A search for early antiquarian records of Irish finds has revealed much fresh information in the Minute-books and other archives of this Society, giving excellent records of hitherto unpublished material, and adding new information on already known objects. The material discussed was found mainly in the half-century from 1720 to 1770. Prominent Irish antiquaries and antiquarian societies of the period are mentioned, and a discussion of their views on this material is included.

Two spectacular gold objects, a fibula with wreathed bow found in Co. Galway, and a Melfort-type armlet found in a burial-cist at Whitfield, near Waterford city, are illustrated, and the valuable associative and contextual evidence from the Society's archives is cited and discussed. Drawings and descriptions of several other objects, mainly of gold and bronze, are also given.

The active investigation of this rather neglected avenue of discovery has yielded good results, and is a potentially valuable source of new archaeological material and information.

In past years I have found that much of what I had to say about the Society overlapped with matters to which the Treasurer or the Secretary wished to refer in their reports. There are, however, this year a number of general matters which it will be useful for your President to mention. Before embarking on them there is one sad occurrence to which reference should be made. At the end of the Anniversary Meeting last year the Society's Gold Medal was presented to Professor Dorothy Garrod and those who were at the meeting will remember her charmingly elegant speech. It was very sad that she died so soon after. She was a great scholar and it did honour to the Society that she should receive so gracefully its recognition.

The Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon site at Upton near Northampton was excavated by Mr. Jackson on behalf of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, July—December 1965. In addition to Iron Age pits and ditches the principal discovery was that of a timber Saxon building which is remarkable for its combination of the structural features of a Grubenhaus with the dimensions and plan of a small timber hall. The building contained more than sixty loom-weights, and is interpreted as a weaving shed rather than a domestic occupation site. It was destroyed by fire, and charred timbers have revealed the position of internal fixed wooden furniture. From pottery and small finds it is suggested that the site was occupied in the late sixth to early seventh centuries A.D.

The paper pleads for an end to persistent misuse of the traditional ‘Three Age’ terminology which still governs the Irish British Bronze Age, and for acceptance of work of the past decade which has either been ignored or misunderstood. Uniform terms of reference are needed, fitted to the new attitudes. Hawkes's Scheme of 1960 provides a framework for this, and is summarized. The Early, Middle, and Late divisions now have a techno-typological, rather than cultural, basis.

Traditional cultural and ceramic concepts, based on typology, have resisted changes demanded by a new emphasis on the evidence of associated finds. The various Urn forms and the Deverel—Rimbury complex are particularly relevant here. Associations of Urns, and the few available C14 dates, are examined to demonstrate their existence in the Early Bronze Age, but, because of a remarkable ritual break at c. 1400, not in the Middle Bronze Age, let alone the Late Bronze Age. Similarly, Deverel—Rimbury is now Middle Bronze Age, not Late Bronze Age, its position after c. 1000 uncertain. Since much in our Iron Age is now thought indigenous, already apparent in Deverel—Rimbury, an awkward Late Bronze Age gap is opened up, apparently devoid of settlements and pottery. But much nominally Iron Age material may prove to be Late Bronze Age. There is a need for many more C14 dates to clarify these problems.

Continued excavations at South Cadbury in July-August 1968 discovered Early Neolithic pottery and flints beneath the Iron Age ramparts and thereby hinted at a 20-acre embanked settlement. Four or five structural phases were revealed in the Iron Age ramparts themselves, the first a timber-revetted bank, the second a stone-faced wall, and the later ones more indeterminate. Within the defences storage-pits, circular houses, and a possible shrine were explored. Wall-trenches for a prefabricated rectangular building may mark a brief Roman military occupation, and the trench for one wall of a probable fifth—sixth century A.D. building was also discovered. Examination of the later phases of the south-west gate showed that a well-built Æthelredan entrance had been savagely slighted, probably under Cnut, and had then been overlaid by a crude drystone gate. Finally, on the summit was found a rock-cut foundation trench of the twelfth or thirteenth century, apparently for a projected castle.

Excavations in 1967–8 took place on the defences, the military rampart at Watermoor, and a number of sites within the town of Corinium. The defences on the north-west were found in the station yard and in a garden 400 feet further south. Two thicknesses of wall were noted, but no evidence survived to prove whether there had been a pre-wall rampart or not. During the restoration of the north-east defences another bastion was found only 78 feet from the site of bastion 3. Sites examined within the town were in Insulae I, II, VII, XIV, XXVI, and XXX. In the latter, another section of the possible theatre wall was found, whilst in XIV a house with four mosaics was excavated. The significance of the mosaics is fully discussed.

A petrological study of the rock inclusions present in Early Iron Age Glastonbury ware suggests that the raw materials for pottery making were not usually obtained on or near the find-sites, but from specific localities throughout south-western England. Since each of the petrological groups has its own range of typological traits there is reason to believe that the completed pots, rather than the materials, were transported, suggesting the activity of specialist potters working from production centres. The relevance of the new evidence to the origin of the decorative styles and the cultural interpretation of the pottery is briefly discussed.

The first-fruits of the programme of research organised under the auspices of the Dolaucothi Research Committee are presented here in a survey of the surviving surface remains from the Roman gold mine in South Wales. The mine-workings are comprehensively describedfor the first time with particular reference to the complex aqueduct system that still survives relatively intact above the main workings. In addition to the aqueduct derived from the River Cothi, a second has been tracedfrom the headwaters of the River Annell. The inter-relation of the aqueducts and their derivatives offers, it is suggested, a way to chart the over-all development of the mines. The stage is now setfor a programme of underground survey in the mine area proper and excavation on a large scale in the associated settlement nearby.

The area-excavation towards the centre of the fort has shown that well-defined traces of occupation exist, ranging from the Roman period to the early nineteenth century. The nature of the Roman occupation, though still uncertain in many aspects, is becoming much clearer and can now be divided into phases tentatively linked to a broad historical framework. Early in the fifth century settlement of Germanic type appeared, with which was associated a gilded bronze disc of apparently sub-Roman form. Then followed more regular Saxon occupation, beginning in the late fifth or early sixth century and probably continuing to the eighth or ninth century. The late Saxon period provides a very detailed picture of a hall with its ancillary buildings, land boundaries, and rubbish-tipping area, all of considerable potential significance on more than a local scale. The later periods are more sporadically represented, but interesting correlations can be made between the archaeological evidence and contemporary documentary and graphic accounts.

To understand the internal landscape of the fort more clearly it is evident that much more of the central area will have to be fully excavated and this will occupy most of the effort throughout the next five seasons' work. At the same time it is planned to continue with the investigations of the Priory and the Castle, and to devote some time to the outstanding problem of the defences.

This article contains a report of excavations conducted in 196J and ig68 at the ruined church (or chapel) of Stone-by-Faversham, Kent. They were designed to establish whether or not the central part of the building (subsequently the western part of a medieval chancel) was an original Roman structure. The evidence, derived from the type of construction, an opus signinum floor, from the coins, burials, and pottery found in association with the building, all indicate that in origin it was either a mausoleum, or possibly a martyrium, probably datingfrom thefourth century A.D.

A Roman structure subsequently incorporated into a Christian church is unique in this country. The question as to when and how this transformation occurred is discussed in the context ofthepossible survival of Christianity in Sub-Roman Kent, and of St. Augustine's mission. Further excavation revealed foundations of a pre-Conquest wooden nave, and throws fresh light on the methods used by the Anglo-Saxons in building wooden churches.

Intensive recent field-work in the Upper Nene valley has located many new kiln sites. Twenty, in an area about eight miles by six, are surveyed in this paper, and their products studied and illustrated; distribution of the products is shown, provisionally, to be purely local. A group of kilns excavated in 1962 at Ecton is reported on in full. Four updraught kilns of varying forms fired the work of at least two potters in the second and third centuries A.D. ; this included flagons and mortaria. The industry locally dates from the mid first century A.D. and flourished into the second; a recession in the third century was apparently followed by complete breakdown in the fourth. This perhaps reflects competition from potteries of the Lower Nene around Castor, as occupation of domestic sites continued unabated.

Roman, Saxon, and medieval levels were examined in 1968. At Castle Yard the north end of the Norman andlater castle was uncovered. At Lankhills fifty fourth-century graves were excavated. In Lower Brook Street open-area excavation was continued into mid thirteenth-century levels on four house-plots and on St. Mary's Church, where twelve phases can now be recognized between c. 1250 and c. 1470. St. Pancras Church was located. On the Cathedral site no Belgic occupation was found. A late second- to early third-century addition to the forum was excavated, and much of its painted wall-plaster recovered. The structure was abandoned c. A.D. 300. A laterally apsed tenth-century crossing was found in the Old Minster linking two earlier buildings. After his translation in gjl from outside the church, St. Swithun's shrine appears to have stood within this link-building. At Wolvesey Roman buildings were excavated, and additions were made to the plan of the Norman palace. A second halljchamber-block of c. 1129–35 has been planned. In an appendix D. M. Wilson considers an important decorated bronze strap-end of c. A.D. 1000 found on the Old Minster site.

Circular soil marks were shown by excavation to mark the line of the ditches of two ploughed-out barrows one of Early Bronze Age Wessex II date, the other Saxon. The grave of the Bronze Age barrow contained a cremation with a pair of bone tweezers. The ditch of the Saxon barrow was interrupted by a causeway and evidence is adduced for an external bank and a small internal mound similar to that of prehistoric disc barrows. The grave was very large and contained the skeleton of a male individual equipped with a hanging bowl containing onions and crab-apples, seax, a shield with sugar-loaf boss, two spears, a buckle, and a bone comb. The burial is of seventh-century date and the seax is of special significance because of the elaborate nature of its scabbard fittings.

Two skeletons recently discovered at Sonning, Berks., were found with a sword, pin, knife, and arrowheads. The burial is considered in connection with other Viking burials known from the south of England at Santon Downham, Norfolk, Walthamstow, Essex, Reading, Berks., and Saffron Walden, Essex.

This house is shown, from both structural and documentary evidence, to have been built c. 1345 by William Hillary, a rector with Staffordshire connections. Of his work enough remains to show that it was of aisled design, with an open service bay at the lower end; the two-bay hall had a base-cruck truss. The surviving woodwork is of very high quality. The two-storey cross wing, later than the hall and originally timber-framed, is cased in brick, and this brickwork is ascribed, on both docu mentary and archaeological evidence, to yohn Croxby, rector 1460–92 and namesake of the first clerk of works of Tattershall Castle.

The later alterations to the house are worked out from structural and documentary evidence (terriers, probate inventories); later rectors, including two minor Georgian poets, are described. The paper is illustrated by plans, sections, reconstructions and photographs. It concludes with a distribution map of base-cruck halls and comments on the social context of this type of construction. Dr. Rogers has contributed the historical evidence in this paper; the other authors are responsible for the account of the structure.

The bronze horse figurine found at Birkwood, Lanarkshire, Scotland, is described, and found to compare closely with horse figurines from Hallstatt, Upper Austria. These in turn relate to figurines decorating bronze vessels in Etruria, and in Greece, especially at Olympia in late Geometric contexts. Considerations bearing on horse-trading along the Adriatic, and the dissemination of ideas about racing trophies, are discussed. The occurrence of Hallstatt exotics in Scotland is summarized, but it cannot be established that the Birkwood figurine was an ancient import as it was a stray find.

The designs of the early sixteenth-century series of five tapestries on the story of Dido and Aeneas at Hampton Court Palace {Collection of H.M. the Queen) were tentatively ascribed by A. E. Popham in 1926, and following him by K. T. Parker, to ‘Aert Ortkens’. But the drawings attributed to Ortkens by successive writers since Friedländer (1921) can now be shown to represent the production of the Malines school of designers for glass and tapestry during the first third of the sixteenth century, and to include a number of early sketches by Bernard van Orley. The article suggests how the design of the second tapestry of the Dido and Aeneas seriesfitsinto van Orley's œuvre, and refers the others to minor masters of the Malines—Brussels circle round van Orley and the brothers Adrian and Peter van den Houte of Malines.