Antiquity 61

Sequences from caves in the Dordogne (Le Flageolet and Cave 15) indicate distinctive patterns of settlement organization that may reflect differences in modes of subsistence. Le Flageolet shows collecting behaviour, Cave 15 foraging; this appears to vindicate the Binfordian model of subsistence change from foraging to collecting across the Middle to Upper Pal transition. Uses K-means and other statistical processes.

Preliminary report on the hoard of nine bronzes recovered from marshy ground. The heavy ring-handle and other features suggest fittings of a church shrine or doors, and the ornament shows a wide range of developed Ultimate La Tène designs of Lindisfarne-Tara affinities. Its independence from Carolingian and later influence is noted and an 8th century date assigned to the hoard.

Petrographic analysis is providing evidence for long-distance movement of tools; this ends abruptly at the start of the later Neolithic.

Archaeology is best classed as a historical science which seeks to explain as well as to describe stasis and change in human life. It is arguably the most fundamental human science, and its ambition must rate it among the hardest of the 'hard' sciences.

V M Buckley's Archaeological Inventory of County Louth (1986), first of a planned series of 26 volumes from the Irish sites and monuments records, highlights the dilemma of the English, Welsh, and Scottish Royal Commissions: how to satisfy all their potential customers. Planners need 'instant' basic information, archaeologists expect a full record to the highest standards. Computerisation has not begun to answer the needs. Perhaps neither the rapid surveys nor the full records, but only analytical discussions, should be published.

The chest was recently claimed as a 19th century forgery, but has been vindicated by dendrochronological and AMS radiocarbon dating to 14th century.

Summarizes the very complex situation following the Trondheim Conference on radiocarbon calibration curves. A very robust statistical method is now needed to provide dating results that we can really make use of.

The pursuit of industrial archaeology often has too narrow a framework. The Nuffield Survey (1985) of the Ironbridge Gorge region demonstrates a new, more coherent philosophy and method. Individual plots within the whole landscape were surveyed to assess how industry operated as a system in its physical environment. F B/Ed (See also 88/1004.)

The Standing Committee of University Professors and Heads of Archaeology (SCUPHA), formed in 1986, sent a document to the University Grants Committee in 1987 on the status of archaeology as a discipline, the size and distribution of departments, topics to be taught, etc, in view of dwindling resources. Keith Branigan puts the argument for fewer but larger departments, and L P Louwe Kooijmans finds some parallels to the British situation in the Netherlands. F B

First recognition of a Romano-British coopering tool, citing four examples from Upper Thames villas. F B

Ard marks commonly found beneath burial mounds may be the result of a single ploughing to prepare the site or as part of funerary ritual. F B

Burnt mounds frequently of the Bronze or Iron Age, are now interpreted as sites of steam baths in the light of extensive ethnographic and documentary evidence from Europe and N America. Their function was hygienic, ritual, or healing. Examples from Orkney, Ulster and Birmingham. F B

Critical assessment of Historic buildings and ancient monuments: First report of the House of Commons Select Committee on the Environment, 1987 (see 87/1074). Emphasis on tourism and commercial exploitation of key sites and buildings is seen to be at the expense of academic and stewardship aspects of conservation. F B

Recent excavation N of parish church revealed sixteen timber buildings of three distinct plans and of post-hole or wall trench construction. A Hartlepool-style name-stone and some important clay metal-working moulds are discussed. The site appears to belong to the monastic complex of St Hilda and is the first extensive investigation of a 7th century Northumbrian monastery. F B

The need for a historiography of archaeology is pointed up by the extensive growth of writings about Childe. His thoroughness and breadth of scholarship make him inspirational still, and his continual willingness to re-analyse, leading to a concern with sociological issues, makes it unwise to criticize him for being out of date. Moreover he saw the necessity to make his writings accessible to the non-specialist.

Response to C M Clark's critique (see 88/984) on the general level of industrial archaeology as reflected in Industrial Archaeology Review: context is in fact a regular feature of articles in the journal. C M Clark's further comment is that the chronological depth offered by an archaeological framework is often missing.

Some Neolithic items in the Pitt-Rivers collection in Oxford have been provenanced to Jersey sites with the help of 19th century correspondence.