and to shore up an original framework with additional information. The situation is much the same for the way of life of palaeolithic man: the standard textbook description of savage hunters eking a living from a harsh environment was in vogue for a very long time, and one might be forgiven for believing that this hypothesis had always been dominant; this is not the case. It is little-known fact in this country that during the latter part of the nineteenth century there were major arguments in academic circles concerning the way of life in the Palaeolithic, and in particular the question of domestication during that period. Were it not for the demise of Piette and the subsequent dominance of Breuil, it is possible that the present orthodox account of the Upper Palaeolithic might be very different
Stone-lined earth ovens in Easter Island
Authors: McCoy Patrick C.
Published: January 2016

Prior to the recent description of stone-lined ovens in Hawaii (Hendren, 1975, 133, 139), such ovens had not been reported elsewhere in Polynesia, and as a result some attention has been placed on the origin of the urnu pae. An undocumented claim has been made for the probable Peruvian source of the Easter Island stone-lined oven (Heyerdahl, 1968, 1g5), but in fact cultural origin is still in question because local innovation by the undeniably Polynesian substratum of the indigenous population has not been ruled out. Regardless of their origin, urnu pae are a class of cultural remains that assume major importance in Easter Island settlement-pattern studies by virtue of their easy identification and common occurrence with other structures on extended family residential sites. The exposed rims of umu pae eliminate the need for excavation to locate cook houses, which means that the layout of habitation sites and relationship of major household activity areas often can be determined on the basis of surface survey alone. Umu pae function independently to fix the location on flat terrain of open-site habitations that may otherwise be hard to see owing to the absence of structural remains or earthen terraces.
The raw material of neolithic adzes and axes in central Europe: petrography and provenance
Authors: Schwarz-Mackensen Gesine , Schneider Werner
Published: January 2016

The homogeneity of settlement across the löss lands of central Europe, and the speed with which an agricultural economy was adopted, are among the more remarkable features of the neolithic colonization of temperate Europe. Now petrographic evidence indicates long-distance transport of stone across that huge area, and confirms that this early pattern comes to an abrupt halt at the transition to the later Neolithic.
Evolution of southeast Asian kettle-drums
Authors: Spennemann Dirk H.R.
Published: January 2016

As any parent knows, a metal saucepan turned upside down makes an admirable drum. This simple observation has implications for the evolution of one of the more splendid kinds of ancient bronze artefact.
Archaeology: the most basic science of all
Authors: Embree Lester
Published: January 2016

The last British minister of education refused ever to use the phrase ‘social sciences’, since these studies were so soft – by comparison with the real hard sciences like physics – they did not count to him as sciences at all. Archaeology, sometimes accepted as a social science, is often placed in the ‘arts’ departments of universities, a conventional word which nevertheless may suggest the creative arts, rather than an attempt at rigorous empirical research. Yet, ever since Sir John Lubbock (1865: 2) said of the new prehistory of the 1860s, ‘a new Science has, so to say, been born among us’, the aspiration of archaeology to the status of a ‘real science’ has been a recurring theme within the subject. Meanwhile, its place in the academic pecking-order stays dismally low. Here a philosopher takes a fresh look at what sort of science archaeology adds up to.
How to cope with calibration
Authors: Pearson Gordon W.
Published: January 2016

The first calibration curve, published by Suess in 1967 (Suess 1967), was a wiggly thing arrived at by a process Suess called ‘cosmic schwung’. Later curves used more formal statistical methods, including Clark's published in ANTIQUITY (Clark 1975), which came to be one of the most used. It would be good to have the new standard curves available in ANTIQUITY, but they are far too bulky. We recommend the now-indispensable calibration issue of Radiocarbon (Stuiver & Kra 1986), which takes 230 large-format pages to set them out as tables, graphs and a computer program.

Gordon Pearson is the British end of the Anglo-American axis, with Minze Stuiver at the University of Washington, largely responsible for the new calibration. He summarizes what the calibration does and how best to work with it.

This paper is a guide to working with the Radiocarbon calibration issue in particular, as well as calibration curves in general. It therefore follows the conventions for calibrated and uncalibrated dates that are presented there, rather than ANTIQUITY's normal convention.
New finds from the Anglo-Saxon monastery at Hartlepool, Cleveland
Authors: Cramp R.J. , Daniels R.
Published: January 2016

The Northumbrian monastic communities, and their crafts, are fundamental to the study of 7th-century Britain. New excavation has revealed significant evidence for the community at Hartlepool, as well as moulds and crucibles from fine metal-working on the site.
Mediterranean survey and the city
Authors: Bintliff John , Snodgrass Anthony
Published: January 2016

The Mediterranean, and especially Greece, provides fine conditions for field-survey – long and intense human occupation, good surface exposure, and distinctive, diagnostic ceramics. Where the Classical authors are conspicuously reticent about the countryside, field-survey can provide a rural picture, as well as the settlement patterns of prehistory. Here, the methods of field-survey return from the countryside to look at the cities, formerly the preserve of the excavator.
Political history and the decipherment of Maya glyphs
Authors: Culbert T. Patrick
Published: January 2016

The remarkable progress since 1960 in the decipherment of Maya inscriptions has created unique opportunities for interpretation. The Classic period (AD 250–900) Maya, who for half a century had been interpreted almost entirely from archaeological evidence, have suddenly become an historical civilization. Archaeological data and models can now be combined with and cross-checked against the Maya’s own dynastic records. New data have accumulated so rapidly, however, that communication between specialists in different realms of Maya studies has not kept pace. To stimulate communication, the School of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, sponsored a seminar in October 1986 that brought together a group of epigraphers, art historians and archaeologists to share their data, expertise and divergent approaches. This article will summarize the parts of the seminar that bear upon political history. My debt to the ten colleagues† who participated in the seminar is very great. The experience was genuinely collegial and whatever contribution our efforts make to Maya studies will be the result of the interplay of ideas and viewpoints that we established during our week together.
Repainting Australian rock art
Authors: Bowdler Sandra
Published: January 2016

Where and when does a living culture cease, where and when does archaeology begin? The issue has been raised again, this time concerning the repainting of Australian rock pictures.
New evidence of ritual monuments at Long Meg and her Daughters, Cumbria
Authors: Soffe Grahame , Clare Tom
Published: January 2016

A note on Long Meg and her Daughters, the monolith and stone circle in Cumberland,

provides excuse to quote both Stukeiey on the whole: ‘A great Celtic temple’; and Wordsworth on Long Meg herself: Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn The power of years - pre-eminent, and placed Apart, to overlook the circle vast Speak, Giant-Mother!

More to the point, these new findings from air photography report new field monuments to with the standing circle and the second circle that Stukeley drew, and require a reappraisal of the Neolithic to Eariy Bronze Age monuments in Cumbria.
The scene in the Shaft at Lascaux
Authors: Davenport Demorest , Jochim Michael A.
Published: January 2016

A new look at one of the more famous puzzles in prehistoric art, and the derivation of a scene at Lascaux from shamanistic practice.
Classical archaeology: whence and whither?
Authors: Boardman John
Published: January 2016

‘Archaeology is breaking up … the very identity of “Archaeology” is beginning to fragment’: thus the alarm call in early 1988 from Cambridge, made by and to non-classical archaeologists, to gather in June and consider remedies. A month after the Cambridge symposium nearly 1500 scholars gathered in Berlin for the Eleventh International Congress in Classical Archaeology, devoted to the Hellenistic period. Many of the papers treated subjects in the traditional way, trying to make sense of new discoveries, and making better sense ofthe long familiar, including some radical revisions. Several were of a style and approach unthinkable even 20 years ago, notably those dealing with the problems of acculturation on the eastern edges of Alexander’s empire. There were no signs of anxiety. Should there have been?
On the Pleistocene settlement of South America
Authors: Bednarik Robert G.
Published: January 2016

Australia and the Americas provide the two case-studies of the late human settlement of a continent by, it seems, Homo sapiens sapiens. At one time the corollaries of first occupation of the Americas, at perhaps 12,000 b.p., were a similarly late settlement of Australia and the need for a land-bridge across the Bering Straits. But now the pattern of occupation in New Guinea and its offshore islands proves that a long sea-crossing was made there before about 40,000 b.p. Here an Australian researcher looks across the Pacific to the evidence that has been offered for a Pleistocene occupation in south America, of a date comparable with that in Sahul.
Estimating the number of contemporaneous houses from 14C dates
Authors: Helskog Knut , Schweder Tore
Published: January 2016

How, given a collection of absolute dates from individual structures on a settlement site, is one to work out how many might have been occupied at any one time?