The Isle of Man situate in the midst of the Irish Sea as an intermediate station between Ireland and Cumbria, North Wales and Galloway, has naturally played a considerable part in various phases of western British life in which coastwise maritime movements have had significance. The phase or phases of megalithic construction included, as is generally agreed, a considerable amount of maritime movement along the coasts of western Britain, and monuments of various types were set up. It may be stated at the outset that, since developments even as late as the introduction of Christianity show relations with megaliths, we are not justified, without special local evidence, in ascribing particular megaliths necessarily to an early period, though there is widespread agreement that some must have been in existence at about 2000 B.C., and even possibly earlier.

Alstoe Mount is a fine example of a motte and bailey castle, situated 1 mile north-east of Burley village and 3 miles north-east of Oakham; it is on the east side of the road from Burley to Cottesmore, and immediately north-west of Alstoe House (fig. 1). The mount is on the level summit of the long ridge running northwards into Lincolnshire, at a height of 490 ft. O.D., and is about 150 ft. above the vale of Catmose. Towards the south the high ground terminates in a spur running to Burley, and possibly the mount was placed to safeguard the passage of traffic from this direction, near the point where it branched, either south-east to Stamford or northwards to Lincoln.

On 24th November 1932 our Fellow Major C. J. ffoulkes exhibited a mysterious object that had been found during the restoration of Pevensey Castle. Almost immediately afterwards H.M. Office of Works produced from the same site an object about which there can be no doubt whatever. It is a visor of what is possibly the most striking of all medieval headpieces, the hounskull or pig-faced bascinet. Furthermore, it is the first recorded from an English site.

References to palaeolithic implements from the Pleistocene deposits in the Buckinghamshire parish of Iver have appeared from time to time in the Proceedings of learned societies. The British Museum Guide to Antiquities of the Stone Age, 1926, p. 46, mentions artifacts from this district, where palaeoliths have been collected for nearly half a century, but a general summary has not been made showing the sequence of cultures and the significance of the relics from the local deposits. The author has had the commercial workings in the Iver gravels under observation for a number of years, and thinks that the archaeological evidence, now made available as a result of continuous supervision, may perhaps assist in the revision of published material.

The area under review measures almost two miles from east to west and a mile and a half from north to south (map, fig. 1). It may be taken as bounded on the east by the Colne Brook, one of the branches of the River Colne, and on the west by a line passing through Parsonage Farm south-west of Shreding Green, which stands, like the eastern end of Iver village in the north-east corner of the rectangle, at an altitude of 120 ft.

The present paper is an account of excavations undertaken in October 1935 at the site of the Roman fort at Brancaster in North-west Norfolk. Thanks are due to the Committee of Section H of the British Association for the award of a grant which largely defrayed the cost of the excavation. The writer has also to thank Mr. F. Wordingham the owner of the site, and Mr. J. Bunkle the tenant, for permission to excavate, and Messrs. May, Gurney & Co., contractors, Trowse, for the loan of implements. Mr. R. R. Clarke and Col. A. C. A. Thackwell assisted throughout the period of the digging.