Excavations at Grime's Graves, Norfolk, during September 1920, revealed a new chipping site (Floor 85), and resulted in the discovery thereon of two pieces of engraved flint crust, associated with a series of flint implements of Le Moustier type, bone tools, and pottery, upon a living level immediately overlying glacial sand.

Excavations were carried out on the site by Mr. Akerman in 1864 and 1865 and in the two following years and by Dr. Rolleston, then Professor of Anatomy and Physiology, at various times between 1864 and 1868. The results of the excavations were embodied in papers published by this Society. He appears principally to have assisted at quarrying operations which were then in progress, but also to have searched one or two other small areas. No map of his excavation is extant, and according to his assistant William Hine, who is still alive, no map appears to have been made. The areas probably excavated by him are marked with a cross on figure 1.

Since that time a number of graves have fallen into the quarry, and scattered finds appear to have been made from time to time, some of which were examined by Professor Rolleston and after his death by Professor Moseley.

In the spring of 1920 an undergraduate society, the Oxford University Archaeological Society, was anxious to do some excavating and asked me to find a site and direct the work. By kind permission of Mr. Aldworth, the owner of the property, we were able to start at Frilford in the middle of the Hilary Term, and spent week-ends there during Term, and four days at the ends of both the Hilary and Trinity Terms. The labour was provided chiefly by junior but also by senior members of the University, and honorary members of the Society, especially Sir Arthur Evans, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. Leeds materially assisted the excavations by advice and personal visits. Mr. Leeds has helped me very much in the preparation of this paper. I am indebted to Professor Arthur Thomson both for his keen interest in the work and also for putting the resources of the Anatomical Department at my disposal.

The ingenious and persistent researches of the Swedish geologist, Baron Gerard de Geer, have taught us when the last Ice Period came to an end here in the north. The ice began to melt and retire from the southern coast of Scania 15,000 years before our time. There cannot be more than an error of a few centuries in this calculation.

But the southern border of the enormous ice-masses covering the north of Europe in the last Ice Period was not on the south coast of Scania; it lay farther south, in Brandenburg. It is uncertain what length of time was necessary for the ice to retire from Brandenburg to Scania. However, if we consider how slowly the melting was going on in the first millenniums, and how long it took for the ice to melt in the southern part of Sweden, it is highly probable that about 5,000 years were required to transfer the ice border from its most southerly point to Scania. Consequently, the beginning of the melting period in our northern region, i.e. the end of the last Ice Period in northern Europe, must fall about 20,000 years before our time.

Three places are now recognized as possible sites of the battle of Ethandun: Edington, on the Polden Hills in Somerset; Edington, near Westbury in Wiltshire; and Heddington, about six miles south-east of Chippenham, also in Wiltshire. The object of the present paper is to endeavour to disprove the possibility of Edington on the Polden Hills being the scene of the battle, and to show that an overwhelming mass of evidence favours Edington, near Westbury.

The latest and most complete argument in favour of the Polden Hills as the site of the battle is to be found in Messrs. Whistler and Major's Early Wars of Wessex. After a careful examination of the evidence and of the topography of this site, I am of opinion that the plan of campaign suggested by these authors is most unlikely, if not altogether impracticable, from a military point of view.

An attempt to rehabilitate the theory that the site of the battle of Ethandun was at Edington-by-Westbury was to be expected, and we welcome Mr. Rawlence's paper as the first attempt we know of to work out a Wiltshire theory of the campaign.

The bronze casting (fig. 1) was recently purchased by the Royal Irish Academy. It was one of the antiquities preserved at Killua Castle, co. Westmeath, but its previous history is unknown. The length of the casting is 4·4 in.: the raised box-shaped portion is 2·4 in. in breadth, while the flat portion measures at its widest part 1·5 in. Possibly it was the limb of a cruciform mounting for a book-cover. Its ornamentation is admirable.

On 26th June 1920 workmen in the employ of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, whilst excavating at the Ministry's Farm Settlement at Amesbury, discovered some bones of a skeleton. The site lies approximately 175 yards north-east of Ratfyn Barrow (marked on the Ordnance Map), and about 6 in. below the surface of the chalk. The grave was about 7 ft. long and about 2 ft. 3 in. in depth. Mr. P. Farrar, of Bulford Camp, a local archaeologist, was at once communicated with, and discovered further remains after a careful search.

Since their first publication in 1757 (Archaeologia, ii, 32, pl. ii), the gold crescents characteristic of the Early Bronze Age of Ireland have remained in part unexplained; and the various names suggested for them reflect the prevailing uncertainty as to their use and significance. In his recently published Catalogue of Irish Gold Ornaments, our Fellow Mr. Armstrong has brought together all the existing material, and on consideration adopts the view that these gold crescents were worn as collars. They at first went under the name of lunulae or little moons, and a favourite term in later years has been lunette, which is generally used in French for ‘telescope’, and though more manageable than lunula, is not so fitted for international use as ‘crescent’.