The site where the torcs were found is just above the 100-ft contour (30.5 m.) on high land 3.2 km. east of the town centre (TM 13684273). The torcs were lying on the west flank of a hill overlooking a tributary of the Belstead Brook; this tributary has now been filled in and underlies Bridgwater Road. The hill is pasture land adjoining Fir Tree Farm and, being steepsided, is unlikely ever to have been ploughed. It was decided to cut back the hill at its foot to provide larger gardens for the houses of Holcombe Crescent. The flank was removed by bulldozing in 3-m. swathes, the width of the machine. When Mr Tricker walked past the spot he saw an almost vertical cliff some 4-5 m. high; the bulldozer, which was removing the second swathe, was working, as a safety precaution, about a metre from the edge; the spine of earth which was left was falling down the slope, loosened by the vibration. Projecting from this loose earth, some 2 m

The name Riotinto has something of a magical connotation in the world of mining. It has been called the geologist’s paradise because at almost no other place on the earth has nature exposed in one spot such richness and variety of minerals. The floor of the bed of the richest areas in Riotinto is made up of a mass of porphyry and pyrites overlain by an oxidised cap. At the zone of contact between the two levels is an enormous deposit of silver, gold and other metals which today, as in ancient times, supports a flourishing industry.

In recent years increasing attention has been focused on the economic aspects of the changes that took place in human groups in their evolution from 'Palaeolithic' to 'Neolithic' ways of life. Braidwood and Howe carried out valuable pioneer work in this field and it is appropriate to quote their view of the problem [I]. How are we to understand those great changes in mankind's way of life which attended the first appearance of the settled village-farming community? The appearance of the village-farming community marked a transition, in cultural history, of great import for what was to follow. Before it were some half million years of savagery during which small wandering bands of people . . . led an essentially 'natural' catch as catch can existence. This statement emphasizes the static nature of the original, supposed 'natural' way of life, and contrasts it with a relatively sudden development which led to sedentary village communities. It implies a number of assumptions: that before the changes took place 'natural' man lived quite a different life, a life of random nomadism, exploiting his environment haphazardly ; that the changes entailed

A number of relatively recent works concerned entirely or incidentally with early horse gear call attention to the fact that various features of this are still imperfectly understood. At the same time, new discoveries have shed new light (Anderson, 1961; Childe, 1954; Hančar, 1955; Jope, 1956; Karageorghis, 1962, 1965, 1967; Nagel, 1966; Potratz, 1966; Salonen, 1956). J. A. H. Potratz, notably, despite great familiarity with bit material, fails to recognize the functional or genetic implications of some of its details.

Professor Stuart Piggott's book is the first serious attempt for over forty years to deal systematically with a full range of sources concerning the druids. Sir Thomas Kendrick's study The Druids, A Study in Keltic Prehistory (London, 1927; re-issued New York, 1966), still enjoys an enviable reputation as a comprehensive treatment of the varied source-material on which an account of the druids can be based. It would be quite wrong to suggest that scholars have not in the meantime tried to understand more fully some of the complexity of this material, but we can fairly claim that it is only within the last nine or ten years that we have had a spate of publications attempting a new critical analysis of various aspects of this field of study. Incidentally, an earlier work of considerable importance that is not included in Piggott's bibliography is J. Vendryes, 'La religion des Celtes', in Les rel%ions de I'Europe ancienne, iii ('Mana', Introduction rf I'histoire des religions 2), Paris, 1948.