1 Lower Estuarine beds of the Northampton Sands, completing (over clay) the Upper Lias series: Beeby Thompson in V.C.H. Northants. 12–17 with map, pl. ii.

2 Whence Northampton Museum has many prehistoric worked flints: Fell, Clare in Arch. Journ. xciii (1937), 73Google Scholar, with pl. x including arrow-heads and scrapers of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age types, states all were found within and close around the site of the Iron Age hill-fort on the summit.

3 Grimes, W. F., ‘The Jurassic Way across England’ in Aspects of Archaeology…: Essays presented to O. G. S. Crawford (ed. Grimes, , 1951), pp. 144–71Google Scholar; see p. 149 with map, fig. 38 (cf. 39, 40), and pp. 157, 171.

4 Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxvii (1961), 263–306Google Scholar: the origins British, the development varied by certain further contributions. The cremation rite itself (Clark in Antiquity, 1966, p. 184Google Scholar; cf. next note) ‘harks back, as we now know, to late or even Middle Neolithic sources in southern England’—which suffices in the present context.

5 Same work, pp. 264–73; terminology, S. Piggott (1954, 1961, 1962), I. F. Smith (1956, 1965), as cited with remarks by J. G. D. Clark, Antiquity, xl (no. 159, September 1966), 173, 175–6, 180. Mortlake bowl here, an example not too far in time from our urn, figured after Piggott in Keiller and Piggott, ‘Badshot Long Barrow’, Surrey Arch. Soc. Prehistory of Farnham (1939), pt. ii, pp. 133–49, fig. 58, from secondary silt in this barrow’s N. ditch (pp. 138, 142–4), by courtesy of the Society and Professor Piggott.

6 Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxxii (1966), 131–2Google Scholar with fig. 4, 4 (Urn I).

7 Longworth (note 4), nos. 109, 113, 115, 118, 123, 121, viz. Abercromby, B.A.P., nos. 67, 69, 86, 93, 62, 87, with the non-primary 82, 64, 68.

8 Longworth (note 4), nos. 273–80; Clark (note 5), pp. 180–1.

9 Handled cup: Cyril Fox in Antiq. Journ. iv (1924), 131–3Google Scholar; photo, two views, p. 132, and 21. Ber. Röm.-Germ. Komm. 1931 (1933), Taf. 10, 1, text 74 (Kendrick); one view, Kendrick and Hawkes, Arch. Eng. & Wales 1914–31 (1932), pl. ix, top, text 101, ‘highly unusual’; shown here from new photo kindly supplied, through Miss Mary Cra’ster, F.S.A., by Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Dissimilar from handled beakers: long-necked or mug-shaped, e.g. Antiq. Journ. xv (1935), 276–83Google Scholar, Hawkes; P.P.S.E. Anglia vi. 3 (1930), pl. 29Google Scholar, Clark; Abercromby nos. 292–5, and nos. 295 bis and 296 in Northampton Museum from Brixworth. For handled bowls, however, like 296 bis (also there from Brixworth) and others, see Piggott in Proc. Prehist. Soc. iv (1938), 98 ffGoogle Scholar.

10 The cups summarized by Ashbee, P., The Bronze Age Round Barrow in Britain (1960), pp. 117–18Google Scholar; flat base adopted fig. 37, 2, shale cup from Amesbury barrow, G 85 (R. S. Newall in Wilts. Arch. Mag. xliv (1928), 111—17Google Scholar with primary discussion); for shoulder and handle, cf. Piggott, Ancient Europe (1965), p. 134Google Scholar, pl. xviia, Fritzdorf, gold, with p. 164, n. 42. I owe much to discussion with Miss Sabine Gerloff, who has prepared a full fresh survey.

11 Abercromby, no. 76; Clark in Proc. Prehist. Soc. ii (1936), 19–23Google Scholar with pl. xii; and 1966 (n. 5), p. 181.

12 Lehmann, L. Th., ‘Placing the Pot Beaker’, Helinium, v (1965), 3–31Google Scholar; that from Speulde also Ber. Rijksdiensts v. h. Oudh. Bodemonderzoek, xiv (1964), 23–26Google Scholar: most like the English.

13 Waals, J. D. Van der and Glasbergen, W., Palaeohistoria, iv (1955), pp. 5–96Google Scholar: these footed beakers defined, pp. 7–17; from Middle Germany, P. 33.

14 Cf. Antiquity, v (1931), 426Google Scholar, plate facing p. 415: still on the barrel beaker from Felixstowe, Abercromby no. 94, as on that compared with it by Clark from the huns’-bed tomb at Exloo (Drenthe).

15 Note 6; not mentioned by the authors.

16 Note 13; chronology, pp. 34–35; Eext beaker with pitting, p. 38 and pl. ii, no. 2, here reproduced from photograph kindly furnished, through Dr. Van der Waals (Assen Museum), by the Biologic-Archaeological Institute, University of Groningen.

17 Fox’s paper (note 9), p. 131, gave references furnished by T. D. (Sir Thomas) Kendrick, supplementing Smith’s of 1910 (next note); cf. Kendrick’s The Axe Age (1925), pp. 13–15Google Scholar.

18 In his essay following G. Wyman Abbott’s on the original Peterborough discoveries, Archaeologia, lxii. 1 (1910), 333–9Google Scholar, on ‘The Development of Neolithic Pottery’, ibid. pp. 340–51; see p. 346, with Swedish and Finnish references, p. 351.

19 Longworth (note 4), p. 273: not in single rows but in two or three together, as on the urns in his schedule (nos. 292–4 ff.) pp. 158 (Thurston), 312 (Ovenden), and 300 from Greenwell’s barrow CLI at Welburn (E. R. Yorks: p. 284, fig. 12), which recalls ‘an exactly similar usage’ (note 1) on an example of the pottery from Ebbsfleet (near the Thames at Northfleet, Kent); being wholly prior to the Mortlake bowls, this places pits among our oldest of any such features: see below with notes 22, 26, 27, 29, 34.

20 Childe, V. Gordon, ‘The Continental Affinities of British Neolithic Pottery’, Arch. Journ. lxxxviii (1932, for 1931), pp. 37–66Google Scholar; pp. 58 ff. on ‘Peterborough Ware’; pits, ‘an important clue’, pp. 62 ff.

21 Rosenberg, G., Kulturströmungen in Europa zur Steinzeit (Copenhagen, 1931)Google Scholar.

22 Piggott, S., Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles (1954)Google Scholar: basic presentation, pp. 312 ff.: this modification (cf. p. 319, with p. 369), p. 378, for the Ebbsfleet pottery as summarized pp. 308–9. See below with notes 25, 26.

23 Becker, C. J., ‘Den Grubekeramiske Kultur i Danmark’, Aarboger f. Nord. Oldk. og Hist. 1950, pp. 153–274Google Scholar.

24 The same, ‘Mosefundne Lerkar fra Yngre Stenalder’, ibid. 1948, pp. 5–318.

25 Its taking in this feature was noted in the present context by Childe in 1932 already (note 20, 63), though on pots for use more commonly domestic than in megalithic tombs, which soon began to be adopted; Fox’s paper (note 9, 131) cited pits at rim of one funnel-neck pot from passage-tomb at Birkelund (Jutland): Nordisk Fortidsminder, i (1910), 92–93Google Scholar, fig. 66. Further, Forssander, J. E. in Medd. fr. Lunds Univ. Hist. Museum, 1930/1, PP. 1–34Google Scholar.

26 See already note 19, for pits on it; and note 22. Primary publication, Burchell, J. P. T. with Piggott in Antiq. Journ. xix (1939), 405–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 As by Piggott himself (using unpublished work by Dr. I. F. Smith) at the Neolithic Conference of 1959 at Prague: see his contribution, pp. 557–74 and notably pp. 567–8, in its report, L’Europe à la fin de l’âge de la pierre (ed. Jaroslav Böhm, Prague 1961).

28 So J. G. D. Clark, Antiquity (Sept. 1966), pp. 173–80: insular ever since brought from West Europe at its Early Neolithic outset, the British Neolithic came to make decorated bowls in at least five styles, the Ebbsfleet one among the rest; tools and all flint-work broadly homogeneous.

29 Childe in 1932 (note 20) said ‘thread-cord’, Piggott (since same vol., pp. 114–20) ‘whipped cord’, both meaning cord with thinner thread wound round it (Rosenberg’s Wickelschnur: note 21) to give a banded impression like a maggot.

30 Any traits of that ‘secondary’ kind in Late Neolithic times will be distinctly subsequent to Ebbsfleet; the idea of taking them together was constrained by the former ‘short’ chronology, now extinguished with the help of radiocarbon dating. Hence Clark (note 20), pp. 175, 182; but he still leaves more to be said.

31 For this aspect of the Mesolithic Age, Clark’s demonstrations have been long familiar (books, note 42 below, with (1965) note 40). I leave it unnamed here only since its later portion, running on through Littorina times, has now been partly overlapped in Denmark by the whole of the Early Neolithic; see below on Ertebølle, with notes 40, 41.

32 Submergence, hindering discovery here through its recognized continuance later, was considered by Childe not only after (as Clark, note 28, 175), but actually in his primary study of 1932 (note 20, 66).

33 Clark (loc. cit.) has fancied Childe retracting—perhaps after signs of Scandinavian dissatisfaction, and then because ‘unnecessary’—an idea of ‘invasion’ as though he previously held it. I can neither find nor credit that he did: his 1932 conclusion speaks of ‘transplantation’, as itself unproved, and otherwise only of assuming residual ‘contacts’. Cf. my own ‘arts brought by small-scale movement’: Prehistoric Foundations of Europe (1940), p. 202Google Scholar. It was not ‘invasion’ that dissatisfied—Piggott (note 27), p. 567—but partly something vague (Childe’s word) about a setting now changed for us all in both absolute and relative chronology (notes 39–40 below), partly the North Sea coastal gap of which Childe from the first was mindful (cf. note 32), as anyone still must be (see, e.g., note 43).

34 Note 20, pp. 60–61; nor less so if the North’s relation to Eastern Europe, which was Rosenberg’s theme, be viewed afresh today.

35 Clark (note 28), pp. 176–80.

36 At least ‘the realities of Neolithic life’ (Clark, ibid., p. 174) require no belief in endogamy for women potters.

37 ‘As Piggott brought out so well in 1954’: Clark, ibid., p. 181.

38 Beyond Northern Europe, from the British angle, there was of course the related Eastern; Childe (note 20) considered the possible duality, but in the present context note 34 may suffice.

39 Primary ditch-silt at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire, but including Ebbsfleet pottery, radiocarbon 257O ± 150 B.C. (not cited by Clark but see Windmill Hill and Avebury (1965), pp. 7–11, with pp. 73–76, and previously Antiquity, 1960, p. 212); Danish funnel-necked C well after A (of 2820 ± 80 B.C. at Aamosen: Amer. Journ. Sci. Radiocarbon Suppt. ii, 6, and see note 40), but before the D with which Middle Neolithic opens, to run thence on through the later third-millennium centuries. See C. J. Becker’s table, at p. 79 (fig. 44) of his study in Aarboger (note 23), 1959, pp. 1–90, with which cf. Troels-Smith’s (note 40).

40 Now by no means wholly of the Mesolithic Age (note 31), but in their phase III dwelling alongside Early Neolithic settlers (with funnel-necked pot-forms A and then C/D), and even borrowing from them; for these stirring results of the long Aamosen undertaking (cf. note 39), see Troels-Smith, J. in Aarboger, 1953, pp. 5–62Google Scholar, followed by 1959, pp. 91–145; in brief, Clark and Piggott, Prehistoric Societies (1965), p. 149Google Scholar.

41 Perhaps it was to emulate Neolithic neighbours’ potting (cf. note 40); but the pits might still be old Mesolithic ‘bore-hole ornament’, transferred from antler, bone, and wood to the new clay which allowed their making by simple pressure only: see Clark (next note, 1936), pp. 162–6; Childe (note 20), p. 63 with nn. 2–4.

42 Clark, , Mesolithic Age in Britain (1932), pp. 63–65Google Scholar, Halstow, Lower (North Kent); Mesolithic Settlement of Northern Europe (1936), pp. 158–60Google Scholar, with Ertebølle, pp. 138–55, where for chronology cf. notes 39–40 here.

43 This, of course, can mean reverting to the notion, entertained throughout by Childe (note 32), of such people on coasts submerged thereafter. Certainly the notion of evidence from non-submerged land, namely finger-tip ‘rusticated’ sherds, adduced by W. Kersten from north-west German locations (Germania, xxii (1938), 71–77Google Scholar), has been briskly dismissed by Lehmann (note 12: 1965); he shows all or most to be of ‘pot beakers’, corresponding to the English rusticated vessels like that from Somersham (p. 202 with notes 11–12), Beaker in context and centuries later than Ebbsfleet. But see Piggott in The West Kennet Long Barrow (1962), p. 38Google Scholar, on his pot P 12, collared and with random pairs of punch-marks, regular pits beneath, and finger-and-thumb-pinched body decoration as on P 14, while P 15 has simpler finger-work, wholly in the Mortlake (and often Northern) manner, and companion thus to cord-impression. It is hard to think the P 15 and the P 12 finger-work are wholly foreign to each other: if the P 12 work is Beaker in the sense of Bell beaker, how does Corded beaker come to have the like in nearby Germany, as Piggott pertinently quotes from Struve? There should be something here pre-Beaker in the background, to which all this points along with Ebbsfleet; the background has to be Northern, and though Kersten fell short of it someone may yet be luckier.

44 For critique of the modern literature, and contributions pressed from eastern and north-central Europe both, see Häusler, A. in Jahresschrift f. mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte, xlvii (1963), 157–9Google Scholar, with 1 (1966), 115–40 on globe-amphoras, and his own and other works there cited. It is a different story from Piggott’s, with behind him Marija Gimbutas and others, in his Ancient Europe (1965), pp. 81–97Google Scholar. But to the greater accord we may behold one day, the case I touch on should yet win through to contributing.

45 See Piggott (note 43) on the West Kennet pot (ibid.) P 13, with almost all-over linear herringbone as on footed and hybrid Netherlands beakers. But Britain knew impressed herringbone from Ebbsfleet onwards, its techniques extending to whipped-cord (as on neck of our urn eventually), to twisted-cord, and to linear as well (e.g. Piggott, ibid., pp. 38–40, on P 1–3, 6–8, 10). All linear cases cannot have the Beaker source that this one looks like having. There was something on either side—though the ‘Peterborough’ (Mortlake) side is what the Milton urn most shows.

46 See Brothwell, D. R., Digging up Bones, British Museum (Natural History), (1963), pp. 60–61Google Scholar, figs. 25–26.

47 Ibid., p. 59, fig. 24.