During the past decade, archaeological research in north-east Thailand has concentrated on the excavation of individual sites. Of these, the best known are Non Nok Tha (Bayard 1971) and Ban Chiang (Gorman and Charoenwongsa 1976). Both are relatively small occupation and burial sites, covering c. 1 ha and 3.5 ha respectively.

There have been several claims for an unexpectedly early bronze-working tradition in the area, and of the inception of iron technology during the second millennium BC. Biological remains from these sites reveal cultivation of rice and maintenance of domestic herds of cattle, pig and water buffalo (Gorman and Charoenwongsa 1976). While the recent surge of prehistoric research here and in adjacent areas has clearly demonstrated the presence of a south-east Asian bronze working tradition of some antiquity (Ha Van Tan 1980), the establishment of a chronological framework and of the settlement pattern in the area are in their infancy.

As part of the Thai Government's North-east Thailand Archaeological Project, steps were taken in 1980–81 to expand our knowledge of the Ban Chiang culture. During the 1980 dry season, Higham and Kijngam co-directed two intensive field surveys.

At this newly discovered site on the Yiron Plateau, Galilee Heights, nine basaltic stone formations susceptible of reflecting constructional activities by Acheulean people were discerned. The configuration of the formations and data on the associated artefacts along with basic details of the stones incorporated are provided. Mitzpeh Yiron thus joins the list of very few Lower Palaeolithic open-air sites where evidence of some sort of ‘building’ practice has been reported.

The name ‘Azilian’ is firmly linked to that of Edward Piette, the principal excavator of the site on the left bank of the river Arize in the tunnel-cave of the Mas d'Azil (Ariège), in the French Pyrenees (see Bahn 1979). From 1887 onward this site yielded hundreds of painted and engraved pebbles (Piette 1896, 1903). Their decoration shows little variation, and consists largely of groups of dots and transverse marks; however, there are more complex signs such as longitudinal marks, lines of chevrons, grecques, crosses, perpendicular marks and ovals, while some pebble-faces are completely painted over. These little stones constitute almost the only evidence of artistic activity at the very end of the Upper Palaeolithic, and they span a period from c. 9000 to c. 7500 BC.

Twenty-eight sites in France, five in Spain, three in Italy and one in Switzerland have yielded a total of 1951 worked pebbles, but the Mas d'Azil accounts for no less than about 1427 of these. The figure is approximate because it is very difficult to reach an exact total: there have been losses, and infiltrations of fakes, and the ensemble is scattered in at least 16 museums and private collections.

It is, with a few exceptions, only in very recent years and with works such as that by Guilaine and his colleagues on the Abri Jean-Cros (Guilaine et al. 1979) that the site locational and ecological approaches have made their appearance in the French archaeological literature. Studies of this type are still not common, despite the richness of certain areas of France in prehistoric settlement evidence and the existence of a body of geomorphological research which often makes this type of approach particularly attractive. The present article attempts to use both geomorphological and settlement evidence for a consideration of the relationship between changes in the landscape and patterns of site distribution in the Marais poitevin area of western France during the period 2800–600 bc.

The basis for the study is provided by locational information on a series of Late Neolithic fortified settlement sites which has been discovered in this part of France in recent years. These impressive sites have a striking distribution pattern which invites interpretation in terms of their landscape setting. Geomorphological and archaeological evidence makes it possible to reconstruct at least in outline the development of this landscape during the later prehistoric period, and to suggest what it may have been like at the time the sites were occupied and how it may have affected their foundation and their abandonment. The evidence relating to landscape development is crucial to our understanding of the prehistoric sites and no apology is made for considering it in some detail below. Bronze Age as well as Neolithic sites have been included in the final analysis. This allows the Late Neolithic fortified settlements to be viewed in a broader context and related to changes in site distribution patterns over a period of approximately two thousand years.

Salvage excavations on the verges of the A344 at Stonehenge resulted in the recovery of large, well stratified groups of prehistoric artefacts. In 1968, a complete section across the Avenue earthwork was recorded, and material obtained for a radiocarbon determination. In 1979 and 1980, the two ditches of the Avenue were again sectioned. Detailed recording of find provenances from both these and the Heelstone ditches permitted a fuller understanding of the erosion and filling processes. In 1979, part of a pit that had held a previously unknown standing stone was excavated. A geophysical survey of the Avenue suggests that further pits may be present along its course. A unique deposit of prehistoric stoneworking debitage was sectioned in 1980. It is suggested that this debitage, representing the opportunistic use of megalith shaping debris, accumulated within a structure inhabited at the time the major stone monument was being erected. The discovery of these rock fragments has prompted an important new study of the petrology at Stonehenge, and a discussion of stoneworking around the site is included. The paper concludes with an appraisal of the chronology of Stonehenge and an introduction to the comprehensive excavation archive.

The excavation of two adjacent round barrows at Trelystan, Long Mountain, Powys, in 1979, has revealed a complex sequence of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age funerary structures and traces of Late Neolithic settlement. The earliest structure was a large pit grave, dated to about 2400 bc, which was superseded at about 2200 bc by a settlement represented by stake-walled buildings associated with Grooved Ware. Following this some activity took place, possibly domestic, which is represented by sherds probably derived from several southern Beakers, which by analogy with sites elsewhere are to be dated to a period after about 1850 bc. The subsequent Bronze Age cemetery, dated to between about 1800 and 1500 bc (but possibly continuing later), presents a sequence of burial types and structures which can broadly be seen to illustrate a change from the concept of barrow cemetery to that of cemetery barrow. The earliest burials, which consist of cremations in pits and occasionally accompanied by a Food Vessel, were covered by separate small mounds of stone or turf, or a combination of the two. These were eventually overlain by and amalgamated beneath two larger turf barrows associated with Food Vessel Urns, which employed stake circles in their construction and which acted as repositories for additional cremation burials. The cemetery was sited along a pre-existing boundary fence, set up after the Late Neolithic phase, which was renewed at various times throughout the life of the cemetery in response to changes in its layout. A small undated cemetery of inhumation graves, possibly of the Early Christian period, was founded on the eastern side of the barrows at a later date.

For five years from 1976 to 1980 the archaeology and environment of a block of landscape centred around Shaugh Moor on south-west Dartmoor were analysed prior to the destruction of some of the evidence by china clay working. The investigations began in 1976 with a survey of the field monuments and the initiation of soil, vegetation, small mammal and phosphate studies in addition to the search for peat deposits of sufficient antiquity. From 1977 the programme was determined by the encroachment of the quarries and other works, so that early in that year a group of cairns were excavated (site 10) and subsequently the first of two seasons work on a walled enclosure (site 15) was initiated. The excavation of the enclosure was completed in 1978 and in that year it was also necessary to undertake a small investigation near the northern edge of the project area on the Trowlesworthy cross-dyke (site 202) and near its southern edge on Wotter Playground (site 201). Settlements and field systems were surveyed and excavated on Wotter Common in 1979 and these investigations were completed in 1980 when the Saddlesborough Reave, which crosses the centre of the project area from east to west was also surveyed in detail and sampled by excavation.

More field work could have been undertaken on threatened areas and indeed a limited operation was undertaken in 1981 on the Saddlesborough Reave to confirm some points of detail. Instead, it was thought best to conclude the project after five years, to complete the publication of the results and to allow mature consideration of these so as to generate a new set of questions.

At an early stage the decision was taken to publish the work as a series of annual reports in these Proceedings rather than as a single monograph. The first report (Wainwright et al. 1979) set out the simple research design for the project and contained accounts of the 1976 survey and of the excavation of the cairn group.

This report describes Neolithic pottery dated 2730 bc and Beaker pottery found in apparently domestic contexts; and many Bronze Age funerary features. The latter begin with two food-vessel cremations and include two barrows about one of which were ten cremation graves. Close by were another 140 cremation graves, many yielding Deverel-Rimbury pottery. Carbon-14 dates indicate the use of this cemetery between 1556 bc and 762 bc.

The Later Bronze Age site at Black Patch consisted of hut platforms and enclosures set in a system of rectangular fields. The settlement area is overlooked by round barrows. Area and sample excavations of the settlement revealed circular huts and activity areas within a C-14 date range of 1070 ± 70 bc–830 ± 80 bc. Extensive economic data in the form of seeds, animal bones, foreign stones and artefacts were recovered. These formed the basis of an economic resource-area analysis undertaken around Black Patch and other contemporary occupation sites on the South Downs. From this an economic activity model is proposed.

The invention and acceptance in Europe of an ingenious metal clothes-fastener in the late second and early first millennia BC has long been known. Interest in it and its several thousand variant forms has been concentrated mainly on their importance as type fossils for chronological systems and, more recently, on how they were used, but there has been little study of how or why the ideas spread (Alexander 1973b). Here an attempt will be made to show where the inventions took place and which communities first accepted them.

Analyses of recent finds of ‘coin moulds’ from Levroux (Indre) and Aulnat (Puy-de-Dôme), France, confirm that these objects were used for casting globules of gold and silver. Though quantitatively the majority of recorded finds come from defended oppida, more than half the sites to produce ‘coin moulds’ are open settlements, suggesting coin production was not centralised, at least in the second century BC.

The Yorkshire Wolds hold an air of mystery for students of the Iron Age. As is well known these chalk hills lie at the heart of the largest group of Early Iron Age burials in Britain, the ‘Arras Culture’, so-called after the first and richest cemetery to be excavated (fig. 1; Stead 1979). Although these burials are often quoted in general discussions and formed an important piece of evidence in the ‘invasion controversy’, it is only in the last few years that up to date illustrations of the material have begun to appear in textbooks (Cunliffe 1978; Champion 1979) following the publication of interim excavation reports (Brewster 1976; Stead 1977). Little is known of the settlements which these cemeteries served and even less is published. The present paper is an attempt to trace settlement patterns by an examination of the funerary material in conjunction with the domestic evidence which was found in the very large-scale excavations in Garton and Wetwang Slacks (Brewster 1981; Dent 1982).

A heavy funerary bias in the material is further exaggerated because the distinctive square-plan barrows of the ‘Arras Culture’ are readily identifiable from the air whereas settlement can rarely be dated without excavation. Many hundreds of barrows are now known in this way (Ramm 1973; 1974; Loughlin and Miller 1979) and all but the most recently excavated have been catalogued (Stead 1979). An essential requirement for a discussion of these is the ability to date the material involved, either in absolute or in relative terms. It would be useful if distinctive groups could be recognized among the pottery from these sites since the metalwork is rare in domestic contexts, whereas even poor sites usually produce some sherds. Unfortunately there is virtually no decorated pottery and the plain jars which are found in graves cannot at present be used as a basis for a chronology. It is the metalwork which presents the best opportunity for such a classification.

Jovanovič has recently drawn attention to the early copper mine at Rudna Glava in the copper mining area of Maidanpek-Bor in Eastern Serbia (Jovanovič 1979, 103). This copper deposit has iron associated with it. In some respects this occurrence of iron and copper together compares with the deposit at Phalabora in South Africa where copper and other minerals are mined today. Rudna Glava has been a copper mine in the Chalcolithic period and an iron mine in the Turkish period. Today it is worked out, but the working of the iron ore has left exposed some of the shafts and galleries used by Chalcolithic and Bronze Age copper miners. It has been possible to obtain a sample of the copper ores used in the early periods and integrate them into a smelting programme (Tylecote et al. 1977, 305), the main purpose of which has been to determine the partitioning of the three elements between the ore, the slag and the metal. The object of this exercise was to try and relate the artefacts, the slag, and metal to the ore source. So far, ores from the British Isles, Spain, and Africa have been examined and reported (Tylecote 1977). The sample from Yugoslavia came rather too late for the first report but the work is continuing.

The smelting work described in this report was carried out by Ali Ghaznavi and the analyses were kindly made by R. Hetherington formerly of Newcastle University and Dr P. T. Craddock of the British Museum Research Laboratory. I have to thank Dr B. Jovanovič of the Archaeological Institute, Belgrade, for supplying the material and inspiring the work.

Experimental, analytical, and archaeological evidence is presented to describe the characteristics of thermal alteration in mesolithic assemblages from the northern Netherlands. Experiments, both in the field and in the laboratory, have established the sequence of changes that occur when flint is subjected to heat. Analytical techniques involving the scanning electron microscope and thermoluminescence analysis are used in an attempt to recognize thermal pretreatment and to define the stages in manufacturing in which it was used. The proportions and spatial distributions of thermally-altered artefacts are employed to compare archaeological assemblages and to locate heat sources on occupation floors. In spite of high incidence of heat alteration in the assemblages, there is no conclusive evidence for intentional thermal pretreatment.