The wooden artifact widely known as the Clacton Spear (pl. 1) was discovered by Samuel Hazzledine Warren, F.G.S., in 1911. He dug it out of an undisturbed part of the freshwater sediments, probably a peaty seam, exposed on the foreshore at Clacton-on-Sea, c. 80 km ENE of London (Warren 1911; 1914, and in conversation with K.P.O. 1933). On 30th September 1911, Warren conducted a party of members of the Essex Field Club on a visit to see the outcrop of Pleistocene fluviatile deposits on the shore west of Clacton Pier, and in the brief report on this excursion, reference was made to the occurrence of fossil mammalia and Palaeolithic flint artifacts. At first Henri Breuil tentatively identified the worked flints with the Mesvinian industry of Belgium; but after Warren's amassment of a larger collection, he recognized that the Clacton flint artifacts represented a distinct Palaeolithic industry, or tradition, for which he proposed the name Clactonian (see Warren 1922 and 1926; Breuil 1932).

Winklebury Camp (SU61355290), an Iron Age 'plateau fort’, now of some 7.6 hectares (19 acres), is situated in the parish of Basingstoke, approximately 1 mile north-west of the town centre of Basingstoke, (fig. 1), though it is now surrounded by housing estates. It occupies a hill of Upper Chalk which has been isolated from the main mass of the North Hampshire Downs by two dry river valleys, one trending south-east, the other north-east. Both are tributary to the R. Loddon. The hill rises to a maximum height of 126 m a.s.l., near the projected line of the western rampart and slopes off gradually to north and south, and more steeply to the south-east. About half a mile to the south of the fort, a tributary of the R. Loddon, now culverted, would have provided the nearest source of water.

Winklebury Camp has suffered from gradual encroachment by the surrounding housing estates, losing the ditch and rampart face to the north and east, and ditch, rampart and a small part of the interior, to the west. Only to the south does any of the bank and ditch survive. In the south-west corner of the fort, in an area protected by the remains of a small copse, a 90 m length of eroded rampart remains to an approximate height of 2 m. There is no ditch fronting this rampart now, but immediately east of the end of the stretch of rampart is the only remaining length of ditch. This extends for some 200 m along the remainder of the south side of the fort, averaging 2 m deep and 5 m wide. It rises in the south-east corner at a causeway, beyond which is another short stretch of ditch which is rapidly lost in house gardens. This causeway is faced by rampart, but there are indications, for example a slight change in the direction of the rampart at this point, that this is in fact a blocked entrance.

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.

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 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.

Petroglyphs of light, spoked-wheeled chariots have recently been discovered in Armenia, in the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan and Tadzhikistan and in the western Gobi. These will have to be considered in any future general surveys of chariotry. Although some have not yet received full publication, and although not all publications have been accessible to the author, the carvings seem too important to wait longer before being brought to the attention of the West. Lacking archaeological contexts, most of them have been dated only roughly by their publishers on the basis of typology. We shall not attempt here to appraise these datings, but by pointing to differences or similarities between these chariots and ones east or west, in both manner of rendering and in what is known of the actual construction of extant vehicles, we may provide greater means for doing so.

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.

When Dr Campbell Smith published and compiled his first account and catalogue of British jade implements he did not think, he tells us, that many more would be found. For this reason he adopted a numbering system based on counties, as is done for all other stone implements, but with numbers running consecutively through the English, Scottish and Irish counties. When new finds came to light it was difficult to assign to them numbers in the county system and the problem was resolved by numbering them 17b, 32a etc. New discoveries of jade implements are being made at an accelerating rate. In Campbell Smith's Second Supplement (1972) he records nine new finds during the previous six years, but since 1972 we have become aware of a further 24 implements. Partly because of this, and partly as a result of typological and mineralogical studies we have been making, it seemed to us that it would be useful to bring the catalogue up to date, whilst at the same time taking the opportunity of simplifying the numbering system. Although still taking a very positive interest Dr Campbell Smith is no longer actively engaged in work on jade implements. However, for the sake of continuity it was deemed useful to call this report the ‘Third Supplement’ even though the present authors were not involved with Dr Campbell Smith's original Catalogue and Supplements.

The rockshelter of Jiita II, known locally as Dahr al-Mghara, overlooks the wooded ravine of the Nahr el-Kelb (Dog River) about 8 km upstream from the present sea-shore and 15 km north-east of the centre of Beirut. The site is listed as ‘Jaita II’ in the inventory of Copeland and Wescombe (1965). The shelter faces south and opens onto a platform which interrupts the precipitous north bank of the ravine; about 180 m below the platform's edge, the subterranean branch of the Nahr el-Kelb emerges from a series of large caverns. The platform measures c. 175 sq. m, and was inhabited by a succession of Late Upper Palaeolithic hunters whose flint industries were mainly microlithic. Excavations have been conducted here since 1964 by one of us (F.H.) with emphasis on careful recording of finds dug in fine stratigraphic units by use of dental tools (Hours 1966; Hours and Chavaillon 1970; Hours 1973 and in prep.).

‘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.

Over 45 years have now elapsed since attention was first drawn to an apparent paucity of pre-Roman Iron Age funerary sites in southern Britain (Hawkes and Dunning 1930). This remarkable lacuna, contrasting with a wealth of Bronze Age burial forms, received little further attention until Hodson defined an absence of burials as a ‘negative type-fossil’ of his insular and otherwise prolific Woodbury Culture and emphasized the cultural implications of this uncomfortable gap in the archaeological record (Hodson 1964). With the exception of supposedly intrusive continental disposal forms in restricted areas of Yorkshire and south-eastern England and a third rather hazy rite from the extreme south-west, the British Iron Age was characterized by an embarrassingly invisible method of disposal that could neither be compared nor contrasted with contemporary continental traditions. Although efforts have been made to explain this absence in terms of hypothetical practices that would leave no archaeologically recognizable traces, there have been few attempts to consider in detail the scattered references to human remains that have slowly accumulated in the literature. A reconsideration of this evidence in the light of more recently excavated material suggests that the dearth of funerary remains is to an extent illusory and that further distinctive disposal rituals can now be added to those already recognized. It is also apparent that certain shared characteristics may force a general reconsideration of the origins of these different rites.

Enclosures with ditches and banks were a feature of Neolithic cultures in western Europe from the end of the Linear Pottery culture onwards, and seem to have served a wide variety of purposes within the settlement patterns and economic strategies based on mixed farming such as prevailed in the fourth and third millennia be (on the uncorrected radiocarbon chronology, used throughout). The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to draw attention to the earliest known examples in western Europe, belonging to the late Linear Pottery culture and to its immediate successors in what may be called the Linear Pottery culture tradition, to outline the variety of possible functions which these may have had, and to suggest that they are ancestral to subsequent enclosures in other parts of western Europe and particularly in southern England; second, to show that the enclosures of the earlier Neolithic of southern England may also, like their continental predecessors, have had varied roles, such that the hypothesis of ritual function is inadequate and even the label ‘causewayed camp’, like ‘henge’ or ‘hillfort’, cannot denote more than common constructional techniques.

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.

It is so rare for Palaeolithic artifacts to be found unequivocably stratified beneath glacial till, that the recent report by Alabaster and Straw (1976) of such an occurrence in Lincolnshire warrants some comments. Three hand-axes (fig. 1) were found between 1969 and 1973 in the quarry of Stephen Toulson and Son Ltd at Welton-le-Wold (TF 282884, 5 km west of Louth). They were found in association with fragmentary faunal remains of elephant, deer, horse and possibly Irish Giant Deer (see appendix by Boylan, in Alabaster and Straw 1976). Both artifacts and fauna came from a narrow zone in the Upper Division of the Welton Gravels underlying some 13 m of glacial till. This Upper Division, comprising silts, sands and flint gravels, is considered to have been deposited by periglacial aeolian and niveofluvial processes, whereas the Lower Division contains more water-bedded sands. The conclusion of the investigators was that as the animals represented could not have lived under the severe environmental conditions that prevailed during the accumulation of this Upper Division of the gravel, they had presumably been derived from an earlier temperate, interglacial deposit. The relative concentration of animal remains, the finding of two conjoinable elephant molars and the fairly fresh state of the artifacts suggests that they had not travelled far before coming to rest in the gravel. No sediment was traced in the quarry area which could have been a likely source.

Few would doubt that prehistorians have come to regard the formulating of models and the testing of hypotheses as among their most important concerns in recent years. This trend towards explaining, rather than merely accumulating data can be regarded partially as reflecting a desire to maintain some degree of command over a rapidly expanding body of information, but also the feeling that prehistoric archaeology has tended to lag behind related behavioural disciplines such as ecology or geography. What has become a highly conspicuous feature of these developments is that prehistorians have tended to undertake two radically different kinds of studies, particularly on prehistoric subsistence. The first relies upon published archaeological data, often accumulated over several years, from regions as large as countries or even continents; the second type, however, tends to be more modest in scope, and based upon a small body of evidence that has been specifically collected from either a small number of sites, or at most, a small region such as a single valley system. Recent studies by Murray (1970) on European neolithic animal husbandry, or by Ammerman & Cavalli-Sforza (1971) on European neolithic dispersal rates are convenient examples of the first type of study: both may be contrasted with the more detailed, localised types of studies on the same topics by Payne (1972) and Barker (1975). Whilst these two approaches may be complementary, it is nevertheless noticeable that they often reach strikingly different conclusions that frequently result from fundamental divergences of opinion about the quality of the data itself, and the most appropriate way to examine it.