During the years between 1932–40 I went many times to Carnac (Morbihan) to visit megaliths in that neighbourhood and copy the decorations on them. I was astonished to note, amongst the chipped stone tools in the museum there, a very small yellowish flint bifaced implement picked up by Zachary Le Rouzic on the island of Téviec, noted for the excavations and magnificent Mesolithic discoveries of M. and Mme. St.-Just Péquart. This, of course, was not a tool from their Mesolithic site, but was a stray find from the island, where it was found by Le Rouzic in the gravelly section near the neck of land joining the Quiberon peninsula. Téviec consists of two islands divided by a narrow channel of sea. The section is opposite to the mainland, on the bigger island forming the edge of this channel. It shows threé beds of sea-worn pebbles of medium and small size; the upper two beds are separated by red sand. In the uppermost bed, the pebbles have taken a vertical position, similar to those in the upper part (the so-called head) of the lower raised beaches of the English Channel. This phenomenon is due to the cryoturbation during a glacial period. The upper bed is pre-Würmian, though not necessarily very much so, for it suffered through cryoturbation during the Würmian stage. The angles of the stone implement are sharp, i.e. it had not been rolled—and it came therefore from the red sandy bed, that is from a late stage in the Riss-Würm, when the sea slightly retreated between two periods of slight rises in sea-level. This implement thus has some importance owing to its geological position. I visited the site with Zachary Le Rouzic on the ioth October, 1936, but I found no sign of worked stone tools in any of these levels, which are very slightly above the modern sea-level.

One of Professor Childe's leading characteristics as a prehistorian has been the range and depth of his interests and sympathies. In the present contribution it is desired to acknowledge the interest he has shown in the mesolithic background to the neolithic colonization of Europe and his uncommon awareness of the relevance of Quaternary Research to the problems of prehistory.

The opportunity will be taken to reconsider, in the light of a more abundant material and of recent advances in knowledge, the microlithic industry of Late Boreal age, first brought to light in the Cambridgeshire fens during the excavations carried out on behalf of the Fenland Research Committee during 1932 and 1934 at Plantation and Peacock's Farms, Shippea Hill. The object of these excavations was primarily stratigraphical and only a comparatively small quantity of mesolithic material was obtained at the time. Since then the opportunity has been taken at favourable seasons to collect on the surface of the sand ridges, and that on Peacock's Farm has yielded a sufficient quantity to give a reliable indication of the cultural affinities of the industry. Further, the researches of our French colleagues have thrown fresh light on the whole question of Post-Azilian microlithic industries and the new discoveries have led to changes of nomenclature directly relevant to the classification of the Peacock's Farm industry. Again, the zoning of British Postglacial deposits by means of pollen-analysis undertaken by Dr Godwin and his colleagues has made it possible to fix the chronological context of the Peacock's Farm assemblage and this in turn has made feasible a new approach to the history of the microlithic industries of Britain. Thanks to Dr Godwin's kind co-operation, it is now possible to publish a re-drawn pollen-diagram, illustrating the stratigraphy of the Lower Peat bed at Peacock's Farm and showing the relationship of the mesolithic occupation both to the forest-history zones and to the neolithic occupation of the sand-ridge on which prehistoric man settled from time to time.

In plate B XIX–XX of Reliquiae Aquitanicae (Lartet & Christy, 1875), a sculptured reindeer antler from Laugerie-Basse was figured with the description, ‘a long, slightly curved Harpoon-head’. Many years later Emile Carthailac found among Lartet's papers in the University Library at Toulouse a letter from a correspondent in Ireland suggesting that the object in question might be a hooked spear-thrower of a type well-known in Australia. Unfortunately the sheet with the writer's signature was missing, so the first person to identify the spear-thrower as a Palaeolithic weapon must remain anonymous (Carthailac, 1903). Since then many more have been found; in 1907 Breuil listed 38 throwers or fragments from various Magdalenian sites (Carthailac and Breuil, 1907), and it is possible now to bring the number up to 66. Of these two, possibly three, are complete, and six are complete in so far as the part made of antler is concerned, but were certainly meant to be lengthened by insertion in a handle, probably of wood. The rest are more or less fragmentary, but in 39 the hook is preserved, and the rest can be identified by comparison with more complete specimens.

The subject of these weapons has been treated at various times by Adrien de Mortillet (1891), Carthailac (1903), Breuil (with Carthailac, 1907: with Lantier, 1951), Begouen (1912), Renaud (1925), Montandon (1934). More recently Guyan (1944) has studied the collection from Kesslerloch in relation to the rest. In addition, individual specimens have been described by their discoverers. Nevertheless, there is room for a more detailed general survey of the whole range now available.

A number of recent discoveries have focused attention on questions relating to when and for what primary purposes fire was first used.

The claim made in 1947 by Professor Raymond Dart (1952) that Australopithecus was a fire-user has been re-examined, but without confirmation. Briefly the relevant evidence is as follows.

In 1925 Professor Dart received pieces of bone breccia which had been collected by Mr W. I. Eitzman at limeworks in the Makapansgat Valley near Potgietersrust in the Central Transvaal. As some of the fragments of bone had a charred appearance Professor Dart suspected that the breccia was a cave deposit containing hearths of early man. He submitted some of the blackened fragments for analysis to Dr J. Moir of the Government Chemical Laboratory, and to Dr F. W. Fox of the South African Institute for Medical Research. They found that when the material was dissolved in acid there was a residue of black particles which could be transformed into carbon dioxide. This was proof that the blackness of the bone fragments was due to free carbon, and in the circumstances it was naturally held to indicate that the bones were charred (Dart, 1925).

Since the studies of Vignard brought the micro-burin, the presence of which Siret had already noted at El Garcel, into fashion as an Upper Palaeolithic tool of unknown purpose, there has been much discussion of this tiny and enigmatic object.

I confess that I paid little attention to it when I visited the collection of M. Vignard in Paris 25 years ago. He showed me his micro-burins from the Sebilian and, after hearing my account of the finds at Parpalló, predicted that I should find examples among the flints from that site, which I was then in process of classifying. And, in fact, a few months later I found the first example, a very fine and characteristic one, in the third Magdalenian level. Other examples followed from similar levels, and later, when we were classifying the flint from the Solutrean levels, we discovered to our surprise that they were also present there. Since then they have continued to appear on other sites, so that it seems worth while to summarize here the data which we now possess about them.

Let us look at the situation in the deposits which I have studied.

In the cave of Parpalló they are found in appreciable numbers at two points in the typological evolution. From a depth of 5.25 m. upwards, that is during the phases which I have named Upper Solutrean and final Solutreo-gravettian, they are relatively abundant (about 50 examples).

In the present paper it is intended to summarize the reasons why loess sections must be regarded as important for the chronology of the Palaeolithic, and to discuss an important problem to which loess sections have contributed in recent years, that of the chronological relations between the Mousterioid and the Upper Palaeolithic industries. This problem has received particular attention in the Geochronological Laboratory of the Institute since its formation by Sir Robert Mond in 1936. Several hundred analyses have been made, some of which will be published shortly in these Proceedings, from sites ranging from the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Hungary and Poland through France and Germany to southern England, as well as from India, Africa and northern Arabia. During the later stages, the work was supported by the Central Research Fund of London University, whose help is recorded with gratitude.

Loess analysis comprises the study of grain size by mechanical analysis, determination of calcium carbonate and organic matter, the study of its porosity and texture and of the shape and quality of its grains. Two years were spent in the laboratory on the testing and improvement of various methods in use, and especially of mechanical analysis, so that the laboriousness of the work has been much reduced and results can be obtained more quickly.

The aeolian origin of loess is no longer disputed. Loess is essentially rock dust blown about and deposited from an air current. This necessitates a dry environment due either to aridity or to frost, and scarcity of vegetation. Loess dust is thus picked up on bare surfaces and deposited mainly in the steppe, where low and sparse vegetation acts like a comb, slowing down the air current and compelling it to deposit its load. Any dust that reaches the humid forest zone is incorporated in the soil that is forming there, and it thus disappears.

Coarse ‘dwelling-place’ pottery is usually of little interest in the study of Neolithic cultures, for which reason it rarely receives the same attention as forms of ware that is of better workmanship, technically and artistically. Still, within the category ‘coarse pottery’ there may be details of no little significance to comparative archaeology. As an example, I propose in the following to discuss briefly a single type of vessel within European Corded-Ware or Battle-Axe cultures, starting out from some finds in Denmark where the type has not previously attracted attention.

A few years ago an examination was made of a Stone Age settlement at Selbjerg, on the islet of Øland in the Limfiord, Northern Jutland; traces were observed of several Neolithic settlements in conjunction with a regular culture deposit and shell mound. One important discovery was pottery of the South Scandinavian Pitted-Ware Culture. Higher up in the deposit were fragments of pottery which were determinable as of Late Single Grave Culture. At least eight vessels were represented, including a beaker of flower-pot type and one or two large, coarse vessels. It has been possible to reconstruct the form of the best preserved specimen (fig. 1). It had measured about 35 cm. in height and presumably had a flat base (some bottom sherds may perhaps be parts of this vessel, but they have been omitted from the drawing). As the sole form of decoration it has an applied clay moulding just below the rim. Both rim and moulding are formed into waves by finger pressure.

In better condition is a vessel (pl. III, a) recently excavated at Ravnholt, in the parish of Gesten, South Jutland. The upper part could be pieced together completely and the bottom was in such a state of preservation that it could be reconstructed; only a few sherds of the intermediate wall could not be fitted in. In all probability the vessel was about 40 cm. in height with a diameter of 35 cm. across the rim. It is relatively thin walled, the material is coarse and gravelly; both inside and out the surface presents a curious striation, as if the wet clay prior to kilning had been smoothed off with a whisk of straw or something else that was rough. On its outer side the edge of the rim is drawn out into small waves (pl. III, c), and about 2 cm. below it is a wavy moulding formed by finger pressure from one side. Otherwise the vessel is quite plain.

In 1937, in a series in honour of Sir John Myres, Professor Childe wrote an essay entitled ‘Neolithic Black Ware in Greece and on the Danube’. Childe made two major points. He clarified his position that the major direction of diffusion in the spread of the village-farming community was from south-western Asia towards Europe. Secondly, he considered the then available south-west Asiatic evidence—mainly ceramic—which seemed antecedent to similar elements in Greece and subsequently on the Danube.

In this essay in Professor Childe's honour, I propose to bring his second consideration up to date, informally, and with main emphasis on the south-west Asiatic end. Weinberg has recently covered the ground from the Greek point of view with much greater perception than I could do.

It is a bit unfortunate, in relation to Childe's first point, that this essay cannot be postponed for a year or two. During the 1954–5 field season of the Iraq-Jarmo project, we secured a series of fifty-two radioactive carbon samples. Included are specimens from the Halaf levels of Arpachiyah and Tell Halaf itself and from the basal levels of Hassuna, Mersin, and Byblos, as well as further samples from Jarmo and from several of our test excavations. Professor Zeuner has samples in hand from early Jericho, Dr Milojčić has some from Otzaki-Magula, and there may well be other pertinent samples of which I am unaware. It does seem that presently, within the range of reliability of the radioactive carbon dating process, we shall know where we stand chronologically in somewhat more precise terms. Present indications are that the whole dating system, prehistoric, as well as early historic, customarily given for south-western Asia will be depressed. In the chronological study cited, Weinberg finds this tendency will make the equations with Greece all the more reasonable.

Childe's essay implies that the early dark-faced burnished ceramic of south-western Asia must be a manifestation of a discrete assemblage, but at the time he wrote, it was impossible to speak of anything but pottery. In his Grundzüge … Kleinasiens in 1945, Kurt Bittel could do little more than suggest the antecedent rôle of the early Syro-Cilician dark-faced burnished ware to the general burnished sequence of Anatolia. Veronica Seton Williams gave further definition to the pottery and its distribution, as against Christian's rather amorphous ‘Saktschegözü- Stufe’, in her brief catalogue and map of the occurrences of the burnished ware. In 1952, my wife and I prepared a study in which we attempted to delineate what seemed to us to be the separate and distinct ‘essential’ assemblages of the earliest village range in south-western Asia.

The hypothesis that in Neolithic times men lived for the most part in pit-dwellings is fairly widely distributed in archaeological literature. Thus, for example, W. Radig from 188 neolithic sites examined in Germany up to 1930 listed 109 as having pit-dwellings (Grubenwohnungen), an additional sixteen having pit-dwellings with a cone-shaped covering (Grubenwohnungen mit schrägen Pfostenlöchern), eight with vertical walls (Grubenwohnungen mit senkrechten Pfostenlöchern) and two of mixed type. This hypothesis was also widely held among Soviet archaeologists who often described their discoveries of pit-dwellings in their accounts of excavations of neolithic sites. A completely contrary opinion has been put forward by G. Childe in relation to neolithic dwellings in the temperate zone of Europe.

‘They have accused the archaeologist of tatting endless taxonomic rosettes of the I same old ball of “material culture” and maintained that his findings are next to useless for the purpose of history and culture study. It seems that the archaeologists are becoming as Tolstoy once said of modern historians, like deaf men answering questions which no one has asked them. In their broader implications these accusations are all too true’ (Taylor, 1948, p. 95). Certainly this not too kind, ironical remark was explicitly aimed at archaeologists in the United States; yet it may, perhaps, be suspected that even some of their European colleagues feel somewhat uneasy on being confronted by such an unflattering mirror. One has, undoubtedly, the feeling that relatively few archaeologists in the West have ever really scrutinized critically what they and their field of study are ultimately aiming at, apart from the somewhat loose and undefined aim of ‘reconstructing the past’. Now, this ‘past’ obviously does not consist of ‘taxonomic rosettes’ for their own sake, nor of economic techniques only. There can be little doubt of the validity of V. Gordon Childe's remark that the cultures established by archaeology represent societies, and in other of his writings, most explicitly in his intriguing book, Social Evolution (Childe, 1951), he has laid down the foundations of a ‘socio-archaeology’.

Correct identification of remains of cultivated plants is prerequisite to a reasonable concept of the early history of these plants and of agriculture in general. Sooner or later faulty or incomplete identification may lead to wrong conclusions and thus, on the one hand, obscure connections between places and peoples which might otherwise be indicated by contemporary cultivated plants, or on the other, suggest interrelations which did not exist.

Perhaps of all countries in the world Egypt is the one which has yielded the most material for the study of ancient plant husbandry, and yet the introduction of the plants into that country and the species grown is not yet fully elucidated.

Until quite recently Emmer (Triticum dicoccum Schübl.) was the only species of wheat reported in deposits of prehistoric and dynastic Egypt up to the Ptolemaean period. Then Eincorn (Triticum monococcum L.) was added to the list, in that its presence in the Late Neolithic find at el Omari near Helouan, and in the third dynasty tomb of Pharaoh Zoser at Saqqara was claimed by various authors. These identifications were disputed on the basis of reasonable doubt, but no documentation has hitherto been offered to prove the claim or the validity of the protest.

Twenty-five years ago Professor Gordon Childe laid the foundations of our knowledge of the foreign affinities of our British Neolithic cultures in a classic paper. In it he gave expression to the view which we have all of us held since that time, that ‘the culture associated with Windmill Hill pottery belongs, like the pottery itself, to a Western family’; ‘Western’ being used in the sense defined by Schuchhardt in his division of the European Neolithic groups. Our knowledge of the complexities of the Windmill Hill culture increased with new discoveries, and we were also able to grasp something of the diversity of the cultures within the Western family at large, particularly as a result of the work of Vouga, Vogt and von Gonzenbach in Switzerland. But the place of the Windmill Hill culture within the family seemed unchallenged, and the present writer re-affirmed a couple of years ago that it seemed to him ‘abundantly clear that the Windmill Hill culture is a member of the great Western family’. It is the purpose of this paper to re-examine the question in the light of certain new orientations in Continental prehistory which make it desirable to ask whether the culture of Windmill Hill can be regarded as an indivisible unit, or whether it may not contain contributions from more than one European source.

The theory of pile-dwellings, first put forward by the Swiss, Ferdinand Keller, is now 100 years old. According to this theory, there existed in prehistoric times buildings erected, not on dry land, but on artificial platforms raised on piles above the surface of the water.

This theory was based on well authenticated discoveries of the remains of settlements along the modern lake shores, in the first place on evidence from the south German, Swiss, French and Italian lakes. The very large number of piles found in connection with organic substances (wooden vessels, textiles, food stuffs and seeds) provided a basis for belief in the existence of such settlements. Moreover, the knowledge of modern pile-dwellings, especially in the South Seas, was cited in support of Keller's theory. So well was it grounded, that for over 70 years no one questioned the existence of prehistoric pile-dwellings.

Many branches of learning are concerned with the establishment of the earliest seats of the Indo-Europeans and with their ancient culture. An early book by Professor V. G. Childe was devoted to this theme, and these problems still hold an important position in his later works.

I have no intention of embarking here on a detailed study of the various questions involved in this theme. My main concern is a particular type of vessel, the so-called ‘Thuringian amphora’, characteristic of several groups of the Battle-Axe culture, a culture which is usually considered to be an archaeological equivalent of the early Aryans. I hope that the few comments submitted in this article will, to some extent, contribute to the settlement of the disagreements concerning the cradle of the Indo-Europeans and bring nearer their proper solution.

The state of current knowledge on the Bronze Age in Hungary, was summed up twenty years ago by Dr Francis Tompa, who had by then written several shorter studies on the subject, and had excavated a number of cemeteries and settlements. His summary defined the modern approach to the Bronze Age in Hungary though his conclusions have since been modified in detail by later explorers. How fruitful his work proved to be was shown by the interest of critics abroad and by the fact that research at home took a sudden upward swing.

A few years later Dr Paul Patay published a study in which he came to somewhat different conclusions on the chronology of the Early Bronze Age; he also gave a detailed account of the various cultures that must have shaped the course of the Bronze Age in Hungary and in this he was substantially in agreement with Dr Francis Tompa.

Dr Amelia Mozsolics dealt with chronological problems of the Bronze Age in Hungary, but had not yet reached satisfactory newer conclusions. Her paper was published only in Hungarian. She presented a useful summary of the history of her subject, and at the same time sharply criticized the views held by foreign and Hungarian experts on the Bronze Age.

The Italian School of Archaeology in Athens, under the direction of Prof. Alessandro Della Seta, carried out excavations between 1930–36 on the small hill of Poliokhni near Kaminia on the east coast of the Island of Lemnos. The site was a vast Bronze Age town, without doubt one of the most important and significant that excavation has brought to light in the Aegean. Owing to the premature death of Prof. Della Seta during the war and to the fact that his successor, Professor Doro Levi was fully occupied with the activities of the School and the excavations in Crete, the results of these excavations have remained unpublished.

From the Summer of 1951, with the much valued collaboration of my colleagues in the Syracuse Museum, I have worked through the enormous amount of material recovered and have verified the facts by test excavations. In order to unify the various zones of excavation which had been made, and to fill up the lacunae still existing in our knowledge of the main outlines of the topography of the sites, I carried out further excavations in the summer of 1953, with the collaboration of Dr Giovanni Rizza. The excavations were made in the remaining untouched area near the centre of the town and brought to light the house now to be described.

The prudent contributor to a Festschrift will select some subject about which he thinks he knows as much as the professor who is to receive it. That is peculiarly difficult here because of the vast range of Professor Childe's knowledge, both in time and space, far exceeding the present contributor's. This Note is offered as a grateful tribute from one of the many who have been intellectually enriched by his writings and encouraged by his devotion to scholarship. It is little more than an amplification and criticism of the Abbé Breuil's classic Presidential Address to the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia, delivered in 1934; but on the strength of observations made in August and September, 1955, I have come to different conclusions.

The Abbé Breuil detected five successive techniques, all of them found on the stones of the Boyne Tombs:

(1) Incised thin lines (pl. XIX, B).

(2) Picked grooves left rough (pl. XVIII).

(3, a) Picked grooves afterwards rubbed smooth; in this and the preceding group ‘it is invariably the line (groove) itself on which the pattern depends, which gives and is the design’.

(3, b) Picked areas which ‘only define the limits of the pattern, the surface, left in relief by the cutting down of the background, constituting the actual design’ (pl. xx, B).

(4) Rectilinear patterns where also the pattern is residual, consisting of raised ribs, forming triangles or lozenges, left standing by picking away the surrounding surface (pl. xx, A).

In her useful paper on Late Bronze Age razors Mrs Piggott has designated as Class II the bifid razors. For these she suggests dates ranging from about 750 B.C. to about 400 B.C. Without wishing to dispute these dates for the British examples—indeed the date of about 400 B.C. for the one from All Cannings Cross cannot be altered by much—I would suggest that such razors may have been in use some time previously if not in Britain then on the western Continent.

It has been a commonly accepted view that these razors are of Sicilian origin. Sicilian tombs of the centuries before the foundation of the Greek colonies have produced a variety of razors (fig. i) and probably there is some ultimate connexion between these and bronze razors elsewhere. But the one from Cassibile that is considered to be the link between the western bifid razors and Sicily seems to be a unique feature in the island. At least I have not encountered another in the archaeological literature of Sicily, and on a recent visit to Syracuse, Dr Bernabò Brea assured me that he did not know of another Sicilian example. Hence one is inclined to suppose that the bifid razor from Cassibile is not really a Sicilian type at all but a western import. Consequently such clues as can be discovered to its date in Sicily—and these point to the vicinity of the 10th and 9th centuries B.C.—indicate at least a time when such razors were in existence somewhere in western Europe.

The discovery, in the course of the 1955 excavations at Tara, of a necklace which included segmented faience beads around the neck of an inhumed burial is the first recorded instance in Ireland of the occurrence of beads of this type with such a burial. It is, in fact, only the second case in which faience beads of any kind are known to have been found in a grave in this country. Since the discovery is so unusual and because of its implications for prehistoric trade and cultural connexions, it seems fitting that a brief account in advance of the full excavation report, should be offered for inclusion in this volume in honour of Professor Childe, one of whose most significant contributions to the study of prehistory has been to indicate such ancient contacts between different areas and to emphasize their significance.

Excavations at Tara began in 1952. In that year and in 1953 work was carried out on the site known as the Rath of the Synods. In 1955 work was resumed at Tara—this time on the burial mound called the Mound of the Hostages. This site is ascribed to Cormac Mac Airt, King at Tara in the 3rd century of the Christian era. To Cormac also are attributed the building of others of the Tara monuments, including the most important of them—the Fort of the Kings and the Banquet Hall—and in general Cormac looms large in the scribal accounts of Tara. The 1955 excavation showed that the Mound of the Hostages was certainly not built in the 3rd century A.D.

In the west we are accustomed to walking on bog, we therefore learn to tread light, seeing around us, but just out of reach, the contours of a more solid landscape. We have sequence and relative chronology, but if we tread too heavily, feeling for the subsoil of absolute dates and historical nomenclature, we are apt to flounder, if not to sink. Nevertheless in some places the bog has shrunk exposing solid, rock-like dates, dates that belong to a subsoil of history in a continent already mapped. As such we are concerned with the discovery of those false stepping-stones that lie deceptively on the surface of the bog. In the disclosure of the true rocks and exposure of the false, Gordon Childe has led us for long.

One may preach on almost any subject from a text in The Dawn of European Civilization: I am however more concerned at present with the paper written in 1948 for these Proceedings in which Childe reviewed the beginnings of the Late Bronze Age north of the Alps, and the nature of the connexions between temperate Europe and the Near East at that particular moment, and especially as shown by a number of bronze ornaments, implements and weapons. More interesting still was the suggestion of a possible link between the exploitation of metal in the eastern Alps and the last phase of prosperity of the Minoan-Mycenaean world just before its collapse with the repercussions of that collapse.