Antiquity 66 (250)

A report on the impact of advances in DNA studies on archaeology. Includes directions for optimum efficiency of sample recovery on site, along with a call for closer collaboration between molecular biologists and archaeologists in order to obtain the best results. IH

Dunmisk fort has produced the first evidence recognised in early medieval Europe for the making or modification of glass using primary raw materials. Going beyond the evidence for glass working a series of sophisticated industrial processes can be identified that shows not all glass in Early Christian Ireland was imported. Au(abr)

A report on the study and reconstruction of a timber circle forming part of the Welshpool or Lwyn Wron cursus and thought to date from the late third millennium. The site comprises a 20m diameter circle of pits surrounding a central feature. The almost even depth of the pits indicates a `high level of precision' in its construction. It is suggested that timber circles of this type were the direct antecedents of megalithic settings such as Stonehenge. The bottom of the central pit contained a cremation burial with finds including four barbed and tanged arrowheads, of Green's Conygar type, with visible heat-spalling. There is a possibility that the arrowheads were inside the body when burnt, raising the possibility of human sacrifice. Pottery finds included Peterborough ware. IH

In answer to a critical review of the proceedings at the 1990 TAG conference (see 91/910) it is suggested that a theoretical standpoint need not be exclusively relativist in opposition to scientific positivism. Current modes of thought, often grouped haphazardly under the terms post-modernist or post-processual, may also represent a continuation of earlier ideas concerning `critical self-awareness' (notably those of David Clarke). Thus they need not act as a barrier between an older generation of archaeologists and current theoretical debate. The reply from John Bintliff (111--14) takes the form of seven points: that post-modernism has already been discredited in other disciplines, that processualists also acknowledge the importance of socio-cultural systems, that there is no socio-political hidden agenda behind fieldwork strategies, that funding bodies favour scientific research because it shows tangible results, that science-based archaeology makes objective observations of data whereas post-processual archaeology employs a predetermined socio-political agenda, that Bintliff himself has written several books on theory in archaeology and that far from being ostracised many theoretical archaeologists are to be found in academic posts across the country. IH