bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Distribution and Date of the Passage-Graves of the British Isles
Authors: Daniel G. E. , Powell T. G. E.
Published: February 2015

It is the object of this paper to examine the evidence for the relative and absolute chronology of the Passage-Graves of the British Isles. The title of the paper as well as this bald statement of purpose begs the immediate question of what exactly the authors mean by Passage-Graves.

We define a Passage-Grave as a prehistoric chamber tomb consisting of a passage leading to a round, polygonal, or square chamber, in which the collective burials were normally made. This type of monument may be walled with orthostats and roofed trabeate-wise by capstones, or it may be dry-walled with small stones laid horizontally and roofed by a false or corbelled vault, or again there may be present a combination of these techniques. On the other hand this type of monument may be wholly or partly cut in the rock or again there may be a combination of surface and rock-cut features in its construction. In almost all cases the surface forms of Passage-Grave are incorporated in a barrow or cairn of earth or stones. The constructional variety of the tomb does not affect its classification in a morphological category; the rock-cut tombs of Alcaide and Palmella are as much Passage-Graves as the corbel-vaulted tombs of He Longue and Alcalá, or the capstoneroofed tombs of Kercado and Bryn Celli Ddu.
First Report of the Cambridge Archaeological Expedition to Cyrenaica (1947)
Authors: McBurney C. B. M. , Hey R. W. , Watson W.
Published: February 2015

The choice of the Gebel Akhdar region of Cyrenaica for study arose partly from its geographical position midway between the Atlas and the Levant. At the same time the topography, with a range of considerable hills close to the coast, must at all times have provided a rainfall very appreciably superior to that of the surrounding low-lying territories. The area is thus a strategic one in which to examine the problems of the relationship between these two main areas of settlement in the Southern Mediterranean. The topography also affords exceptional opportunities for the preservation of a detailed geological record of changes in the relations of land and sea during Pleistocene and Recent times.
On the Ancient Channel between Caversham and Henley, Oxfordshire, and its contained Flint Implements
Authors: Treacher M. S. , Arkell W. J. , Oakley K. P.
Published: February 2015

The wide depression which cuts across the loop of the Thames from Caversham to Henley and marks the course of a trench partly filled with gravel was constantly under observation by Mr Llewellyn Treacher for a number of years. Together with certain fragments of its possible continuation as far east as Winter Hill, north of Cookham Rise, it forms the subject of the present paper.

This ancient channel leaves the Thames Valley at Mapledurham, the middle of its path being marked by Chazey Wood, and passing eastwards between Binfield Heath and Peppard, joins the Thames again at Henley. The Geological Survey maps do not differentiate the deposits which fill it from the plateau gravel generally known as fluvioglacial gravel or Northern Drift. One object of this paper is to show that the channel is not filled with Northern Drift but with a gravel so different that it must have been laid down at a different time and under quite other conditions. A number of years ago Mr Osborne White recognized that an exposure near Blagrave Farm towards the western end of the channel was Thames gravel and in later years suggested that the deposits seen south-west of Henley were contemporaneous with the Silchester stage, that is the highest terrace of the Kennet, which he had so named in 1902 (White, 1895; 1902; 1908, p. 88).
The ‘Sword-bearers.’ A Reinterpretation
Authors: Savory H. N.
Published: February 2015

Two celebrated archaeological studies laid the foundation upon which the prevailing conception of the Late Bronze Age in Britain has been built. In ‘A Prehistoric Invasion of England’ O. G. S. Crawford isolated a number of intrusive forms characteristic of British Late Bronze Age hoards, pointed out how these could be connected with intrusive ‘Deverel-Rimbury’ types of pottery by means of the maple-leaf razors, which occur in settlements as well as hoards, and inferred that these types, including leaf-shaped swords, represented an invasion, which he at first attributed to Goidelic Celts. Peake's Bronze Age and the Celtic World was wider in scope but less critical in method. The evolution of the sword in Bronze Age Europe was analyzed and an almost exclusive reliance placed on the diffusion of the successive types of sword as evidence for far-flung folk-movements. The importance of Peake's work for this study lies in the special turn given to its leading idea a few years later by Estyn Evans, who, in an able paper laid special emphasis on a particular type—the ‘carp's-tongue’ sword—as evidence of a definite folk-movement from the West Alpine area into south-eastern England. Soon afterwards Professor Hawkes gave fuller definition to the ‘Carp's-tongue’ sword complex, to which he assigned bag-shaped chapes, end-winged axes, socketed axes with winged decoration, ‘bugle-shaped objects,’ ‘hog-backed’ razors, and various other types, and clarified the distinction between it and the more widely distributed group of undifferentiated Late Bronze Age hoards regarded as representing the reaction of the native bronze industry.
Second Report of the Sub-Committee of the South-Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries on the Petrological Identification of Stone Axes
Authors: Stone J. F. S. , Wallis F. S.
Published: February 2015

The first report of the Sub-Committee of the South-Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries on the petrological identification of stone axes was published in the Proceedings for 1941, vol. VII, 50–72. Appreciative comments concerning it were published in Museums Journal, vol. 42, 34, and Nature, 1942, 149, 275.

Membership of the Sub-Committee remains unchanged apart from the withdrawal of Dr R. Churchill Blackie and the addition of Mrs D. P. Dobson, LITT.D., M.A., F.S.A. (1945), Messrs C. K. Croft Andrew, F.S.A. and A. G. Madan, and Dr J. F. S. Stone (Honorary Secretary from 1946).

The activities of the Sub-Committee were naturally greatly restricted during the war, but a few axes were submitted and, although procedure was protracted, eventually examined.

Recently the Council for British Archaeology has received a report concerning cooperation of petrologists and archaeologists urging that the identification of stone axes should be raised from the regional to national level. The existing museum federations seemed admirably suited for implementing this policy and their co-operation has accordingly been secured. In future, therefore, the petrological activities of the South-Western Group will be strictly regional instead of embracing the whole of Britain.

The moment for this change seemed an appropriate one for the Sub-Committee to publish a second report briefly summarizing their work and also bringing to a close the first decade of its labours.

Once again thanks are extended to those private owners and trustees of public institutions who have willingly allowed the material in their possession or charge to be sectioned and so made these results possible. The Committee is again deepjy indebted to Mr E. D. Evens whose enthusiasm for, and interest in, the work has never waned and to whose meticulous examination of each thin section they owe much.
The Relationship of Bog Stratigraphy to Climatic Change and Archaeology
Authors: Godwin H.
Published: February 2015

As a botanical field investigator for many years past interested in bogs and fens I have often had occasion to notice that these areas appeal very differently to different persons: to some I fear they do not appeal at all, and I fancy that many an archaeologist at heart prefers the dry chalk trench to the soaking black peat face. There are, however, such great advantages to be gained from the study of peat and lake-deposits in relation to archaeology that archaeologists increasingly realise the need for much fuller knowledge of the inherent character and properties of these deposits. Since such deposits are formed by the accumulation of plant-remains under water-logged conditions, and thus incorporate the remains of past generations of aquatic plant communities, it is evident that we shall need to consider the peat beds from the standpoint of the plant-ecologist already familiar with corresponding communities as they grow and form peat at the present day. It is therefore chiefly as an ecologist that I have sought to understand the problems offered by peat stratigraphy, and it is as such that I hope to convey something of the problems they concern.
Seal-Hunting in the Stone Age of North-Western Europe: A Study in Economic Prehistory
Authors: Clark J. G. D.
Published: February 2015

Although it has been widely recognised that the bones of seals occur on Stone Age sites in various parts of north-western Europe, no comprehensive attempt to clarify the history and estimate the role of seal-hunting in the economy of Stone Age Europe has yet been made. The research, on which the present paper is based, is part of a programme to further knowledge of prehistoric times by the study of social activities. Seal-hunting is here considered, not because it gave rise to objects which need classifying and dating, but simply because it was an activity of vital interest to certain coast-dwelling communities in north-western Europe during the Stone Age. If the physiological approach is stressed, this is not to depreciate the morphological: in point of fact the more we discover about any human activity the more fitted we become to interpret correctly the material objects or structures associated with it.

Archaeology is rarely sufficient to recover the way of life of early man. The problem of seal-hunting in antiquity, which is after all basically biological, is one of those which can only be resolved by several convergent disciplines. The foundations of the present study have been laid by zoologists, men who, like Winge, Holmquist, Pira, Degerböl and others, have given us precise information about the seals hunted by early man, through patient identification of bones and teeth from archaeological deposits, or who, by their observation of the life habits and distribution of the various species in the field, have, like Collett, Nordqvist, Nansen and Fraser Darling, enabled us to visualise the opportunities open to the old hunters.
Prehistoric Investigations in British Somaliland
Authors: Burkitt Miles , Glover P. E.
Published: February 2015

The average person knows very little about British Somaliland, hardly indeed where it is situated; yet archaeologically speaking it seems likely that it will prove of considerable importance. Although up to the present no systematic investigations have been undertaken, enough material in the way of stone implements has been unearthed by amateur collectors to show that there are great possibilities of important finds being made in the country; and, now, a very interesting rock shelter art has been discovered. Clearly the archaeological importance of the country merits investigation by a competent archaeologist, and it seems possible that such an expedition may eventuate at a not too distant date. The article that follows, therefore, is primarily intended to bring these discoveries and the possibilities of the subject in general to the notice of the public in a preliminary way.

Some little time ago Major Glover, Chief Pasture Officer in the country, sent me some, implements that he had collected, together with an intimation that he had been studying some rock shelter paintings. Frankly, the implements, though interesting, yielded little more information as to the cultures present than was already known from the work of previous investigators, and which had been in part epitomised by Burkitt and Barrington Brown in an article in Man for 1934, No. 164.
The Late Bronze Age Razors of the British Isles
Authors: Piggott C. M.
Published: February 2015

Although a large number of bronze ‘razors’ have been found in these islands, the literature concerning them is very scattered, and there has been no attempt to synthesize the information concerning them. There are frequent references to the so-called ‘plantain’ (our Class I) form or to the ‘maple-leaf’ (Class II) examples with their suggested connection with Siculan razors, but there has been no detailed analysis of their chronological and cultural positions in the British Late Bronze Age. This paper attempts such a classification of the razors on a typological and cultural basis so that they can be fitted with greater accuracy intq their place in Late Bronze chronology.
Iron Age Pottery from Wisley, Surrey
Authors: Lowther A. W. G.
Published: February 2015

The purpose of this paper is to present an adequate record of the Iron Age pottery found in 1922–23 at a site on the left bank of the river Wey, at a point east of Wisley Church, of which only a small, and not fully representative selection has yet been published. The pieces hitherto recorded were selected from material presented to the British Museum, but a larger quantity has been kindly made available by Dr Eric Gardner, F.S.A., and is here published, together with pottery from the same site, now in Weybridge Museum. Account has also been taken of the sherds in the British Museum.

The pottery is stated to have been found in a series of pits, among which were some containing neolithic B rim sherds proving earlier occupation of the site, but no plans or sections or other adequate information about the site was published, though the report states that ‘four large kilns were uncovered and one small one, made expressly for firing the largest urn.’ It is also recorded that ‘a few loom-weights were found and wattle-and-daub was abundant.’
Prehistory in Denmark: 1939–1945
Authors: Mathiassen Therkel
Published: February 2015

The period of the war has in Denmark, as in most other European countries, been one of difficulty and anxiety. Would it be possible to carry on the fieldwork, and, still more important, to preserve the valuable collections and carry them safe through this life- and death-battle of all the great world powers? The danger was especially obvious after the German occupation of Denmark in 1940. In the National Museum at Copenhagen we have one of the best prehistoric collections in Europe, and it was with great anxiety that we saw Copenhagen changed into an important German base. Air raids and invasion by the Allied forces were both expected, and, still worse, the enemy threatened to bomb the museum as vengeance for the sabotage done by the Danish Resistance Movement. A good proportion of the collections was dismantled, some of it evacuated to safe places, and some of it deposited in the cellars of the museum. Fortunately the National Museum—and also all the prehistoric museums in the small towns—came through the war without damage.

The museum authorities tried to save the prehistoric remains in the country—protected by law—from violation through the German fortification works. We got a promise from the German military authorities that nothing would be destroyed without very important military reasons; but a good many barrows from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age had to be removed at the large new flying bases, especially in Jutland. Although we got a chance to excavate most of the barrows before destruction, many others—more than 200—were destroyed or damaged by the various fortifications, mostly in western Jutland. It will, however, be possible to restore a good many of them.
Five Late Bronze Age Enclosures in North Wiltshire
Authors: Piggott C. M.
Published: February 2015

The purpose of this paper is briefly to draw attention to a new group of Deverel–Rimbury enclosures in Wessex. These were found in the course of field work by the writer and Mr Owen Meyrick during the year preceding the outbreak of war, and all five are within two miles of one another on open downland north of the Marlborough–Wootton-Bassett road (fig. 1).

1. Preshute Down. (See fig. 2 and pl. VII). Squarish enclosure covered with L.B.A. pottery and flints. Slight excavations were made here with the help of Mr W. E. V. Young from Avebury. The field system around the enclosure was shown to be later.

2. Ogbourne Down. (See fig. 4, and pl. VIII). Three enclosures close together, east of the Four-Mile Clump and at the bottom of a valley. Much L.B.A. pottery scattered over the whole area. Many ancient fields all round are visible from the crest of Smeathes' Ridge, but their relationship with the earthworks was not discovered before the war made more excavation impossible. Thanks to many boys from the Marlborough College Archaeological Society, excavation was made at a number of points.

3. Ogbourne Maizey Down. (See fig. 3). An interesting sub-rectangular earthwork of the same type. No excavations made. Only a few potsherds were found, but all proved to be L.B.A. This enclosure had been constructed by digging the ditch into the soft lynchet soil of a pre-existing field system.
A Trepanned Skull of the Beaker Period from Dorset and the Practice of Trepanning in Prehistoric Europe
Authors: Piggott Stuart
Published: February 2015

The circumstances of the discovery of the trepanned skull described in this paper may be briefly summarised here: the full report of the excavations during which it was discovered will appear in a forthcoming volume of Archaeologia. In the summer of 1938 I carried out excavations on behalf of H.M. Office of Works on a group of round barrows on Crichel Down, Dorset, some 5 miles north of the town of Blandford. One of these barrows (no. 14 of the forthcoming report), a very low and inconspicuous mound about 20 feet in diameter, was found to cover a grave cut in the chalk containing a crouched human burial. The skeleton lay on its left side with the head bent slightly forward, the legs flexed so that the heels were nearly touching the pelvis, the left arm extended and the right arm flexed so that the hand rested on the shoulder. At the foot of the grave lay a beaker of Type B1 on its side, the base resting against the right tibia of the skeleton. (Fig. 1).

The whole burial was entirely typical of Beaker Period inhumations, and it was not until the skull was removed from the grave that it was found that it bore a large opening in the left parietal, and that into that opening the piece of bone which had been removed (by a careful process of grooving and ultimate excision) had been replaced before the individual had been laid in the grave. We were clearly in the presence of an exceedingly fine example of trepanning, and two points were immediately apparent, namely that the individual had not survived the operation, there being no evidence of healing on the edge of the opening, and that the replaced roundel of bone must have been strapped or bandaged into place before burial. As the skull was lifted, the roundel remained behind on the floor of the grave, and in the original deposition of the body something must have been done to secure it in position.
The Rodmarton and Avening Portholes
Authors: Clifford E. M. , Daniel G. E.
Published: February 2015

The studies of Leon Coutil and Marcel Baudouin on the gallery grave of Vaux-Louvets at Vaudancourt and Kendrick's general survey in his Axe Age, first drew the attention of modern archaeologists to the problems associated with the nature and origin of portholes in megalithic tombs in Europe. Recently interest has again been stimulated in this subject. In Britain, Hemp has excavated Bryn yr Hen Bobl in Anglesey with its curious pair of holes in the southern transverse orthostat of the chamber, Fleure has begun to excavate the Bridestones in Cheshire, and the newly discovered chamber in the north flank of the Lanhill long barrow in Wiltshire was described as having a porthole entrance; and abroad Dr Leisner has given us an excellent study of the Iberian portholes. It has therefore been thought worth while to survey afresh the problem of the European portholes, and more especially to bring together the information known about the British portholes and to relate this to the general problem of the origin and spread of portholes in Europe.

From the published accounts it was clear that the most perfect examples of portholes in the British Isles were those in the Rodmarton and Avening long barrows in Gloucestershire (fig. 1), but none of these portholes had actually been seen in their entirety by present day archaeologists. Rodmarton was excavated in 1863 by the Rev. S. Lysons, but the excavations were partially filled in and by the present day nothing of the two portholes was visible and we had only the inadequate drawings in the published accounts to rely on.
The Pleistocene Succession in the Somme Valley
Authors: Breuil L'Abbé H.
Published: February 2015

It is particularly interesting for those British geologists who devote themselves to studying the Thames gravels, to have a statement, as accurate as possible, of the results at which I have arrived in a parallel study, which I have pursued for nearly twenty years in the Somme valley.

On the slopes and in the foot of this valley, a series of deposits bear witness to successive oscillations with phases of erosion and aggradation, episodes which brought the river from a high level to its actual course, running on the deposits of its last aggradation, those which are visible being peaty.

There is every evidence, judging by the remains left by the river on the slopes of its valley, of a series of levels, differing both in height and physical state, as well as in their paleontological and archaeological content. These have been called terraces, though this term is very inexact, for they are generally only steps surviving of ancient scooped out aggradations, which in their turn filled up the modern valley. Each is really complex, and, far from being of one date, is the accumulated result of phases of fluvial accretion at different periods of aggradation, which spread out or partially removed, at the beginning and end of these phases, the contributions of lateral phenomena, usually solifluxion, at the time of the deepening of the river bed.
A New View of the Western European Group of Quaternary Cave Art
Authors: Leason P. A.
Published: February 2015

There is no feature of quaternary cave art that has called forth more admiration for the Aurignacians and Magdalenians than the apparent liveliness and naturalness of action in their pictured animals. The general belief seems to be that the artists were impelled by a definite desire to depict characteristic actions. This is implied by the titles that have been given to various examples such as ‘The trotting boar,’ ‘The bellowing bison,’ ‘The charging mammoth,’ ‘The wounded and falling reindeer,’ ‘The galloping reindeer,’ ‘The browsing reindeer,’ ‘The neighing horse.’

Yet there are excellent reasons for asking whether the general acceptance of these beliefs has not been too casual and whether the spirit of enquiry might not have carried us much further in this field than it has so far done.

The faults in the action of many of the pictures have received much consideration and it is perhaps fair to say that the following quotation represents current general opinion regarding the matter. ‘We cannot,’ says Mr Baldwin Brown, ‘credit our palaeolithic artist with either the desire or the capacity for analysing and reproducing the actual movements which instantaneous photography has now revealed to us. Many actions which he rendered in the walk or the canter, accord fairly well with the well-known Muybridge photographs, though where the difference comes in the artist gives a more convincing appearance of movement than the camera. It may therefore be said that as a rule action is rendered in an artistic and not a scientific spirit, and the animals are made at all hazard to look as if they were moving. At the same time there is secured a fairly large measure of scientific accuracy. In two cases … the eye of the hunter artist has been quick enough to catch a position, revealed to us moderns by photography.’
The Transepted Gallery Graves of Western France
Authors: Daniel G. E.
Published: February 2015

In a recent number of these Proceedings, the present writer defined a type of megalithic burial chamber which was there called the transepted gallery grave, and discussed the distribution of this type in southern Britain. The transepted gallery grave (sometimes called the cruciform gallery grave, or the cruciform allée couverte) consists, as was pointed out, of a central gallery grave or allée couverte with one or two pairs of small rectangular side-chambers: in plan this type of monument resembles either a Latin or a Lorraine cross. Sometimes the gallery extends beyond the last pair of side-chambers, at others it stops flush with them. It will be remembered that we listed eight tombs of this type in England and Wales: Pare le Breos Cwm and Penmaen Burrows in Glamorgan, Nempnett Thrubwell and Stoney Littleton in Somerset, Wayland's Smithy in Berkshire, and three Gloucestershire sites—Uley, Nympsfield, and Notgrove. From the distribution of these chambers it was suggested that some of them formed the primary settlement on the shores of the Bristol Channel of a culture which subsequently spread over south-east Wales, the south-west Midlands, Wiltshire and Somerset, and which we called the Severn-Cotswold culture.

It was, moreover, suggested that the origin of the transepted gallery grave in Britain, and therefore of the Cotswold-Severn culture, must be sought for outside the British Isles, and we agreed with Fleure, Forde, and Le Rouzic in deriving these early settlers on the shores of the Bristol Channel from Brittany. In 1936, when the article was written, I knew of only about half-a-dozen transepted gallery graves in France: but in the following year I discovered among the Lukis MSS. at St. Peter Port a number of plans of other transepted gallery graves in western France.
On the Date of an Axe-Hammer from Llangeitho Cardiganshire
Authors: Hyde H. A.
Published: February 2015

The large perforated stone axe-hammer, illustrated by fig. 1, was found in 1933 in a peat bog near Cwrt Farm, Llangeitho, Cardiganshire (6-in. O.S. Cards, XX, S.E.). It is described by W. F. Grimes (1935) as being ‘related typologically to other axes which can be dated to the Bronze Age’; he adds ‘a date within that period may be accepted as the most likely. The position and circumstances in which it was found favour such an early date without confirming it.’ The same circumstances suggested that the find might perhaps be dated by the method of pollen analysis. The object itself was examined, but it had already been cleaned thoroughly, and even scraping inside the socket yielded only the merest traces of peat, quite insufficient for analysis.
Air Photography, Past and Future Presidential Address for 1938
Authors: Crawford O. G. S.
Published: February 2015

An occasion such as this is an opportunity for looking both backwards and forwards. I propose first to speak about the activities of our Society during the past year, and then, looking forwards, to throw out a few suggestions. In the second part of my Address I shall not confine myself to the work of our society, but shall review the present position and future prospects of archaeological air-photography. To do so implies an optimistic outlook that I am very far from possessing. Let us leave it at that.

It is usual and proper for a President either to eulogize his predecessor or else to say that he is too distinguished to need any such eulogy. There is no harm in combining both methods. It is now generally recognized that Professor Mahr, working in happy and enviable co-operation with the Government of Eire, and also with his scientific colleagues in Northern Ireland, has built up a thoroughly sound administration and that he has even found time for personal research as well. His Presidential Address, delivered last year, which you will now have had time to read in the pages of our Proceedings, gives proof of that.
A Middle Bronze Age Site at Stockbridge, Hampshire
Authors: Stone J. F. S. , Hill N. Gray
Published: February 2015

During recent excavations on Stockbridge Down a large sherd of Middle Bronze Age ware was found lying on a rabbit scrape on the open downland. The actual site of the find and of the excavation to be described is marked as X on the sketch map which accompanies this report (fig. 1), and which is based upon the excellent aerial photograph of the site published and described by O. G. S. Crawford and A. Keiller.

Little description of this ridge of the downs is needed. It is a very well known landmark for miles around, and consists of some four or five gorse and scrub covered knolls on elevated downland stretching from the Stockbridge-Winchester road to Woolbury Ring Camp. These knolls are capped with clay, but this does not extend to the saddlebacks connecting them where the short springy turf lies directly upon the chalk, and is separated from it by only some 8 inches of mould.

The site lies on the very top of one of these saddlebacks, and in the middle of a smooth area of downland bounded on the N.E. and s.w. by two of the scrub-capped knolls and on the N.w. and S.E. by ancient lynchets. From the number of scattered Romano-British potsherds in the immediate vicinity it would appear that it lies almost in the middle of one of the ancient fields, the lynchets of which are such prominent features on Stockbridge Down.
Continental Bell- or Disc-Barrows in Holland with special reference to Tumulus I at Rielsch Hoefke
Authors: van Giffen A. E.
Published: February 2015

There are half a dozen barrows, now restored, on the heath called ‘Rechte Heide’ belonging to the municipality of the village of Goirle in the province of North Brabant, Holland, about 5 km. south-west of the town of Tilburg (fig. 1). The barrows stand on the east bank of the brook called ‘Oude Lei’ a little north of the ‘Rielsch Hoefke’ farm. Although their popular name is ‘De Vijfberg’ (The Five Mounds) in reality they number seven; six of these form a curve with the open side looking east, the seventh one lying a little further south. The height of the surrounding heath is about 20 m. above sea-level. It consists of Rhine-Meuse diluvium, belonging to the so-called high terrace, and it is fairly level.

Although more than once disturbed in the past the importance of this group was only perceived by W. J. A. and J. Willems during an excursion in 1935, when they observed that one of them (fig. 1, no. 1) was surrounded by a bank and ditch. The peculiar-form, recognisable at once from the outside (pl. XLIXa), is in my opinion that of a typical bell-barrow which made it at that time unique in Holland and, as far as I know, in the whole of the European Continent.
British Decorated Axes and their Diffusion during the Earlier Part of the Bronze Age
Authors: Megaw B. R. S. , Hardy E. M.
Published: February 2015

It is intended in this paper to describe briefly the occurrence and, to a limited extent, the variety of ornamented metal axes belonging to the earlier part of the British and Irish Bronze Age, rather than to publish the results of an exhaustive study, such as the present writers have had no opportunity of making. The present aim is to indicate in a general way the importance of these axes in the material culture of our Bronze Age, and that of Western and Northern Europe. The objects themselves have been well discussed up to a point by Wilde (51) and Evans (23), but without special consideration of the significance of their distribution and associations.

These ornamented axes, which are of the ‘flat’ or ‘flanged’ type, are apparently all of bronze. Some analyses have been made (3, 27, 42), but without spectrographic examination (48) it is difficult to draw any definite conclusions as to the source of the ores used or the place of manufacture. Open moulds for casting axes of the ‘flat’ form (e.g. pl. LIII, c, d) have been found in various parts of the British Isles, and their distribution is discussed on page 287.
The Early Bronze Age in Wessex
Authors: Piggott Stuart
Published: February 2015

The work on which this study is based was originally undertaken with a view to examining the cultures of the geographical area usually comprised in the term ‘Wessex’ in the period immediately following the Beaker phase. For a great many years a remarkable series of grave-groups have been known, incorporating elements (often spectacular in their implication of material wealth) which were peculiar to the area under discussion, and loosely assigned to the Middle Bronze Age. It was clear from the outset that a study of these groups would throw a great deal of light on trade relations, both internal and overseas, and it also seemed likely that in them might be found a culture equivalent chronologically to the Food Vessel phase of northern England, intervening (in a ceramic sense) between the beakers and the cinerary urns and forming a final phase of the Early Bronze Age—a phase which had already been postulated in the typological series of bronze implements, but which had not reached the dignity of a definite culture.

The evidence examined in this paper supports the existence of such a culture in Wessex in the final phases of the Early Bronze Age. It is a highly individual culture whose origin lies in an actual ethnic movement from N. France. The nature of the evidence,—finds from the richly-furnished graves of chieftains—presents us with a view of the material equipment of an aristocratic minority. The basic folk culture appears, from the slight evidence available, to have been similar to the food-vessel culture of the greater part of Britain north of the Thames at this time, but it becomes clear that in Wessex there was; superimposed on this somewhat uninteresting and unenterprising substratum, an intrusive ruling class whose delight in barbaric finery led them to open trade connections not only with their Breton homeland, but with central Europe and Scandinavia, and whose imports of bronze tools and almost certainly of actual craftsmen laid the foundations of the peculiarly individual metallurgical achievements of the British Middle Bronze Age.
Excavation of an Untouched Chamber in the Lanhill Long Barrow
Authors: Keiller Alexander , Piggott Stuart , Passmore A. D. , Cave A. J. E.
Published: February 2015

The Lanhill Barrow stands on the south side of the Chippenham–Marshfield road about 2½ miles west-north-west of the former place. It stands on level ground with a gentle slope to the south down to a small spring a few yards away on that side. The water runs east and at the bottom a dam has been carried across the field thus at one time forming a small lake, this is probably later in date than the barrow itself. The direction of the barrow is slightly south of east and north of west with the larger end to the former point. It is about 185 ft. long by 90 ft. wide at the east end, gradually tapering to a point at the west.
The Chambered Barrow in Parc Le Breos Cwm, S. Wales
Authors: Daniel Glyn
Published: February 2015

Parc Le Breos House stands in the south and centre of the Gower peninsula in West Glamorgan, about a mile north-west of Parkmill and a mile north of Penmaen, two small villages on the main road from Swansea westwards to Port Eynon and Rhossili. In the extensive woods surrounding the house is a small valley leading from Llethrid in the north to Parkmill in the south, and variously known as Parc le Breos Cwm, Parc Cwm, Green Cwm, and Happy Valley. A rough track leads up this valley from Parkmill to Green Cwm cottage, and, immediately to the west of this track and a little over half-a-mile north-west of Parkmill is the chambered barrow which forms the subject of this paper. Iron railings run round the greater part of the barrow, and inside these railings the barrow is covered with a heavy growth of trees. The sides of the Cwm are heavily wooded but the valley bottom is free from trees and the barrow thus stands out very clearly. It lies about a mile and a half from the sea at Oxwich Bay, and a little over fifty feet above sea-level. It is in the parish of Penmaen and is marked as ‘Tumulus’ on the current 6 inch (Glam. 22 S.W.) and 1 inch (100 G 11) maps; it is number IOI on the recently published Map of South Wales showing the distribution of Long Barrows and Megaliths, and number 122 in Mr Grimes's recent paper in these Proceedings.
The Neolithic Pottery of Yorkshire
Authors: Newbigin Nancy
Published: February 2015

Mr Piggott's survey of British neolithic pottery in 1932 revealed the dense concentration of Windmill Hill pottery in and near the Yorkshire Wolds, while in a later note Mr Sheppard drew attention to further neolithic fragments in the Mortimer collection, and published one of the Hanging Grimston bowls, newly reconstructed from fragments. But much of the Yorkshire pottery could not be traced; its existence was merely inferred from Greenwell's and Mortimer's descriptions. Recently, however, through the kindness of the authorities of the British Museum and the Mortimer Museum at Hull the writer has been able to go through the entire reserves of both the Greenwell and the Mortimer Collections, with the result that almost all the missing pottery has been traced, bowls only known from fragments have been completed, stratigraphical details have been recovered, and a large number of entirely new sites has come to light. In view of this mass of new material the time seemed ripe to attempt a complete account of the neolithic pottery of Yorkshire, including both the old and the new material, and to see what light its distribution, associations and affinities throw both on the complex interrelationships of the neolithic folk throughout the country, and on the prehistory of its own area.

Of the two main divisions of neolithic pottery, by far the greatest quantity is of the ‘A’ type; the pure ‘B’ is nowhere represented, but some half dozen sites, whose significance is discussed later, have produced sherds which show indirect ‘B’ influence.
Report on Excavations at Jaywick Sands, Essex (1934), with some observations on the Clactonian Industry, and on the Fauna and Geological significance of the Clacton Channel
Authors: Oakley Kenneth P. , Leakey Mary
Published: February 2015

The foreshore exposures of Pleistocene deposits at Clacton and at Lion Point, two miles to the south-west, mark cross-sections of an ancient river channel which now extends inland in a broad curve between these two localities. The deposits have become famous through the investigations of Mr S. Hazzledine Warren, who has for many years kept a careful watch on the exposures, and who has published a number of important papers on his discoveries (Warren, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1933, 1934).

The gravels in the Clacton channel have yielded a contemporary palaeolithic flake-industry which was recognised by the Abbé Breuil as identical in style with an industry represented in the Middle Pleistocene gravels of Mesvin, Belgium (Warren, 1922). Breuil (1929, p. 6) has since proposed the name of Clactonian for this industry in view of the fact that in the Mesvin deposits the implements in question are in a derived condition, and associated with other industries, whereas at Clacton there is no doubt as to their contemporaneity with the containing gravel. Industries of Clacton style have since been recognised in numerous localities, not only in this country, but also on the Continent (Breuil, 1932). They appear to represent a widespread cultural tradition, possibly of Asiatic origin, and very probably ancestral to the later Mousterian industries.

The industry of the type station—the Clacton-on-Sea district of Essex—represents neither the earliest nor the latest stage of evolution of the Clactonian culture, and importance attaches to establishing its exact position in the Lower Palaeolithic sequence.
A Note on the Zoogeographical History of North Western Europe
Authors: Ullyott Philip
Published: February 2015

Sometime after the last retreat of the ice in the Quaternary ice age, the Scandinavian peninsula was separated on the south from the north German plain and Denmark. Later, England was cut off by the Channel from the continental land mass. An estimation of the times at which these two events happened is interesting to archaeologists, botanists and zoologists alike, because the communities with which they are concerned are affected by the barrier of an intervening arm of the sea.

So far most of the evidence about the times of separation comes from botanical and archaeological sources, from pollen analysis and the investigation of cultural sites. In this paper the distribution and physiology of certain freshwater animals are used to provide argument that the separation of Scandinavia and of England could only have taken place at times of particular climatic conditions. The climatic definition of the times of separation makes it possible to fit them in to the absolute geochronological scale which has been established by Scandinavian workers.
Archaeology of the Submerged Land-Surface of the Essex Coast
Authors: Warren S. Hazzledine , Piggott Stuart , Clark J. G. D. , Burkitt M. C. , H.  , Godwin M. E.
Published: February 2015

Collectors of prehistoric antiquities have long regarded the foreshore of long stretches of the Essex Coast between the rivers Stour and Blackwater as a prolific hunting ground, and many notable collections, consisting mainly of flints, have been obtained from this area. It is not the purpose of this paper to record these discoveries in detail, but rather to discuss the circumstances under which the antiquities are found, to summarise the main facts relating to the age of the old land-surface now submerged below the sea at high tide, and in conclusion to relate the facts observed on the Essex Coast to the stratigraphy established for the post-glacial deposits of the Fenland basin.
Changing Methods and Aims in Prehistory: Presidential Address for 1935
Authors: Childe V. Gordon
Published: February 2015

This is the first Presidential Address to be delivered before our Society since it has become the Prehistoric Society without qualification. It seems therefore appropriate to choose in preference to any particular problem the general topic of the aims and methods of our science. The last ten years have witnessed an extraordinary increase in the data available to the prehistorian and a remarkable expansion in the field he must survey. For this very reason we have been led to a revaluation of the methods and concepts to be employed in the interpretation of our material. To arrange and classify data pouring in from every corner of the world parochial categories that worked well enough for local collections can no longer serve.

Prehistoric archaeology has twin roots and a dual function; it tries on the one hand to prolong written history backward beyond the oldest literary records, on the other to carry natural history forward from the point where geology and palaeontology would leave it. In practice prehistoric remains were first systematically studied with a view to supplementing the information about Celts, Druids, Britons, Picts and Germans provided by ancient authors. But it was the union with geology after the acceptance of Boucher de Perthe's discoveries that made prehistory a science.
Late Bronze Age Lynchet-Settlements on Plumpton Plain, Sussex
Authors: Holleyman G. A. , Curwen E. Cecil
Published: February 2015

Plumpton plain is situated on the top of the South Downs, roughly 600 feet above sea level, six miles north-east of Brighton and four miles north-west of Lewes (fig. 1). From its western end a broad spur slopes gently southwards from the northern escarpment of the Downs, lying between Moustone Valley on the south-east and Faulkners Bottom on the west. Most of this Downland is covered with a dense scrub of gorse, thorn and bramble, and with large patches of bracken and heather. A series of broad paths running roughly at right angles with one another has been cut through this vegetation to facilitate the preservation of game. Along the main ridge of the spur running north and south is a broad gallop which, at a height of 600 feet O.D., passes through a group of earthworks situated 1500 feet from the north edge of the Downs and 2300 feet east of Streathill Farm. This group was the primary object of bur investigations and will be referred to as Site A (fig. 2).

Site B (fig. 3) lies a quarter of a mile to the south-east of Site A on a small lateral spur jutting between the twin heads of Moustone Bottom. The only visible evidence of prehistoric occupation was a quantity of coarse gritty sherds and calcined flints on the surface to the south-east of a low bank and ditch which runs across the spur.

Several groups of lynchets enclosing square Celtic fields are to be seen in the neighbourhood of these two sites. They lie principally to the south-east of Site A and to the south of Site B.
The Pottery from the Sites on Plumpton Plain
Authors: Hawkes C. F. C.
Published: February 2015

A substantial series of pottery was submitted to me from both the Plumpton Plain sites. Its examination has emphasized the distinction of date between them. It will appear that Site A belongs to the earlier part of the Late Bronze Age, from perhaps about 1000 B.C., whereas Site B cannot be dated before about 750 B.C., and covers the transition to the Early Iron Age in the period approximately centred on 500 B.C.
The Prehistory of the Isle of Man
Authors: Clark Grahame
Published: February 2015

‘Rising from the middle of the Irish Sea, within sight of each of the three Kingdoms, with a history and associations so distinct, yet so intimately linked with those of the rest of Britain, this interesting Island presents in its geological structure features which connect it alike with England, Scotland, and Ireland, while at the same time it retains a marked individuality in regard to some of the rocks that form its framework.’—Sir Archibald Geikie.

The prehistory no less than the geology of the Isle of Man is of absorbing interest from its geographical position in relation to the larger units of the British Isles. The island is placed (fig. 1) at an equal distance (31 miles) between the coasts of Ireland and of Cumberland; its northern tip, the Point of Ayre, reaches to within 16 miles of Wigtonshire, and Anglesey lies 45 miles to the south of Langness Point. An observer on Snaefell (2034 feet) can view England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales in one sweep. Since the first settlement of the island, cultural and ethnic influences have approached from all directions, but its size (227 sq. miles) and the distance of sea which isolates it from the coasts of the mainlands have been sufficient to ensure vigorous local developments. The interaction of British and Irish influences and the occasional insular developments are the chief features of the prehistory of the island.

Apart from a triangle of flat ground to the north, broken only by the Bride Hills (200–300 feet), and so far as its drift deposits are concerned, relatively recent in origin, the island consists almost entirely of slate diversified by local intrusions of igneous rocks (granite and diabase), by the sandstone of the Peel area, and by the carboniferous limestone of the Castletown district in the south. Most of the area of older rocks lies above the 400 foot contour and quite large areas are more than 1000 feet above sea level. The mountainous mass of the island, divided by the valley between Douglas and Peel, remained almost uninhabited throughout prehistoric and historic times.