Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 43

Tribute is paid to four archaeologists who died in 1976 - Powell, Wheeler, D L Clarke and Higgs - before considering present and future trends in prehistory in Britain and overseas. The New Archaeology will probably turn out both less revelatory and less misleading than the fierce debates about it might suggest. Nonetheless, the historical approach so derided by some New Archaeologists must remain in European prehistory; after all, history is essentially processual and alongside other models gives a more rounded view of the past. In sheerly practical terms archaeologists have to decide rescue priorities in the face of a multitude of threats, in the developing countries no less than in the western world.

The 'spear' found by Warren in 1911 was subjected to botanical, microscopic and experimental examination; it is of yew, and considerable pains had been taken to form the taper of its point. On ethnographic parallels it should be a thrusting spear rather than a digging stick. Stratigraphically it belongs to the Hoxnian Interglacial, Ho II.

SU 614528. Several cuts through the defences in 1959 revealed three rampart phases: I, timber-faced revetted rampart of ?7th to 6th centuries BC; II, rammed chalk glacis rampart, possibly rebuilt or raised as Phase III - with later saucepan pottery. There might have been an Ultimate LBA enclosure on the hilltop. Specialist reports on pottery and animal bones are appended.

Excavation of waterlaid deposits at Newferry Site 3 produced a 2000-year sequence of artefacts for which seventeen 14C dates were obtained. The range of forms is remarkably constant through the whole sequence, but the manner of manufacture altered and so did the raw material sources; hence the type of occupation probably changed, although eel-trapping may always have been its main purpose. The heavy duty industry ('Larnian', here termed Later Mesolithic) is insular, with almost no contact outside Ireland, and although without microliths is by no means impoverished, incorporating polished stone axes and a considerable range of forms. Transitional material between the Early Mesolithic of Mount Sandel (7th millennium - see 78/5023) and the Newferry sequence (6th and 5th millennia) has yet to be found.

TQ 399118. This enclosure, one of only five Neo enclosures in Sussex, was excavated to reveal two incomplete circles of discontinuous banks and ditches which molluscan analysis indicated were not contemporary. A few sherds and flint tools were found in the ditches, but the interior showed no certain Neo features and the main purpose of the enclosure may have been for exposure burial. Specialist reports are appended on human and animal bones, botanical remains, and mollusca of woodland and open country types.

ST 413013. Nothing is yet known of the history of the main defences. In the interior there were circular huts, probably cleared for the erection of a large structure occupying three sides of a square with 180-foot sides. Two circular huts may have been contemporary with this. Later the square structure was demolished and its line marked by low banks. Cobbling was laid over part of the site of one hut, and a Roman ballista bolt was found on the cobbles, implying an attack on the fort - soon after AD 43? A gold coin (Gallo-Belgic XB - say 80 to 40 BC) is the only dating evidence; pottery, of Glastonbury and 'less sophisticated Durotrigian' types, came from two huts outside the square structure, as did a crucible fragment.

A further twenty-four jadeite and two nephrite axes have been located and are here listed and discussed; some alterations to the numbering system have also been made.

Construction of a theoretical model demonstrated the strong possibility that small tools will tend to drop down soil cracks in rockshelter deposits and thus be over-represented in lower levels.