The large island of Euboea, which lies along the north coast of Attica and Boeotia, was little known archaeologically until recent years (FIG. 1). Nor, apart from its involvement in the Persian Wars, then as a victim of Athenian imperialism and later as a step in the expansionism of Philip of Macedon, does it play any prominent role in the accounts of ancient historians. Yet, they have left hints of its former greatness in an early period of which little was remembered. The island was known to have sent out the first colonies to Italy and Sicily in the eighth century BC and to have settled the region of North Greece, still known as Chalcidice, after the name of one of Euboea's main cities, Chalcis. They remembered something, too, of a war between Chalcis and Eretria, the other major city of the island, in which their respective allies took part, and it is this conflict which seems to have exhausted both sides and led to the eclipse of the island's pre-eminence.

The civilizations of prehispanic America never advanced technologically beyond the early bronze age: although both the Inca and the Aztec had tools and some weapons of cast bronze, the warriors that fought Cortes used swords edged with obsidian blades. The Classic Maya, who flourished in the first millennium AD, had only a casual acquaintance with metal until the ninth century (Bray, 1977) and raised the great temples of Tikal with an engineering capability no greater than that of the builders of Stonehenge.

Almost half-a-century ago, I was once referred to by Sidney Smith as someone who had entered archaeology 'by the back door'. In those days there was no well-defined 'front door', though Smith and others were doing their best to create one; and, since I was myself then already well established in a more conventional profession, the implied reproof was perhaps justifiable. In truth, the potential advantages of an architectural training to a field archaeologist were not at that time fully understood, and one purpose of the present writing is to make their significance more apparent.

Coppergate, one of the many York streets with a name of Scandinavian derivation, runs through the heart of modern York, though it lies some way outside the Roman legionary fortress. Evidently the Roman Ouse Bridge had, by the Viking Age, been replaced by another, further downstream, and this had caused the city centre to shift. In the mid-1970s York City Council decided to clear and develop five of the long narrow properties which run back from Coppergate towards the nearby River Foss. York Archaeological Trust carried out preliminary investigations which showed that well-preserved Anglo-Scandinavian buildings were to be found on the site, with organic remains excellently preserved in the waterlogged deposits. The Trust therefore chose to excavate four of the tenements before development began. Five years of continuous work on the site produced an occupation sequence which began with timber buildings of the first century AD, canabae outside the Roman fortress.

In 1957 John Mulvaney remarked that Childe was probably the most prolific and the most translated Australian author. Now, post mortem, he must be the one currently attracting the most intense discussion. These three books, taken together, enable us to see Childe rather more completely, both as an individual scholar and as an academic in the general context of his time. To some extent it is possible to 'round him off', and to answer certain questions about him and his work. But this process opens up other more profound questions, mostly concerning his philosophy, which bear on the history of British archaeology, and are not really answered from the large amount of information, interpretation and comment now available on one of the greatest prehistorians of the first half of this century.

Mr Hammond's recent note on treasure trove examined the decision of Mr Justice Dillon in the case of Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster v. G. E. Overton (Farms) Ltd [1981] Ch. 333 (hereafter Overton). That decision has been affirmed by the Court of Appeal [1982] 2 WLR 397. It is therefore now settled, first, that the law of treasure trove does not apply to any metal other than gold and silver and, secondly, that a treasure trove object must contain a 'substantial' amount of gold or silver.