A recent article (Lawler, 1980) mentioned a common misunderstanding in archaeological circles which this note attempts to correct: ‘The (Runnymede) piles selected will be subjected to destructive testing (i.e. dendrochronology) to gain information concerning growth patterns, habitat and tree-felling patterns…’ In fact, dendrochronology is not a destructive dating method in the sense of radiocarbon analysis, where the wood sample is burnt up and completely lost. Instead, the section removed for tree-ring analysis remains undamaged and can easily be restored to the beam or pile for conservation without any detriment to the timber's display potential.

In 1967 the regional museum for prehistory at Halle (Saale) began an excavation in the field known as the Schalkenburg, near Quenstedt, which lies in Hettstedt district, on the eastern edge of the Harz mountains, about 50 km north-west of Halle, in the south-west of the German Democratic Republic (PL. xxva). The excavations were carried out annually in the months of July and August (Behrens & Schröter 1980), and their aim was to investigate a settlement of the neolithic Bernburg culture.

Radiocarbon dating is probably the greatest contribution that has been made to archaeology by the physical sciences, and we owe its existence to the genius of Willard Frank Libby, who died in Los Angeles at the age of 71 years on 8 September 1980. His death is a loss both to archaeology and, because of the breadth of his scientific interests and achievements, to science at large.

The small, golden pendant from the Minoan settlement of Mallia on the island of Crete (PL. 1) is one of the best known pieces of jewellery from Minoan, if not all, prehistoric times. First published in 1930 (Demargne, 1930), it was unearthed in the Chrysolakkos cemetery area of the palace at Mallia. Although dating is difficult, the piece is usually assigned a date in Middle Minoan times, generally to MM I, between roughly 2000 and 1700 BC (Demargne, 1930, 419; Evans, 1935, 75–6; Higgins, 1967, 47, 199).

The roots of Celtic civilization can be seen to lie in the hill strongholds of late Hallstatt period in Eastern France, Switzerland and Southern Germany, distinguished by their Mediterranean contacts: these have been classed as the residences of chieftains, Fürstensitze, by Kimmig (1968). Three of these Fürstensitze have particularly attracted archaeological attention in the last 30 years, in Southern Germany, the Heuneburg on the Upper Danube (Kimmig, 1968; Kimmig/Gersbach, 1971), and the Hohenasperg near Ludwigsburg (Zürn, 1970), and in Burgundy Mt Lassois near Châtillonsur-Seine (Joffroy, 1960). The excavation of the Heuneburg was mainly confined to the settlement site itself, whereas we know the Hohenasperg only from the graves surrounding the site. The excavation of the Grafenbühl tumulus by Hartwig Zürn in 1964/65 (Zürn, 1970) has shown, however, that the importance of the Hohenasperg must have been at least equal to that of the Heuneburg.

There has always been an enigma over the precise date during the Troy excavations of 1873 when Schliemann found the collection of metalwork which he dignified as ‘Priam's Treasure’ . His only published indication of the date appears to be his statement in 1884 that the discovery was made ‘at the end of May 1873’ (Schliemann 1884, 57). Biographers, even those who have studied Schliemann' s unpublished diaries and letters, have proposed a variety of dates, Ludwig places it ‘on a morning in the middle of June, one day before the termination of the work’ , in other words on the 14th June (Ludwig, 1931, 179). Payne prefers 30th May, ‘or a few days earlier’ (Payne, 1958, 116). Stone seems to settle for Saturday 31st May (Stone, 1976, 318f). Poole and Deuel place the discovery simply in late May or early June (Poole, 1967, 133; Deuel, 1978, 194). Brackman suggests 17th June or several days earlier, but suspends judgement on the matter (Brackman, 1974, 157). Ernst Meyer, who, because of his extensive work on the Schliemann papers in the late 1930s, has some claim to be regarded as the definitive biographer, at first gave the date as lying between 7th and 10th June (Meyer, 1953, I, 342, n. 335). Later, however, he narrowed this to 7th June on the authority of an otherwise unpublished entry in Schliemann's diary (Meyer, 1969, 273). Thus there is not only disagreement in the secondary sources, but in Schliemann's own writings; for this date, which is indeed explicitly named in the diary, conflicts with Schliemann's published statement referring to ‘the end of May 1873’.

Pontnewydd Cave lies in the Elwy Valley, near the western edge of the Vale of Clywd (FIG. 1), six km north-west of the modern town of Denbigh. The site first became well-known through the successive investigations of the nineteenth-century geologists Professors William Boyd Dawkins and T. H. McKenny Hughes, the latter working with the Reverend D. R. Thomas, then Vicar of Cefn. Boyd Dawkins' s excavations at the site (1874, 286–7; 1880, 192) yielded a fauna which included hippopotamus, but no artifacts were observed. The work of Hughes & Thomas (1874; Hughes, 1887) seems to have been confined principally to scouring Boyd Dawkins' s dumps, and yielded not only fauna but also evidence of the presence of man in the form both of artifacts and of a human molar tooth, since lost. This molar has long excited interest on account of its description by Busk (in Hughes & Thomas, 1874, 390) as being ‘of very large size’ and looking ‘quite as ancient as the rest [of the fauna]’. One of the many research aims of the current investigation was, therefore, to examine the possibility that the cave was a site where human remains might be found in association with an archaeological industry.

The stirrup helped a more heavily armoured rider to mount a bigger horse; it is considered to have permitted the shock encounter with couched lance and, by offering lateral support, to have encouraged the development of the sabre; it provided a top-heavy armoured warrior with more stability in the saddle, and it gave archers the possibility to rise and turn in the saddle, as well as furnishing them with a firmer base from which to shoot.

It is initially flattering to receive an invitation to be retrospective in ANTIQUITY. The moment of truth comes soon, however, as thought about writing begins. Was the growth of one's career and ideas about archaeology so smoothly flowing and well reasoned as casual and doubtless fatuous fancy first recalls? How fairly have earlier attempts at retrospection (and I've attempted several: 1972a, 1972b, 1974) corresponded to reality, and what, if anything, remains to be said? What follows, therefore, is offered most diffidently. My old teacher, Henri Frankfort, claimed the most important element in the formation of a career was good luck: I have certainly had my share of it.

My original title deliberately contained several layers of ambiguity. First, my paper is official and ‘on the record’. Secondly, it refers incidentally to RCHM'S ‘track record’ and makes a few observations about the Commission's achievements and failures. Thirdly, and most importantly, it discusses the nature and future of that part of the national record of England's cultural heritage for which the Commission has the prime responsibility. That responsibility, implicit in the original 1908 Royal Warrant, and made explicit in its revised Warrant of 1963, involves the acquisition, storage and dissemination of information about the country's historic monuments and constructions in the widest sense of the phrase. The development of such a national record was envisaged by those who, in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, agitated for the setting up of a Commission-type body. The record was to be the basis on which such a body could carry out its most pressing function, that is to assess the nation's monumental heritage in order to advise on what is worthy of preservation. A whole history could be written on how and why things turned out differently, but what I want to do here is to adumbrate the new framework for the changing emphases in the role of the Commission in the later twentieth century.

The Naveta of Els Tudons (Boat of the Wood-pigeons) is the name of a prehistoric tomb whose shape resembles an upturned boat, situated on the estate of Els Tudons about 4 km east of Ciudadela. On one of the walls of Mahon Airport is shown a greatly enlarged reproduction of the engraving of it from Die Balearen in Wort und Bild (II, 1897, 419) by the Archduke Louis Salvator. This monument, and a Taula, are indeed the symbols of Menorca's past and have to some extent been recently adopted as emblems for Menorcan tourism.

The historicity of the two Indian epics, viz., the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyana, has been the subject of heated debate ever since these epics attracted the attention of scholars, both in India and abroad. Thus, while there are some who hold that every event mentioned in these epics is historically true, there are others who regard them as mere figments of the imagination. Apart from the possibility that ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘reactionary attitude’ may respectively be partly responsible for such extremely divergent views, the confusion seems to arise from the fact that these epics are neither contemporary documentation of the episodes concerned nor have their texts remained immune from large-scale interpolations.

In 1966 David Clarke gave a series of lectures in the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge entitled Archaeological Taxonomy. These served as the basis for the preparation of a much expanded and more comprehensive treatise which was published in 1968 as the first edition of Analytical archaeology. This work was a substantial tome with the ambitious intention of providing a first approximation of an overall theoretical framework for the archaeological study of material culture.