Hardly a vestige of Marlborough Castle, the medieval stronghold, remains – above ground. What may still be concealed under the trees of the Wilderness is another matter; something in the way of foundations has already been revealed by our Archaeological Section in one of its periodic revivals, but that discovery, made during the War, told us nothing definite, and the attitude of successive Bursars to the resulting hole has been pardonably lacking in cordiality. When some of the larger trees fall, as they are likely to do soon, we may learn more. In the meantime some digging in the Mound suggests that at least the dimensions of the Keep may be recovered, though there again successive alterations make it difficult to reach certain conclusions.

If some familiar, like Mr Bligh Bond’s Brother Johannes, would impart the information we stand in need of, the task of reconstructing the Castle – at least for the mind’s eye – might be simpler. But Marlborough, for all its Arthurian associations, has been less fortunate than Glastonbury. If the thing could be done, there are a number of men who might be invited to testify. Long contact with their activities, as heralded in Letters Patent, enjoined in Letters Close, acknowledged on the Liberate Rolls or recorded in various Ministers’ Accounts, has made them almost friends. Alexander Barentin, the King’s butler, might tell us much about the wine-cellars; William the balestier, who had charge of the King’s artillery, could explain a great deal that must for ever remain obscure in the domestic and military arrangements of the High Tower; and Simon Horn, sent down in 1222 to remodel the farm-management of the Barton, stayed long enough in these parts to see the greater part of the remodeling of the Castle as well. But if any man of the thirteenth century might be induced to revisit the glimpses of the moon, my choice would be a certain Keeper of the King’s wardrobe. It is true he went on to higher things, but he was here in those brave but anxious middle years of his century, and, if he could tell us little else, he might at least reveal something of the personality of a man who could rise to positions of dignity and honour though his name was – Peter Chacepork.

Writing in the late twelfth century, the chronicler William of Newburgh famously described England’s royal castles as forming ‘the bones of the kingdom’, reflecting their strategic and symbolic roles as the scaffold around which royal authority was constructed. If castles were the bones of Norman England, then Wessex was its heart. This chapter considers the structures, distribution and landscape contexts of castles in Wessex generally, and the region around Marlborough more specifically, in order to illuminate something of the wider pattern of castle-building in the eleventh and twelfth centuries within which Marlborough castle can most appropriately be understood. From the start, however, it is important to emphasise that, in terms of the historical and archaeological study of fortification, Wessex is a region far more closely associated with Anglo-Saxon defence, in the form of burhs (or fortified centres) like Cricklade, Oxford, Wallingford and Wareham, than Norman fortresses. We often think, talk and write about ‘Norman castles’ – like burhs – as if they were a single species of fortification when this is far from the truth. Just as modern archaeological scholarship is revealing the variety of burhs and other types of fortification that dotted the landscape of Anglo-Saxon Wessex, including private thegnly (or aristocratic) burhs, tower-naves and civil defence infrastructure such as beacons and military roads, then so too are we now much more aware of the greater number and variety of Norman castles than previously recognised, and also the myriad functions that these sites served beyond their military roles.

Frequently bracketed together and explained away as the means by which an incoming alien elite conquered and dominated a hostile population, the Norman castles of Wessex have been characterised by historians and archaeologists alike as essentially military features of the landscape. In the Archaeological Research Framework for South-West England, published in 2007, for example, castles are subsumed under the sub-heading ‘Defence and Warfare’, underlining our continuing obsession with viewing these sites through the lens of military history and architecture. This chapter takes a rather different approach and stresses that we should pay equal, if not greater, attention to the day-to-day roles of Norman castles as high-status residences and estate centres and to their symbolic importance as emblems of authority and lordship.

Chapter 5 introduces the reader to the remarkable world of the Neandertal, discussing some of the most controversial issues relating to this species of Homo: its emergence, lifeways and ultimate extinction. It introduces cutting-edge ideas about how the probable encounters between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans, also present in the same timeframe and territories, might have been.

Remains of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) have been reported from more than 200 localities in the mainland of Japan. The Pleistocene fossil records of Japanese macaques clearly indicates that they had become indigenous to the Japanese islands before the arrival of Japanese Paleolithic humans, but there is no direct evidence to show the relationship between Japanese macaques and humans in the Pleistocene. Japanese macaques were one of the targets for human diets in the early Holocene, based on the records of remains and bone artifacts from many Jomon shell mounds. The habitat distribution of Japanese macaques has not changed drastically through the Holocene, while morphological variation in dental size was observed in some local populations. Future studies will focus on clarifying if the size variation of Japanese macaques is due to natural phenomena or to human actions.

The present chapter provides a detailed review of the available material evidence concerning the representation of primates and their context in the Minoan civilization. More specifically, we analyzed the depictions of primates in two frescos from Knossos, Crete, and four frescos from Akrotiri, Thera/Santorini. Furthermore, we studied primate representations in portable objects from Crete. The material consisted of 2 figurines, 2 pendants, 2 pieces of jewelry, 12 seals with primatomorphic handles, and 17 seals/sealings with primatomorphic printing surfaces. In these pieces, we identified two kinds of monkeys, vervets (Chlorocebus spp.) and baboons (Papio spp.). Our analyses concur with previous reports and support the contentions that: (a) there was an extensive cultural exchange between Minoans and Egyptians, (b) Minoans were either first-hand observers of primates or were painters of detailed narratives, (c) some monkeys (vervets) are related to a leisure –yet naturalistic– context and some others (baboons –by then deified in Egypt) act as mediators in ritual contexts, (d) primates reach Minoan imageries in two time periods, and (e) the representation of primates among Minoans is an example of the earliest transmission of exotica into Europe.

Chapter 3 discusses bipedalism and stone toolmaking, considered the two first major milestones in the so-called "hominization process." The hominin record is succinctly explained with an overview of the contexts in which the first bipedal ancestors developed in Africa with a discussion of how and why first technologies might have emerged.

Chapter 1 introduces some of the basic notions of human prehistory, defining evolutionary theory, culture and the historical aspects of archeological consciousness. The chapter explains the Quaternary Period as the setting for the evolution of the genus Homo, ending with the Anthropocene, which is the first geological period to be defined on the basis of humanly induced modifications to the Earth’s ecosystems, affecting climate and geological strata.

Chapter 10 allows for reflection on the present condition of humanity from an evolutionary perspective. This unique, long-term viewpoint clearly shows how the invention and evolution of technology and its related, falsely created land-linked cultural affinities have finally led the human species to an angst-ridden condition of alienation from Nature.