bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Water Mythology and the distribution of Palaeolithic Parietal Art
Authors: Bahn Paul G.
Published: February 2015

In recent years there has been a refreshing move away from simplistic interpretations of Palaeolithic art: few scholars still adhere to the view of ‘art for art's sake’ or ‘totemism’, although many are reluctant to abandon the formerly dominant theory of ‘hunting magic’. The approach of Laming-Emperaire (1962) and Leroi-Gourhan (1965) is undoubtedly more realistic, in view of what is now known about the highly complex thought-processes which lie behind present-day ‘primitive’ art; but interpretation of cave art's content is unlikely to advance very far, and is largely a waste of time.

There has been a similar move away from the study of Palaeolithic art as a single line of continuous evolution, as this view ignores the factors of artistic ability and individuality; moreover, the stretching of the period by absolute dating has underlined the rarity of the phenomenon. I have argued elsewhere (Bahn 1977a, 251) that Palaeolithic art represents a large output by a relatively small number of individuals. It is obvious that no one single explanation will suffice to account for any aspect of an art which assumed a wide variety of forms and which lasted for tens of thousands of years.
Characterisation of Deverel-Rimbury Pottery from Cranbourne Chase
Authors: Barrett John , Bradley Richard , Cleal Rosamund , Pike Herbert
Published: February 2015

Pitt Rivers' excavations in Cranbourne Chase not only provided his successors with a lavish series of reports but also with a remarkable body of artefacts. These finds are now housed in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. The research programme which is centred upon the re-excavation of South Lodge Camp will include a new assessment of the Bronze Age material in this collection. This work discussed here is the first stage in this project (cf. Barrett and Bradley 1978).

The Bronze Age sites investigated by the General include the well known enclosures of South Lodge Camp, Martin Down and the Angle Ditch, as well as a series of round barrows (Pitt Rivers 1888 and 1898). These excavations were extensive. The enclosures were trenched across much of the interior, the ditches were emptied and substantial parts of the surrounding banks were removed. Large scale excavation was also undertaken on many of the barrows, although the first mounds to be dug were examined by a single trench or by a central shaft. These earlier barrow excavations were among the first to be undertaken by Pitt Rivers on his Wessex estates.
Causewayed Camps and Early Neolithic Economies in Central Southern England
Authors: Barker Graeme , Webley Derrick
Published: February 2015

This paper is a study of the location of several causewayed camps in central southern England. We first discuss their contemporary environment, the cultivation technology of the early neolithic farmers, and the implications of this technology for land use. We conclude from soil studies that all except one of the sites examined were in pastoral situations, although the seasonality of the pasture varied between the sites. On the basis of the location studies and our earlier arguments, we put forward a model of early neolithic land use in the area as an alternative to the traditional brandwirtschaft model.
Artefacts from the boat-site at North Ferriby, Humberside, England
Authors: Wright E. V. , Longworth I. H.
Published: February 2015

It is thirty years since the first publication (Wright and Wright 1947) of the collection of artifacts found over a period of years from the site at North Ferriby, which yielded the three boat-relics now identified as of the Early or Middle Bronze Age. With the increasing recognition of the importance of the boat finds themselves, the latest information on which has recently been published in a National Maritime Museum Monograph (Wright 1976), it is timely to review and, where necessary, revise the descriptions and attributions of the other artifacts obtained from the clays in which the boats were sealed, and also a small number of finds from the underlying fen-woodland peat. The customary and essential caveat needs to be entered that in beds of this kind propinquity of one find to another, whether in the horizontal or vertical plane, is no guarantee of association. Nevertheless, as will be seen, revised identifications and attributions of some of the objects have resulted in a pattern which is much more consistent both in itself and also with the recent evidence for the age of the boats than the somewhat confusing picture which emerged from what seemed to be reasonable deductions in 1946–7.
Aibunar—a Balkan copper mine of the fourth millennium BC: (Investigations of the years 1971, 1972 and 1974)
Authors: Černych E. N.
Published: February 2015

As a result of surveys carried out by the Bulgarian-Soviet archaeological expedition, Eneolithic copper mines were discovered in southern Bulgaria in October 1971. The most interesting of these mines, Aibunar, constitutes, without doubt, one of the rarest discoveries in the history of mining not only of Europe, but also of other parts of the Old World. In the same year, Jovanović published news of finds, unique for the Balkan peninsula, of characteristic Vinač pottery found together with a zoomorphic figurine at the Rudna Glava mine in north-eastern Serbia. On the basis of these finds, he suggested an Eneolithic date for the mine. However, the remains of ancient shafts at Rudna Glava were very small, and extensive and historically well-documented mining activities of the Classical Antiquity and the Medieval period made the dating of the extant areas of ancient mining very problematic.

In contrast to this, from the moment of its discovery, the large amounts of Eneolithic pottery of Karanovo VI—Gumelnitsa type and antler tools, which were found in the mine at Aibunar, and in particular the well-dated shafts were startling. Interest in Aibunar was further increased by the discovery of seven settlement sites in an area of 15 km around the mine, with Eneolithic layers containing more than 100 pieces of oxidic copper ore. Spectral analysis showed that these pieces of ore came from Aibunar.
The Excavation of an Iron Age Souterrain and Settlement at Carn Euny, Sancreed, Cornwall
Authors: Christie Patricia M. L. , Elsdon S. M. , Dimbleby G. W. , Saville A. , Rees S. , Fowler E. , Williams D. F.
Published: February 2015

The ancient village of Carn Euny, formerly known as Chapel Euny, lies on a south-west slope just above the 500 foot contour in the parish of Sancreed in West Cornwall (fig. 1). The granite uplands of the region are rich in antiquities, as a glance at a recent survey shows (Russell 1971), not least those of the prehistoric period. The hill on which the site is situated is crowned by the circular Iron Age Fort of Caer Brane (pl. 27). Across the dry valley to the north-west rises the mass of Bartinny Down, with its barrows, while in the valley below the site near the hamlet of Brane is a small, well preserved entrance grave and other evidence of prehistoric activity. To the south-east about one mile away is the recently excavated village of Goldherring dating from the first few centuries of our era (Guthrie 1969). From later times, the holy well of St Uny and the former chapel which gave its name to the site, lie nearby to the west. The village contains a fine souterrain, locally known as a fogou, after a Cornish word meaning a cave (Thomas 1966, 79).

Nothing appears to have been known of the settlement or Fogou before the first half of the 19th century when the existence of an unexplored fogou at Chapel Uny is first mentioned by the Reverend John Buller (1842), shortly followed by Edmonds (1849) who described to the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society an ‘Ancient Cave’ which had been discovered by miners prospecting for tin.
The Defences of the Iron Age Hill-Fort at Winklebury, Basingstoke, Hampshire
Authors: Robertson-Mackay Reay
Published: February 2015

This report should be read in conjunction with the report on the excavations in the interior of the fort (previous paper in these Proceedings).

The site of the hill-fort lies on the north side of the North Downs Trackway (National Grid Reference SU/614528). It is also on the southern edge of the Lower Thames valley. In this area there is a gap through the Hampshire Downs which connects the Thames valley with that of the River Test.

The derivation of the place name Winklebury is not entirely clear. Medieval spellings, e.g. Wiltenischebury, c. 1290; Wyltenysshbury, 1407; Wynnyshbery and Wynlysbery, 1443, suggest that the name may be of Anglo-Saxon derivation and mean the ‘fort or stronghold of the people of Wilton’, i.e. the fort owned, occupied or built by the Wiltshiremen. However, Wiltonish occurs as a surname in Romsey in the 1289 Assize Rolls, in Walter le Wyltenysshe, and thus the site name may have evolved in the 13th century through associations with this family.

Building development threatened the north side of the hill-fort in 1959. Excavations were accordingly carried out by the Ancient Monuments Inspectorate of the then Ministry of Works (now the Department of the Environment), under the direction of the writer in July and August of that year.
Recent Excavations at Newferry, Co. Antrim
Authors: Woodman Peter C.
Published: February 2015

The Newferry area is situated to the north of Lough Beg which is almost a northern extension of Lough Neagh, in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. Newferry is not a precise geographical area; it lies on both the Antrim and Derry side of the River Bann, and is an extensive area of diatomite flats nearly one mile wide which is bounded to the east and west by the drumlins lining either side of the valley. In early post-glacial times this would have been an extension to Lough Beg and until the Bann was dredged in the 1930's it was still liable to flood during the winter months. On the northern edge on the western side of the river the diatomite is known to run under the edge of Ballymacombs More raised bog. Therefore this lacustrine basin may have extended for another two miles north to Culbane where the high ground of Ballynease would have partially separated it from the next lake basin (fig. 1).

Newferry has long been known as an area where Mesolithic material could be recovered from the Quaternary deposits. Several other excavations have taken place in this area prior to the present excavations. The Harvard Archaeological Mission carried out an excavation on the Derry side of the river in the early 1930's (Movius 1936) while in the late 1950's another small investigation was carried out on the Antrim side of the River (Smith and Collins 1971). In total there are now four sites known in this area.
The Excavation of a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure on Offham Hill, East Sussex, 1976
Authors: Drewett Peter , Cartwright C. R. , James B. , Thomas K. D. , O'Connor T. P.
Published: February 2015

The small causewayed enclosure on Offham Hill, East Sussex, being one of the only five surviving Neolithic enclosures in Sussex, was excavated in 1976 prior to its final destruction by ploughing. The enclosure consisted of two incomplete circles of discontinuous banks and ditches. Molluscan analysis indicated that the structure was built in a woodland clearing and that the ditches were not contemporary. A few pot sherds and flint tools were found in the shallow ditches, together with a crouched burial and disarticulated human bones. No conclusively Neolithic features were found in the interior. The possibility that this enclosure, together with others of similar type, may have been areas defined for exposure burial is discussed.
Excavations on Pilsdon Pen, Dorset, 1964–71
Authors: Gelling Peter S.
Published: February 2015

Pilsdon Pen is in west Dorset, very close to the Devon border, some 6 miles north-west of Bridport, and about 5½ miles from the nearest point of the coast (ST 413013). It is a long flat-topped hill, the highest in Dorset, reaching 908 ft above OD, and dominating Marshwood Vale from the north. The hill-fort occupies the south-east end of the Pen, at the north-west end of which there is a small embanked enclosure, much levelled by ploughing, which could be of Iron Age date also. The two nearest hill-forts are Lambert's Castle and Coneys Castle, about 3 and 3½ miles away respectively, which overlook Marshwood Vale from the west (fig. 1).

Excavation began in 1964, and continued annually until 1971, all but one of the seasons lasting four weeks. The work was initiated, and largely supported, by the owner of the site, Mr Michael Pinney, of Bettiscombe Manor, to whom archaeology owes a great debt. Mrs Betty Pinney was one of our most skilful excavators, and all those who took part will remember her hospitality. Financial help was also given by the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society and by Birmingham University. Among many helpers, to all of whom I am most grateful, I should like to mention in particular my wife, who shouldered the daunting task of keeping the camp supplied, and Mr Jack Wells, of Tanyard Farm, Marshwood, without whose regular assistance the excavation would have taken much longer, and cost a great deal more.
Stages of ‘Neolithisation’ in Southern France: Supply and Exchange of Raw Materials
Authors: Phillips P. , Aspinall A. , Feather S.
Published: February 2015

‘Neolithisation’ as defined in this paper is the process whereby populations of Southern France modified their patterns of settlement and economic behaviour from the sixth to the third millennia bc. In moving from dependence mainly on varied seasonal resources to dependence on mainly humanly manipulated and stored resources, they created the possibility of surpluses for exchange. The main emphasis of this paper is on raw materials and changes in their use and exchange over time. Three time periods can conveniently be chosen to illustrate this change:

1—c. 5500 to c.4000 bc The assemblages dating to this period and considered here belong to the Cardial culture.

2—c. 4000 to c.2500 bc The assemblages dating to this period can broadly be assigned to the Chasseen culture.

3—c. 2500 to c.2000 bc The varied assemblages dating to this period have been described as Chalcolithic. However, since little copper is known in relation to stone, it will be described here as Late Neolithic.

The assemblages are conveniently illustrated in Courtin 1975.
Pieces in vertical movement—a model for rockshelter archaeology
Authors: Siiriäinen Ari
Published: February 2015

In 1973, excavations were carried out in a rockshelter called River Rockshelter in Laikipia District, Kenya (the results will be published in AZANIA). The archaeological deposit was c 80 cm thick and contained an abundant lithic material belonging to a Late Stone Age industry. The deposit was excavated in seven layers each 5–15 cm thick. The stratigraphy was as follows (fig. 1):

1. 0–10 cm, brown, loose fine-grained earth;

2. 10–35 cm, brown, hard, medium-grained soil with stone slabs;

3. 35–50 cm, greyish brown, hard gravel with small stone slabs;

4. 50 cm + grey, hard gravel.

Stratigraphical layers, radiocarbon dates and excavated layers from River Rockshelter. Vertical scale 1/10.
Obsidian in the Western Mediterranean: Characterisation by Neutron Activation Analysis and Optical Emission Spectroscopy
Authors: Hallam B. R. , Warren S. E. , Renfrew Colin
Published: February 2015

In the history of west Mediterranean contacts and communications, obsidian has a special place, being the first traded commodity documented in the archaeological record. The commercial contacts which it reveals precede those of the Mycenaeans by more than three millennia. The general outlines of this trade and the principal sources exploited have previously been documented by trace element analysis undertaken by optical emission spectrography. The present article presents the data obtained by a different trace element approach—neutron activation analysis—and sets out to compare and evaluate the results obtained by the two methods. One important new archaeological outcome is the significance of the Sardinian sources, and the extent to which southern France participated in the contacts of the time. Regional and temporal trends now becoming apparent have a wide significance for Mediterranean prehistory and clarify the role of interregional contacts within it. No direct contacts with the east Mediterranean or Aegean are documented over the time range studied, nor do obsidian finds suggests that southern Iberia was in close touch with the west-central Mediterranean during the neolithic period. Four zones of interaction, each with a natural source of obsidian as focus, may be identified.
Excavation of The Kilham Long Barrow, East Riding of Yorkshire
Authors: Manby T. G.
Published: February 2015

After a mesolithic occupation, with pits and hearths, the site had been successively cleared, cultivated and abandoned before the digging of a pair of parallel ditches—Kilham I. After a period of silting a larger structure enclosed by a timber wall set in a bedding trench—Kilham II—had a banked burial chamber with a forecourt at its eastern end. The construction of the long barrow of chalk rubble derived from flanking quarry ditches took place in two phases separated by burning of lengths of the timber enclosure. A ring ditch dug across the line of the avenue east of the long barrow belongs to an Early Bronze Age use of the locality. Any covering round barrow mound had been completely removed by cultivation that affected the area from the middle of last century down to the present day.
The evidence of cemeteries for later prehistoric development in the Upper Rhine valley
Authors: Balkwill C. J.
Published: February 2015

Prehistoric cemeteries on the Upper Rhine appear to reflect changes in used land, but variable factors influence the recovery of information. Despite these limitations, it appears that marginal land was taken in after the Neolithic, and the extensively colonised loess soils were deserted. Other parts of the North Alpine zone experience similar abandonment of primary Neolithic areas. River terraces may then have been kept open by reduced settlement or seasonal grazing, inviting renewed attention in the Late Bronze Age and further colonisation of the valley soils in the Iron Age. Major shifts in settled areas may have resulted from soil exhaustion induced by limited agricultural techniques.
A Barrow Cemetery of the Second Millennium B.C. at Tallington, Lincolnshire
Authors: Simpson W. G.
Published: February 2015

The excavation examined two barrows which formed part of a cemetery in use towards the middle of the second millennium BC. The smaller barrow (Site 17) contained a large pit-grave in which successive inhumation burials had been made associated with a long-necked beaker, bronze earrings and a flint knife. The larger barrow (Site 16) began as a small mound covering an inhumation burial with a Food Vessel. Four stake circles were added following a second inhumation burial and the original mound was enlarged on two subsequent occasions. Many features of the barrows find their closest parallels in Yorkshire.
The Excavation of A Round Barrow Near Poor's Heath, Risby, Suffolk
Authors: F. de M.  , Vatcher H. L.
Published: February 2015

This round barrow, a bowl type, was built in two phases, its construction and use extending from about 1600–1400 bc (2000–1675 B.C.). The first mound was constructed with a mixture of chalk and sand from an oval ditch, covering a contracted burial of a child in a grave cut out of the chalk. The child was accompanied by a hybrid beaker. In the second phase the centre of the first mound was removed and partly pulled back into the ditch, and a contracted burial of an adult accompanied by a late beaker interred just off centre of a new mound built of sand covering the first, and capped in chalk obtained from a second ditch. Either simultaneously, or within a very short time a further burial, unaccompanied, in a tree-trunk coffin, was placed nearby, and this was followed by subsequent interments, the earliest of which was accompanied by jet beads and a spacer plate. Finally a further digging out of the mound took place on the east side to establish a cremation area, afterwards mounded over.
Ayios Epiktitos Vrysi, Cyprus: preliminary results of the 1969-1973 excavations of a neolithic coastal settlement
Authors: Peltenburg E. J.
Published: February 2015

Excavation of a headland on the north coast of Cyprus has revealed a neolithic settlement with well-preserved stone buildings which belong to one stage of a multiphase site. Evidence was obtained for changes in architecture, definable growth patterns and, in Cypriot terms, deeply stratified deposits with painted pottery that clearly links the early Troulli and the Sotira styles. Eighteen structures, many re-built two or three times, two winding passages and open yards were located in such deep, artificial hollows that the settlement may be considered as partly subterranean. Groups of houses were arranged in sectors, in one case divided by an uninterrupted 4 m. wide ridge. A series of Carbon-14 determinations indicates the fourth millennium for this phase; its predecessor was defended by an impressive 4·5 m deep ditch. Faunal and floral analyses disclose a range of domesticated species suggestive of a lively agricultural, rather than fishing-based, mixed economy. As a result of associated surveys, many unexcavated sites may now be placed in the datedVrysiframework and a start made to the definition of neolithic settlement patterns on the north coast. The connections oVrysiwith excavated sites necessitates a reassessment of the prehistory of fifth-fourth millennia Cyprus which seems to be characterized by cultural continuity, regionalism and, the island's isolation.
On the Dating of Khirokitia in Cyprus
Authors: Price N. P. Stanley
Published: February 2015

The subject of this note is the chronology of the site of Khirokitia in Cyprus in the light of four recent radiocarbon determinations. Khirokitia has remained one of the most extensively uncovered prehistoric sites in the Levant since its initial excavation over thirty years ago (Dikaios 1953). The fourth millennium BC date then estimated for the site by Dikaios was revised markedly upwards to the mid-sixth millennium following the submission of samples for radiocarbon dating (Dikaios 1962). The fourth millennium estimate had assumed a stratigraphical continuity between the pre-dominantly aceramic occupation of the site and the appearance of well-made pottery in its upper-most levels. Since the radiocarbon samples were taken from aceramic contexts, Dikaios subsequently concluded that the pottery was the product of a re-occupation of the site in the fourth millennium bc, a date based on the ceramic parallels with and the radiocarbon dates from the site at Sotira (Dikaios 1962, 194).

This conclusion is borne out by a re-examination of the published evidence and, less conclusively perhaps because of its limited nature, by the evidence of a small sounding at the site undertaken by the author in 1972 (Stanley Price and Christou 1973). The four main aims of this 2 m square sounding included further observation of the aceramic-ceramic stratigraphy and the collection of additional radiocarbon samples in an attempt to determine the duration of the aceramic occupation.
Mediterranean Alluviation: New Evidence from Archaeology
Authors: Bintliff J. L.
Published: February 2015

Detailed regional studies of dated alluvial formations in Greece confirm the Vita-Finzi alluviation cycle and favour climatic causation. A review of recent work in this field reveals substantial, if unexpected, support for the cycle, and archaeologists and geographers are urged to recognise its validity and concentrate on its very significant effects.
The Excavation of an Oval Burial Mound of the Third Millennium bc at Alfriston, East Sussex, 1974
Authors: Drewett Peter , Cartwright C. R. , O'Connor T. P. , Green C. , Thomas K. D.
Published: February 2015

The small oval burial mound at Alfriston, East Sussex, being one of only twelve certain burial structures of the 3rd millennium bc in Sussex, was totally excavated in 1974 prior to its final obliteration by ploughing. The barrow was found to consist of a simple dump mound derived from material out of flanking ditches. It covered a single burial pit containing the crouched skeleton of a young female. Information concerning the post-Neolithic land use of Alfriston Down was obtained from the ditch silts and expanded by an intensive field survey.
The Megalithic Tomb of Pedra Branca, Portugal. Preliminary Report
Authors: da Veiga Ferreira O. , Zbyszewski G. , Leitao M. , North C. T. , de Sousa H. Reynolds
Published: February 2015

The megalithic tomb of Pedra Branca lies at Montum, on the west coast of Portugal about 140 kilometers south of Lisbon by road (fig. 1). The tomb is the first in Portugal to have yielded Beaker graves overlying earlier burials; prior to its discovery, no Beaker remains had ever been noted further south than Palmela, in the estuary of the Sado river, approximately 40 kilometers from Lisbon. The tomb is situated on the top of a small hillock 100 m above sea level, separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a fertile undulating plain about 5 km in width. The Lake of Melides lies to the north and, to the east, the hills of Grandola rise steeply to an altitude of 300 m; an expanse of rough terrain stretches to the south, ravined by various small streams which flow into the Lake of Santo André on the coast.

When the tomb was discovered by surveyors of the Geological Services of Portugal, it was already very badly damaged; all the orthostats had been broken for use in local construction and part of the circular covering mound had already been ploughed under. The Services therefore, decided that a salvage campaign was called for, and a team made up of the authors, was invited to carry it out with funds granted by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Radiocarbon Dates from Bosumpra Cave, Abetifi, Ghana
Authors: Smith Andrew B.
Published: February 2015

In 1940 Professor Thurstan Shaw excavated a trench in the cave known as Bosumpra at Abetifi (6° 41′N:0° 44′W) on the borderline between the moist forest and the northern marginal forest (fig. 1). Bosumpra is one of the four main ‘abosom’ (lesser) gods of the Guan pantheon (Brokenshaw 1966, 156). The report (Shaw, 1944) showed that the cave was formerly inhabited by a people with a pottery-using microlithic culture and provided the first analytical description of the microlithic industries from the forest regions of West Africa. As the site was the first of its kind to be excavated, and the excavation was carried out before the advent of radiocarbon dating, there was no way of knowing what age this industry was, or how long the cave had been occupied, beyond placing it within the rubric of the so-called “Guinea Neolithic”.

To attempt to clarify this problem a group of students from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Ghana and myself conducted the excavation of a small witness section (fig. 2) in the cave over New Year 1973/74 with the specific aim of collecting organic material for dating. We were fortunate in finding adequate amounts of charcoal at all levels. Two of these samples were submitted to Rikagaku Kenkyusho, Japan, for dating.
Mycenaean Greece and Europe: the Evidence of Bronze Tools and Implements
Authors: Harding Anthony
Published: February 2015

The renewed controversy over the question of Mycenaean trade with ‘barbarian’ Europe (Renfrew 1968; Branigan 1970, 1972; etc.) has emphasised the need for a thorough study of the various classes of evidence involved. Recent work on the faience beads of Early Bronze Age Europe (Harding 1971; Harding and Warren 1973) has tended to show that local production is likely, at any rate in continental Europe, while a study of the amber trade to Mycenaean Greece (Harding and Hughes-Brock 1974) has shown that two main periods of trade with the Baltic are likely, the first, via Wessex, in the sixteenth/fifteenth centuries B.C., the second around 1200, down the Adriatic. Here I should like to tackle another group of material, bronze tools and implements, some of which have been used (or mis-used) in the current debate. I include here agricultural, wood-working, metallurgical and general-purpose tools; razors and tweezers are omitted, and will be discussed elsewhere, as will ornaments and objects of personal use. Knives are included, but daggers await examination together with other weapons.

Tools and implements have not often been found as items of trade in the Bronze Age Aegean. They have intrinsic value as metal, it is true, but they are usually heavy and bulky, and most easily susceptible of adaptation to local needs by local smiths. Accidental loss and intentional imitation are correspondingly less likely.
Planned Hillfort Interiors
Authors: Guilbert G. C.
Published: February 2015

For many years excavations within British prehistoric settlement sites were largely confined to selective sampling of a very limited nature since this approach, it was thought, offered the best chance of locating an intensively occupied area from which dating evidence and perhaps even the ground plan of a structure might be recovered. More recently, with the results of a small number of large-scale area excavations to draw upon, it has become possible not only to examine the plans of individual buildings in isolation but to identify standard structural designs used repeatedly on the same sites and, further, to learn something of the overall disposition of structures within the settlement plan. This increasing body of evidence is beginning to reveal, as analogy with historic and existent settlements might anticipate, a basic dichotomy between those which grew and those which were created. To establish a terminology, we should first recognize the essential distinction between asettlement planand aplanned settlement. All settlements have a plan, but not all were consciously planned. Many will have resulted from gradual growth over a period of time, developing from a nucleus to which additions and replacements were made as required (i.e. in the parlance of urban geographers,organic settlements). Accordingly, their plans should not normally be expected to display any great degree of orderliness and will be particularly unlikely to incorporate a systematic pattern of streets.
Late Devensian and Early Flandrian Barbed Points from Sproughton, Suffolk
Authors: Wymer J. J. , Jacobi R. M. , Rose J.
Published: February 2015

Commercial gravel working in the Devil's Wood Pit, Sproughton, situated in the flood plain of the River Gipping, has produced as chance finds two barbed points of bone and antler. Both came from the sand and gravel deposits which fill the buried channel of the Gipping. The points are discussed in relation to other barbed points found in England, particularly those which have associations which allow their dates to be assessed. Radiocarbon dates from organic material within the sands and gravels suggest that the barbed points were deposited during the latter part of pollen Zone III and the early part of Zone IV. A long blade industry has been recorded from the surface of the sands and gravels, and reference is given to further details of this industry.
The Interpretation and Dating of Humanly Worked Siliceous Materials by Thermoluminescent Analysis
Authors: Rowlett Ralph M. , Mandeville Margaret D. , Zeller Edward J.
Published: February 2015

Thermoluminescence analysis can reveal when archaeological lithics especially siliceous stones such as flint, chert and the like have been subjected to heat treatment prior to chipping. This determination can serve as the first step in the dating of these stones, as well as stones exposed otherwise to heating, utilizing the same principles as for the thermoluminescent dating of pottery. The oldest known example of heat treatment verified by this method comes from the Solutrian industry of south-western France (ca. 15000 bc).
Disc-Barrows
Authors: Grinsell L. V.
Published: February 2015

An attempt is made to classify and list in detail the known disc-barrows in and around Wessex—about 170 in all, 155 being of normal type, 13 of ‘Dorset’ type, and two of exceptional character. Of these, 93 are in Wiltshire, 57 being within ten km of Stonehenge, and 36 within five km of that monument, which evidently acted as a magnet in attracting major barrow cemeteries to its vicinity.

The normal disc-barrow is of the ‘Wessex culture’ of the Early Bronze Age. The rite is nearly always cremation, but a very few possible instances of primary inhumation need further investigation. The grave-goods are usually necklaces of beads (amber, shale, faience, in four instances all together), in three instances with amber space-plates; bronze awls (pointed at one end and flat at the other which probably went into a handle); and small two-edged bronze knives. Occasionally the cremation is in an urn or with an ‘Aldbourne’ or other cup. The frequency of beads, and the absence of warrior equipment such as ‘Wessex’ bronze daggers, has until now led to the conclusion that they were the places of interment of females.

Since 1953 seven disc-barrows have been scientifically excavated but final reports are still awaited. The primary cremation from one of the mounds of the oval twin barrow Milton Lilbourne I was probably female. The primary cremation from the central mound of Collingbourne Kingston 18 could not be sexed; but two cremations from a large pit beneath the eccentric mound of the same barrow were identified as probably and possibly adult male. Cremations from the other sites could not be sexed. These meagre results suggest that the central or other primary mounds of disc-barrows were for females but the eccentric mounds may have been for either sex. The sexing of more cremations is urgently needed.
Experimental Iron Age Storage Pits: An Interim Report
Authors: Reynolds Peter J.
Published: February 2015

The aim of this paper is to explain the principles of the storage of grain in underground pits and to present an interim summary of the results so far obtained from a long-term series of grain storage experiments and their implications. At the outset it must be made clear that the trends indicated by the results are, in fact, trends and that the implications presented are to be considered accordingly. A major problem that besets any experimental research programme, especially in the field of agriculture, is the need for consistent and long-term replication of specific experiments in order to gain sound and reliable data. However, it is equally important that interim results should be published both to present the problems suggested by those results and to avoid the possible duplication of work by ‘ad hoc’ exercises. The basic point so far appreciated is the great need to focus much more attention on the careful acquisition of the raw archaeological data from excavations in such a way that valid comparisons between feature types can be made and that subsequent experimental work can have a statistically proven basis.

An excellent survey of the documentary and archaeological evidence for pits in the Iron Age has already been published (Bowen and Wood 1968). This paper also includes a report of an exploratory experiment storing corn in underground pits.
The Purity of Prehistoric Crops
Authors: Dennell R. W.
Published: February 2015

One aspect of prehistoric crop agriculture which has received little attention is the purity of the crops when ready for either storage or consumption. For two reasons, this topic deserves consideration. First, the number of weed seeds and other impurities in a fully-processed crop is an indication of the efficiency of the prevailing technology for grain cleaning. There are several reasons why it would have been desirable to remove as many weeds as possible from a crop. Many for example are poisonous and should be removed from a crop before it is eaten. The sowing of a pure seed is also one way of controlling the growth of weeds, and thus maintaining economic crop yields. One pound of herbage seed for example, containing 1 per cent by weight of the seeds of mouse-eared chick-weed (Cerastium arvense L.) could result in as many as 43,360 plants of chick-weed per acre and cause severe reduction in the yield of the main crop (Gill and Vear 1958). Barley yields in one experiment were reduced from 21½ to 7½ bushels per acre through the growth of bind-weed (Leonard and Martin 1967). Since the artefactual evidence for prehistoric grain cleaning is meagre, the composition of the crops themselves must be our chief source of evidence. A second reason why the composition of prehistoric crops when ready for storage or consumption deserves study is that it affords a way of knowing whether crops consisted of one or several cultigens at a given period.
An Excavation at the Coastal Promontory Fort of Embury Beacon, Devon
Authors: Jefferies J. S. , Limbrey S.
Published: February 2015

An excavation at the Iron Age Promontory Fort at Embury Beacon is described. Most of the work was concentrated on the inner rampart, its entrance and the small remaining portion of the interior, where structures revealed by post holes were associated with Glastonbury style pottery. The outer rampart was also sectioned and areas within the wide intervallum space investigated.
The Background and Development of Early Farming Communities in Mesopotamia and the Zagros
Authors: Oates Joan
Published: February 2015

Mesopotamia is an elongated basin running from Syria south-eastwards to the Persian Gulf. It is bordered on the south-west by the Arabian massif, on the north by the mountains of Anatolia, and on the east by the Zagros range. Agriculture in this basin is controlled by climate to an extent unknown in Europe, particularly by water supply, which may come from rainfall or from rivers that flow out of the mountains. The modern boundary of rainfall sufficient for agriculture, which for practical purposes may be taken as 200 mm or 8 in reliable annual aggregate, runs across northern Mesopotamia from west to east and then turns south-east, following the foothills of the Zagros (fig. 1). We have at present no reason to think that this approximate boundary has shiftedappreciablyduring the period with which we are concerned, although there were almost certainly marginal fluctuations. The limited palynological evidence, which comes from the mountainous regions north and east of Mesopotamia, suggests that after about 12000 bc both temperature and precipitation gradually increased and that by about 9000 bc oak and pistachio trees were beginning to reinvade the Zagros foothills, an area from which they had been eradicated during the cooler temperatures of the last glacial period (van Zeist and Wright 1963; Wright 1968; van Zeist 1969).
A New Survey of Grime's Graves—First Report
Authors: Sieveking G. de G. , Longworth I. H. , Hughes M. J. , Clark A. J. , Millett A.
Published: February 2015

No accurate survey of a flint mine exists. It is planned to carry out such a survey at Grime's Graves over a period of several years. Its purpose is to study the growth of the flint-mine complex, the evaluation of mining techniques and ancillary industries, and trade relations; and to discover settlement sites related to the industrial complex. Preliminary field work was carried out in the summer of 1972. This included geophysical and chemical surveys, ground surveys, and aerial photography. Excavations were undertaken to test the results of the scientific surveys. A detailed contour map of the site was prepared by photogrammetry.
Earliest Copper Ornaments in Northern Europe
Authors: Ottaway Barbara
Published: February 2015

In the study of the earliest copper metallurgy, copper ornaments have received little attention compared with copper tools. Yet they are of particular interest because they often represent the earliest use of metal other than gold.
The metal industry of continental Italy, 13th to the 11th century BC, and its connections with the Aegean
Authors: Sestieri A. M. Bietti
Published: February 2015

The existence of a close relationship between Mycenaean Greece and Italy is known to us through two main kinds of archaeological evidence: Mycenaean pottery found in Italy—mainly in Apulia and Siciliy, although a few finds also come from the Tyrrhenian coast (1)—and bronzes of Italian type present in Greece and Crete.

The amount of information derived from these two groups is unequal. The majority of the Mycenaean pottery found in Italy has been readily identified and has offered a sound basis for the chronology of the Italian Bronze Age cultures, but the bronzes of Italian type found in the Aegean area have often been included in a group of ‘European’ elements, for years the object of discussions and controversial interpretations (2).

The almost exclusive concentration of Mycenaean pottery in coastal sites of continental Italy and Sicily clearly indicates that it was only transported by sea, and was not used for large-scale exchanges with the populations of the inland areas (3). From the distribution map of Mycenaean pottery in Italy we can therefore see a series of fixed points—actual settlements or traces of sea-passages—but lack the possibility of identifying any kind of movement linking the Mycenaeans on the coasts with the interior and northern regions of Italy. It seems probable, on the other hand, that such movements actually took place, since some at least of the Italian-type bronzes found in the Aegean certainly were not produced in the same areas of Italy where the Mycenaean pottery is concentrated. For this reason, a close study of the distribution, cultural significance and relative chronology of these types in Italy would be important to explain their presence in the Aegean.
The earliest horse-bits of western Europe
Authors: Balkwill C. J.
Published: February 2015

Within recent years, much attention has been focused on the earliest objects of harness which have long been noticed in the archaeological record. They are a matter of some importance in the perception of social structure from extant remains; Kossack (1954) presented strong arguments in favour of interpreting, in this manner, the early Hallstatt (Ha C) horse harness from Bavarian graves. Other major publications have since added to the picture of widespread, supposedly aristocratic adoption of harness and wagons in association with burial rite (northern and central Italy in the Early Iron Age, von Hase 1969; the Iberian peninsula in the same period, Schüle 1969; the Middle Danube to the Russian Steppes and to the Asian hinterland, Potratz 1966). Nor has the thesis of Gallus and Horvath (1939) been ignored, and the activities of ‘Thraco-Cimmerian’ cavalry still play a large part in the interpretation of west European horse harness. Already in 1954, however, Kossack observed the continuing elements of native, western Urnfield Europe in the entirely new combinations of grave-goods in Ha C and he indicated that the cheekpieces, while being modelled closely on the lines of preceding types found in the region of the Middle Danube, were, in fact, local variants chiefly concentrated in the graves of Bohemia and Bavaria. That western Europe had long had its own forms of cheekpiece was demonstrated by Thrane in 1963, yet the mouthpieces themselves have received no consolidated attention. This paper is an attempt to redress the balance, by gathering together the earliest metal bits in Europe west of Slovakia and Hungary, in order to see what light they throw on the problems of continuity and transition at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.
A technical study of opaque red glass of the Iron Age in Britain
Authors: Hughes M. J.
Published: February 2015

This opaque red glass occurs at an early date in Egypt in the decoration of glass vessels (Fossing, 1940) and other material has been found from excavations in the Near East at Nimrud, as circular cakes (Turner, 1954, 454), and at Persepolis, as a bead, a slab and a lump (Matson, 1957, 130). This ‘specialized’ glass continued to be made in Mediterranean countries down to the Roman era, and chemical analyses have been published of specimens from a number of sites including Pompeii and the Isle of Elephantine; these have been recorded by Caley (1962), who has conveniently collected many analyses previously published in various journals.

As a result of the present work it is clear that there are two distinct types of opaque red glass. In the type which occurs earlier and then continues in use the colour and opacity are due to metallic copper in a colloidal state; in the type which occurs later, for a more limited period, much lead oxide is present and the colour and opacity are caused by small particles of cuprous oxide. Previous authors have not always clearly distinguished between the two types and therefore the frequent identification of an opaque red glass as a cuprous oxide type must be treated with some caution unless supported by microscopic or chemical evidence.
Syrian and Anatolian Bronze Age figurines in Europe
Authors: Bouzek Jan
Published: February 2015

This paper attempts to bring together all the figurines of Syrian and Anatolian character that have been recorded from Bronze Age Europe. Several groups are distinguished, Syrian figurines from south Russia, Hittite and Syrian figurines from Mycenaean Greece, figurines from northern Europe, and post-Mycenaean forms in Greece.

Notes to the text appear at the end of the paper.
The conditions of cultural and economic growth in the Bronze Age of central Italy
Authors: Barker Graeme
Published: February 2015

With one notable exception, the study of Italian prehistory has developed with little emphasis on the economic interpretation of cultures. The exception has been the so-called ‘Apennine’ Bronze Age of central and southern Italy, which has commonly been defined as a cultural phenomenon involving an economy of pastoralism and large-scale stock-keeping. In 1959 Professor S. M. Puglisi published his major examination of the Apennine Bronze Age, which has remained the principal statement of the ‘pastoralist’ hypothesis (Puglisi, 1959). In recent years the Swedish Institute in Rome has carried out an important series of excavations on the acropolis of Luni sul Mignone in northern Lazio (Östenberg, 1967). The excavations discovered imposing house foundations cut into the soft volcanic tufo or tuff; from this architectural evidence, as well as the analysis of faunal and plant remains from Luni and other sites, Professor Östenberg concluded that ‘the Apennine culture had a mixed economy with agriculture and stock-breeding as basic components … pastoral nomadism cannot therefore be looked upon as the primary characteristic feature of the Apennine culture’ (Östenberg, 1967, 260). Puglisi based his argument upon both ethnographic and archaeological evidence.
The petrological identification of stone implements from South-Western England: Fifth Report of the Sub-Committee of the South-Western Federation of Museums and Art Galleries
Authors: Evens E. D. , Smith I. F. , Wallis F. S.
Published: February 2015

The present report is the fifth to be issued by this Committee in the course of 35 years' work on the petrological identification of stone implements. The four earlier reports (Keiller, Piggott and Wallis, 1941; Stone and Wallis, 1947; Stone and Wallis, 1951; Evens, Grinsell, Piggott and Wallis, 1962—hereafter referred to as the Fourth Report) were concerned primarily with stone implements from South-Western England, but also included implements from other parts of the British Isles. Since the early 1960s, when a series of regional implement petrology surveys was set up under the aegis of the Council for British Archaeology, this Committee's official work has been confined to the South-West, a region which, for administrative purposes, now comprises the seven counties of Berkshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, together with the Channel Islands. Hampshire, formerly within this Committee's area of special interest, has been allocated to the South-East, with Sussex, Surrey and Kent. The present report is concerned, therefore, exclusively with implements from the South-West, as defined above.