Antiquity 60

Suggests criteria for the return of 'historically removed archaeological objects' to their country of origin, based on numerous cases where coercion, treaty, private or diplomatic pressure, 'loan', etc have been successfully used.

Corlea Bog in Co Longford contains a corduroy track with dendrodate of 148 BC (split oak with birch pegs) and another of brushwood. Also portions of cart?

Humorous contemporary accounts of excavations at the Bartlow Hills (Essex) Roman burial mounds in 1835 and 1840.

Professor John Theodore Hewitt confessed to friends in 1952/3 his part in the hoax; was Woodhead still implicated? [See 86/52]

Report on salient features of the 1985 (Trondheim) Conference, noting that archaeological dates are only a tenth of the total output from laboratories. Notes Harwell's new miniature counter system; improvements in scintillation techniques; need for adequate funds to replace obsolescent equipment; tandem accelerator developments (need for rigorous exclusion of modern carbon contamination); computerization of database; preparation of improved calibration tables; reaffirmation of BP notation with AD/BC ranges obtained from recommended calibration curves; need for greater rigour from excavators.

Charles Dawson is exonerated from complicity: Hewitt and Woodhead concocted the hoax to discredit Dawson.

Portmanteau review of four recent works on Celtic art and warfare, and one on prehistoric Britain.

Explains why radiocarbon scientists are, with the arrival of a 'definitive calibration curve of high precision and accuracy', insisting on the use of BP dates (with Cal.BC/Cal.AD where calibration is available) and have rejected the bc/ad terminology used in UK. For instance, 884 Cal.BP = AD 1066.

The 17 Briar Hill dates are replotted by context rather than by imposed phasing: as a result the main enclosure is assigned to 2800-2200 bc with sporadic later activity 2200-1500 bc. Three much earlier dates from small samples and widely variant contexts should be discounted, and the pottery is Mildenhall, not Grimston style.

Enigmatic feature, penannular stone wall, with charcoal patches in fill; surrounded by BA cremations.