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experiences and results from the major systematicsurveys on the island, notably the Sydney CyprusSurvey Project (SCSP), as well as previous seasons ofthe EENC project, our investigations were targetedtowards hill slopes in the immediate boundary zoneof the volcanic pillow lavas and the chert-containingchalk limestones of the Mesaoria plain. With thehelp of a Geographic Information System (GIS), weincluded proximity to water sources, specificelevations, slope aspect, geological setting andvisibility of prominent landmarks as factors in abasic predictive model for site location. After somesuccess in identifying sites in this manner in theeastern part of the survey area, between the village ofAlambra and Analiondas, where the highest qualitycherts can be found, our focus during the 2008season was the western zone, particularly betweenPolitiko and Agrokipia. Here, the small chalkpatches are markedly younger and less likely toproduce cherts, and the slopes get steeper moreabruptly, producing a very distinct landscape fromthe rolling hills of the east. Yet both SCSP and EENChave identified aceramic sites in this area whichcould tentatively represent a pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer presence.

In the course of our work last year, our small surveyteam identified four raw material sources in thisarea, three of which contained medium to goodquality cherts and another one high quality jaspers,a material which outcrops in pillow lavas and wasused as an alternative to cherts by the region’sprehistoric occupants. In addition, we recorded alithic scatter near the village of Aredhiou, namedKallikas, that showed technological similarities tothe assemblages of potentially pre-NeolithicAgrokipia Palaeokamina and Kottaphi, and anumber of smaller lithic findspots associated withthe raw material sources. These finds indicate thatthis more mountainous region was equally ofinterest to the earliest occupants of the island, albeitmaybe not for the same reasons - i.e. raw materialextraction and tool manufacture - as the eastern

chert hills. Finds in the eastern part of the surveyarea, which have been under intensive systematicand targeted investigation since 2005, suggest that arefined predictive model that takes factors commonto known sites into account can identify further sitesand raw material sources and allow a very targetedapproach. Thus, we have identified six further chertsources as well as a chert quarry site at MathiatiAspromoutti, in addition to many lithic findspotsclosely associated with these, between the villages ofMathiati and Analiondas.

Further GIS work combined with both systematicand targeted fieldwalking will allow us eventually tocover the entire landscape. As one of our interestswas to connect the well-known east to the lesserknown west, this fieldwork was highly successful infinding routes and landmarks that might have servedas travelling aides to the earliest colonisers of theisland. Landscape Learning, the method offamiliarising oneself with an unknown landscape byutilising and internalising it, is thus a process we asmodern archaeologists are repeating some 12,000years after the first hunter-gatherers came to Cyprus.

AcknowledgementsI would like to thank the Prehistoric Society, theCouncil for British Research in the Levant, and theG. A. Wainwright Fund for Near EasternArchaeology for their generous grants to undertakethis fieldwork. Thanks also go to the directors of theEENC project for allowing access to and use of theirdata, and for their general support.

Sandra Rosendahl, Council for British Research inthe Levant, email sandra.rosendahl@gmail.com

61

Surveying the fields around the quarry siteof Mathiati Aspromoutti.

Experimenting with raw materials: ochre was a favoured dye andoccurs naturally in close proximity to Ayia Varvara Asprokremnos

and a number of lithic scatter sites.

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TTHHEE AARRDDNNAAMMUURRCCHHAANNTTRRAANNSSIITTIIOONNSS PPRROOJJEECCTT,,WWEESSTTEERRNN SSCCOOTTLLAANNDD

The Ardnamurchan Transitions Project (henceforththe ATP) is undertaking a 5-year investigation of theArdnamurchan Peninsula on the west coast ofScotland co-directed by the authors. Since our lastreport in PAST 54 two further seasons of excavationhave taken place, concentrating on the chamberedcairn of Cladh Aindreis (NM 5470 7076). Thismonument, one of three known in Ardnamurchan, issituated in the picturesque surroundings of SwordleValley on the north coast of the peninsula.Excavations, designed to investigate the history ofthe monument, have been ongoing since 2006 andhave discovered extensive details of its development.In 2007 we discovered a prehistoric ditch in front ofthe monument, and further investigations in 2008revealed this to be a two phase feature. Initially aditch, about 1m deep and 1.5m wide, was dug. Thisprobably took place in the Early Neolithic, as adiagnostic scraper was discovered in the main bodyof the fill of this ditch. Then, after the ditch had filledup, most likely having been backfilled, a secondscoop-like feature was cut into the fill of the ditch.Pottery discovered in the primary fill of this laterfeature has been provisionally dated to the midfourth millennium BC. As we note below, thematerial taken from the digging of this feature mayhave been used to block off access to the front of thecairn, although we await further analysis of soildeposits before we can confirm this.

A key area for investigation, particularly after acareful topographic survey of the cairn, was thedevelopment of the monument itself. In order tofollow this up we excavated both at the front of thecairn and in the middle, where robbing appeared tohave taken place. The excavation at the front of thecairn revealed that the monument was much smallerthan both our own surface analysis and the work ofAudrey Henshall (who surveyed the site in the late1950s as part of her extraordinary career) suggested.The front of the cairn may well have been muchcloser to the main chamber than we had previouslyanticipated, and access appears to have been blockedoff by the deposition of large amounts of a gravel-rich soil. It is this material that may have beenproduced through digging of the scoop in front ofthe monument. Further excavations are planned forthe front of the cairn in 2009 which will allow us toresolve questions about the original size and shape ofthe monument.

NUMBER 61 April 2009

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE PREHISTORIC SOCIETY Registered Office University College London, Institute of Archaeology, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY

http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/

The copy date for PAST 62 is 1 June 2009. Contributions to Joanna Brück, School of Archaeology, Newman Building,University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. Email: joanna.bruck@ucd.ie Contributions on disc or as e-mail

attachments are preferred (either word 6 or rtf files) but hardcopy is also accepted. Illustrations can be sent asdrawings, slides, prints, tif or jpeg files. The book reviews editor is Dr Mike Allen, Wessex Archaeology, Portway

House, Old Sarum Park, Salisbury, Wilts, SP4 6EB. Email: aea.escargots@gmail.com Queries over subscriptions andmembership should go to the Society administrator Tessa Machling at the London address above.

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Swordle Bay from the south east (Cladh Aindreis is indicated by the arrow) (photograph: Dan Addison)

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Careful excavation in the middle of the cairnrevealed further information about the developmentof the monument. Not only had robbing taken place,as we had suspected, but we were able todemonstrate that the end of the monument - its ‘tail’- was constructed on a soil that had built up againstthe back of the monument. This suggests that thecurrent trapezoidal shape was the result of at leasttwo phases of construction, the monument havingbegun life as a smaller, possibly round, cairn, onlyhaving had the tail added at a later date. We have notyet been able to determine how long this intervalmay have been, though it was clearly long enoughfor material to have built up against the monument.It is hoped that material recovered in post-excavation may allow us to date the development ofthe monument more exactly.

Four trenches were also opened up in 2008 lookingfor the route of the ditch first uncovered in 2007 andalso to investigate an area of material protrudingfrom the cairn to the northeast and included byHenshall in her plan of the monument. On thesurface this appeared to be separate from the originalmonument, and we hypothesised it may have been alater addition of some form. Initial investigationssuggest that this is indeed the case, and the trenchopened on part of the monument revealed whatappeared to be a cobbled surface and a possibleentrance to a structure. Further excavations plannedfor 2009 will open a bigger trench to attempt to

ascertain the size and scale of the structure and ifpossible to recover some dating evidence. The threeother trenches revealed the ditch in two of them butnot in the third. Geophysical analysis and furtherexcavations will help us to resolve the path of thisfeature in 2009.

In addition to the excavations at the chamberedtomb we have begun an extensive process oflandscape survey within Swordle Bay. This hasrevealed a small flint scatter, 6 probable clearancecairns, two lime kilns and surviving evidence foroccupation prior to the clearances that took placehere in 1853. ATP will continue to examine thesearchaeological remains as part of a broaderassessment of the archaeological potential ofSwordle Valley and Ardnamurchan as a whole. One

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Bailing the half-sectioned ditch, with the front of the tomb to the left of the image (photograph: Dan Addison)

The location of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, the ATP study area and Cladh Aindreis

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of the clearance settlements will be excavated in2009 and 2010 along with an extensive test pittingprogramme throughout the valley, and theconclusion of our excavations at Cladh Aindreis.Our aim for these investigations is to develop adetailed understanding of landscape andenvironmental change in order to engage withparticular moments of social transformation and thelong-term histories of this part of Scotland.

Throughout our fieldwork we have also beendeveloping links with the local community throughopen days, talks, working with school children andhaving local volunteers working on site. We hope tocontinue in this vein for the 2009-2010 seasons withthe introduction of adult-learning courses, thesetting up and training of local volunteer task-groupsto monitor and record archaeology in the area aswell as documenting oral histories and investigatingarchival material. ATP also aims to provide teacherpacks and resources for local schools, and a morepermanent exhibition and interpretation of ourinvestigations so far.

Oliver Harris (University of Cambridge), HélénaGray (CFA Archaeology Ltd.), Phil Richardson(University of Newcastle), Hannah Cobb (Universityof Manchester)Contact: ardnamurchantransitionsproject@gmail.com

PPUULLLLYYHHOOUURR -- AA SSIIGGNNPPOOSSTTTTOO TTHHEE PPAASSTT

In the north of Scotland there are a number ofearthwork monuments that have been described as‘henges’ or ‘hengiforms’. They have several featuresin common. All are small circular enclosures with anexternal bank, a wide internal ditch and asurprisingly restricted interior, but it is far fromobvious whether they are more closely related to theceremonial monuments of the Neolithic and EarlyBronze Age, or to Irish ring barrows which resemblethem in surface appearance. None of the Scottishsites have been investigated and published, and thefirst research excavation did not happen until Easterlast year, with the investigation of a well preservedearthwork at Pullyhour in Caithness.

The site was located on the side of a valleyoverlooking the Thurso River, in a place withevidence of Mesolithic activity. There had also beenstanding stones and a cist burial in the vicinity. Theearthwork had a single entrance and a well preservedexternal bank. It was exactly aligned on the remainsof a large cairn on the opposite bank of the river. In

Caithness, monuments of this size normally datefrom the Neolithic; the closest comparison is with apassage tomb beside Loch Calder. The enclosurefaced south and was also directed towards the fullmoon at midsummer as it rises above the farhorizon.

Excavation demonstrated that the earthwork wasbuilt in two phases. The first was a circular enclosurewith a broad internal ditch which must have heldwater. It had been built in open country which wasnot used for farming. A date from the old landsurface shows that it has a terminus post quem of1620-1450 BC. In its second phase the enclosurewas converted to an oval ground plan by wideningthe ditch on the inside. A small horseshoe-shapedbank was constructed on its inner lip, and the areainside it was cobbled. At the same time the outerbank was enlarged and its inner edge was probablyrevetted by a rubble wall. This phase is datedbetween 1320-1120 BC. A small post was erected inthe centre of the enclosure.

The entrance was extremely narrow and was flankedby a stone kerb. Just outside it was a pair of posts,one much larger than the other. The base of theprincipal upright still survived. To our surprise it wasa substantial piece of pine, a species which becameextinct in Caithness at the end of the Neolithicperiod. This is confirmed by a date of 2580-2340

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Pullyhour before excavation

Pullyhour after excavation

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BC. Since its socket had been cut through thesecondary bank, it could not have been erectedbefore the Middle or Late Bronze Age. Not only hadthe builders aligned the enclosure on an ancientmonument, they raised a massive post which musthave been dug out of a bog. Its actual age could nothave been known, but they would certainly havebeen aware that it was a relic of some antiquity. Theonly artefacts associated with the Bronze Agestructure were two flint flakes.

Finally, the monument was decommissioned. Therubble supporting the bank was pushed into theditch and the entrance was blocked by a small cairn. The pine post was uprooted and the stones that hadheld it in place were smashed to pieces and used tocover its socket. While Pullyhour was in use, thewooden upright had acted as a signpost to the past.Now all trace of it was removed and the site wasabandoned.

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Plan of the earthwork and the excavated area

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AcknowledgementsFirst, we must thank George McDonald for permissionto excavate at Pullyhour. We also wish to thank thefollowing people who worked on the site, often indreadful weather: Elise Fraser, Paul Humphreys,Emma Sanderson, Ronnie Scott, and members of theCaithness Archaeological Trust and the North ofScotland Archaeological Society. Alex Brown analysedthe pollen samples, Douglas Scott advised on theorientation of the site, and Alison Sheridan kindlyarranged for the waterlogged post to be dated.

Richard Bradley and Hugo Lamdin-Whymark

TTHHEE NNEEOOLLIITTHHIICC OOFF TTHHEE TTHHAAMMEESS VVAALLLLEEYY::EEXXPPLLOORRIINNGG RREEGGIIOONNAALLDDIIVVEERRSSIITTYY

Saturday 7th March 2009This one-day conference was held at the Society ofAntiquaries and was organised by Jane Sidell andAlistair Barclay for the Prehistoric Society. Itcomprised a series of ten papers, all discussing variousaspects of the Neolithic in the Thames Valley, andcombined a refreshing mix of new research themesand archaeology that has recently been discoveredduring developer-funded fieldwork. One themeconsidered in several of the papers was thearchaeological contrast between the north and southsides of the River Thames and the remarkablediversity evident in the Neolithic of the Thames Valley.

After introductions by Alistair Barclay and JaneSidell, Nigel Brown began the proceedings andexamined the excellent environmental data availablefrom estuarine sites and the submerged forests of theThames. He proposed that the Thames linked up awide zone of interaction during the Neolithic, andpromoted wide-ranging links across the eastern andwestern parts of Britain with France, theNetherlands and Belgium.

Jane Sidell talked about the gap in our understandingof the Neolithic that still exists on the north side ofthe Thames although a number of new and excitingdiscoveries are helping to fill this, including humanremains. She suggested that central London can nolonger be considered a backwater during this time.

Jon Cotton provided a whistle-stop tour of theNeolithic in Greater London and provided a reallyuseful and informative summary of recentdiscoveries of Peterborough, Grooved Ware, Beakerand Collared Urn features and sites. Jon stated thatgenerally Neolithic sites only survive on the gravelterraces or under alluvium or colluvium. It is onlyrecently that evidence of Grooved Ware has beenfound in London, almost completely focused in westLondon. There is frequently a juxtapositioning ofGrooved Ware pits with earlier monuments, and thepits vary markedly in depositional practices andfinds assemblages. Beaker pits tend to show adifferent distribution pattern, shifting away from theearlier monumental Peterborough or Grooved Warelandscapes, and concentrating around the Thamesand its tributaries.

Paul Garwood looked at the significance of Beakerburials and the social construction of the dead inrelation to the idealised categories of the dead and theliving in the Thames Valley. He introduced the ideathat most Beaker burials in the Upper Thames Valleyare adult males and tend to follow consistent patterns(orientation, grave goods, etc.) in burial ritual. Femaleand child Beaker burials are much rarer and more

Outline plans showing the structural sequence at Pullyhour

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random with regards to burial positions. Hesuggested that Beaker burial ritual was associatedwith creating individual identities and biographies.Garwood identified that, on the exceptional occasionsthat child burial occurs, the child or children almostinvariably accompany an adult in satellite positionsthat seem to reference the older person. Garwoodperhaps controversially implied that this might meanthe child acted like a grave good, or at least servedsome specific, symbolic practice.

With regards to the new archaeological discoveries,these included recent excavations by WessexArchaeology at Kingsmead Quarry Horton, fourkilometres west of Heathrow, where an EarlyNeolithic rectangular plank and post-built housewas uncovered in 2008. Paul McCulloch and AlistairBarclay discussed the significance of this discovery.

Roy Loveday revisited previously investigated cursusmonuments in the Thames Valley. He compared andcontrasted the various cursus monuments in thisregion (long versus short; straight versus irregularditches), and the geographical peculiarities of thesetypes of monuments that tend to focus around riverconfluences. Some cursuses have short use-spans,whereas others (e.g. Dorchester-on-Thames)demonstrate almost a millennium of continued useand respect. Roy argued that we need to understandcursus monuments within overaching themes ofshared orientation (NW-SE or NE-SW) possiblyreflecting solar alignments, and that this type ofritual architecture carries a message, albeit withregional dialects.

This paper was followed by the recent discoveries atHeathrow Airport, excavated by FrameworkArchaeology in advance of the construction ofTerminal 5. John Lewis presented the preliminaryresults from excavations of the Neolithic landscapehere, including undoubtedly the most fully excavatedcursus monument in Britain (a large proportion ofthe 3.6km long Stanwell Cursus) and proposed thatcursus monuments may have articulated, or madephysically different, two separate worlds (in the caseof Stanwell the world of the flood-plain and that ofthe gravel terrace).

Steve Ford of Thames Valley Archaeological Servicesintroduced the discovery of a major new hengemonument in the University Parks in Oxford in 2008.Although only part of this monument was revealed,two radiocarbon dates from the base of the ditchsuggest a late third millennium cal. BC date. A numberof antler picks were placed along the base of the ditch.

Gill Hey brought many of the earlier themesdiscussed together through an overview of Neolithicmonument variability in the Thames Valley. Theseincluded small versus large monuments, rectangularversus round monuments, and the fact that tree-clearance (particularly in advance of cursusconstruction) must have been more of a physicaleffort than that of actually creating the monuments

themselves. She contemplated the different ways inwhich people were buried in the Neolithic andargued that this diversity suggests that humanremains were used or functioned in different ways,just like the monuments. There was a great deal offood for thought in this paper with a final overviewof how monuments changed throughout theNeolithic from being communal, permeable andaccessible in the earlier Neolithic (e.g. segmentedcausewayed enclosures) to one where monumentsdemanded to be seen in terms of control, display andpower in the later Neolithic.

This was a very successful day conference bringingtogether some interesting new ideas and discoveriesfrom the Thames Valley, and demonstrating thatinterpretations of this period and area keep changingas the pace of new developer-led archaeology in thisarea increases. The conference was useful inupdating our understanding of Neolithicarchaeology in this region, and adding a largenumber of new dots to the distribution maps.

Catriona Gibson, Wessex Archaeology

CCOONNFFEERREENNCCEESSTAG 2009Durham, 17-19 December 2009

The 31st annual TAG conference will be held atDurham University between the 17th and 19th ofDecember 2009. Session proposals can now besubmitted. Information about how to do this can befound at http://www.dur.ac.uk/tag.2009/call_papers.html. The deadline for session proposals is the 30th ofJune 2009. The call for papers will open in July. Ifyou have any questions please email the TAG 2009organisers (tag.2009@durham.ac.uk).

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The AGM will be held on Saturday 30th May at4.00pm in the Tempest Anderson Hall at theYorkshire Museum, York.

Agenda1 Minutes of the AGM held at the British

Geological Society on 23rd May 2007 (papersavailable from the website or from the Hon Sec)

2 President’s report3 Secretary’s report 4 Editor’s report and R. M. Baguley Award5 Treasurer’s report 6 Report on meetings, study tours and research days 7 Awards

John and Bryony Coles AwardResearch Grants (Bob Smith Award and LeslieGrinsell Award)

8 Election of Officers and Members of Council6 PAST

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The meeting will be followed at 4.45pm. by the 18thEuropa Lecture. The lecture will be followed by awine reception.

Registered Office: University College London,Institute of Archaeology, 31-34 Gordon Square,London WC1H 0PY.

Notes:1. A member entitled to vote at the meeting may

appoint a proxy to attend and, on a poll, vote inhis or her stead. A proxy must be a member, otherthan an institutional member.

2. To be valid, an instrument of proxy (together withany authority under which it is signed or a copy ofthe authority certified notarily or in some otherway approved by Council) must be deposited withthe Secretary, The Prehistoric Society, c/oDepartment of Archaeological Sciences,University of Bradford, Bradford, BD7 1DP, by4.30 p.m. on the 1st May 2009.

3. Forms of proxy may be obtained from theSecretary at the above address.

PPRREEHHIISSTTOORRIICC SSOOCCIIEETTYYAACCTTIIVVIITTIIEESS 22000088

This report covers the period January-December 2008.

Meetings and study tours Prehistoric Society events over the past year haveagain tended to move away from London and havebeen held across most of Britain, often incollaboration with other archaeological bodies thusincreasing access to members and promoting theSociety’s aims and objectives while alsodemonstrating the Society’s commitment to reachingwide regional audiences.

The January 2008 lectures were both collaborativeevents. Andrew Lawson addressed members of ourSociety and the Norfolk & Norwich ArchaeologicalSociety when he gave a talk in Norwich on somerecent research into round barrows and grave goods,while Professor Barry Cunliffe told of recent workon the island of Sark at a joint meeting with theDevon Archaeological Society in Exeter. A jointmeeting with the Sussex Archaeological Society inLewes in February heard Paul Garwood deliver alecture entitled ‘Visions of Power and Virtue:Making the Significant Dead in Early Bronze AgeBritain’. In November, Professors Tim Darvill andGeoff Wainwright lectured in Bournemouth on theirPreseli-Stonehenge Bluestones Project and theirexcavations at Stonehenge. The eighth SaraChampion Memorial lecture in October was by DrRebecca Redfern and was entitled ‘Wheeler’s Legacy:The Bioarchaeology of Maiden Castle’.

Conferences and day-schools for 2008 started with aconference on 2nd February on aerial photographic

mapping entitled ‘The View from Above, the Viewfrom Below: Surveying the Prehistoric Landscapes ofEngland’. This was held at the Society of Antiquariesin London and was well-attended. A weekendconference on the British Chalcolithic atBournemouth in April was also well-attended andhosted by Bournemouth University. There was anexcellent mix of fascinating papers which promptedthe audience to take part in some lively discussion.There was an Iron Age theme at the annualDillington House weekend in May (Iron Age orCeltic Britain) which again was well-attended bymembers. In December, a day-school hosted byArchaeological Sciences at the University ofBradford examined recent research into theprehistoric use of caves. Study tours included abudget weekend tour of Mendip led by Jodie Lewisand a visit to Star Carr led by Chantal Conneller.

Europa PrizeProfessor Barry Cunliffe was the 2008 recipient of theEuropa Prize which was presented in Oxford. TheSociety experimented with a new format to theEuropa lecture this year by incorporating it into a day-school on the same theme. This year the conferenceexamined ‘Britons in the Celtic World’ and was well-attended. Also speaking were Professor John Waddell,Brendan O’Connor, Peter Schrijver, Professor JohnKoch, Professor Sir Walter Bodmer and ProfessorStephen Oppenheimer. As well as considering thearchaeological evidence, recent linguistic and geneticresearch was also presented. Professor Cunliffe’sEuropa lecture, ‘A Race Apart? Insularity andConnectivity’, formed the end-piece of the dayimmediately after the Society’s AGM (see below).

Research GrantsResearch grants totalling £2958 were awarded to D.Boric for the survey of early agricultural settlementsin Brazil, J. Bradbury for survey work at Libyantumuli, J. Lewis for excavation at the Priddy Circles(Leslie Grinsell Prize), S. Rosendahl for research intothe early colonisation of Cyprus (Bob Smith Prize)and H. Wickstead for the survey of new Neolithicand Bronze Age sites on Cranborne Chase. GNaumov received conference funding to present apaper on the fragmentation of Macedonian figurinesat the World Archaeology Conference in Dublin.

The John & Bryony Coles AwardThe President announced that the John and BryonyColes Award had been presented to K. Cooper (visitsto Alpine Lake Villages) and A. Gray-Jones (researchinto the Mesolithic Burials from Hardinxveld).

Annual General Meeting for 2007The AGM was held at 4pm on 17th May, 2008, inthe Department of Physics, University of Oxford,after the Europa Prize day school and immediatelybefore the Europa Lecture. The President thanked allOfficers and members of Council for the work overthe year. He particularly thanked retiring Vice-President A. Whittle and retiring Council members J.

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Last, G. Halliwell and R. Hosfield. Special thankswere extended to D.McOmish who had had to resignas Vice-President due to pressure of work and hadworked hard as meetings secretary. J. Chapman andJ. Gardiner were thanked for bringing the Europaday to fruition.

The following officers and members of council wereelected

President Prof. Clive RugglesVice-president Peter ToppingHon Sec Alex GibsonHon Treasurer Alastair AinsworthHon Editor Julie GardinerHon Meetings Secretary Jonathan LastCouncil Members Veronica Edwards,

Jacqui Nowakowski, Alex Lang

The Baguley Award The Baguley Award was presented to DuncanGarrow for his paper Placing Pits: Occupation andDepositional Practice during the Neolithic in EastAnglia in Volume 73 of the Proceedings.

MembershipThere was a decline in membership over the yearwhich causes concern to Council.

As ever, the Society could not function without thehelp of a large number of individuals who give freelyof their time to organise events and deliver the resultsof their research. The Society offers sincere thanks toall the individuals who help throughout the year.

SSTTAATTEEMMEENNTT OOFFFFIINNAANNCCIIAALL AACCTTIIVVIITTIIEESSFFOORR TTHHEE YYEEAARR EENNDDEEDD 3311 DDEECCEEMMBBEERR 22000088

2008 2007£ £

Incoming resourcesFrom generated fundsVoluntary income 50,868 50,324Investment income 10,024 10,434

60,892 60,758From charitable activitiesPublication grants 8,369 7,101Copyright fees 2,064 2,091Merchandise 28 129Advertising in publications - 200Back numbers of Proceedings 1,811 3,191Conferences 6,677 -Study tours 4,423 16,017

23,372 28,729

Total incoming resources 84,264 89,487

Resources expendedCosts of generating 8,894 6,844voluntary income

Charitable activitiesGrants 3,958 3,822Lectures 894 3,957Proceedings 46,974 41,704PAST 9,708 10,808Back numbers of Proceedings 1,595 2,663Conferences 9,480 143Study tours 5,453 13,517

78,062 76,614

Governance costs 4,362 4,940

Total resources expended 91,318 88,398

Net (outgoing) (7,054) 1,089/incoming resources

Total funds at 1 January 163,519 163,755Net (outgoing) (7,054) 1,089/incoming resourcesRevaluation of investments 3,173 (1,325)Total funds at 31 December 159,638 163,519

The Statement of Financial Activities is an extractfrom the full accounts of the Society. Copies of thefull accounts for 2008 can be obtained from TessaMachling at the registered office.

Report of the TreasurerThe Society had an operating deficit of £7,054 in2008 compared to a surplus of £1,089 in 2007. Theproduction costs for the Proceedings of thePrehistoric Society increased again in 2008compared to previous years. The Society isinvestigating how these costs can be reduced in thefuture. The unexpected surpluses made on the studytours in 2007 were not repeated in 2008. Toencourage participation, the Society budgets tobreak even on its educational events such as studytours and conferences.

AACCCCOOUUNNTTSS EEXXAAMMIINNEERRWWAANNTTEEDD

Due to changes in the regulations governingcharities, the Society needs to appoint an HonoraryIndependent Examiner. If any member withfinancial experience could spare a few hours once ayear to examine the Society’s annual accounts, pleasecould they contact the Administrator atprehistoric@ucl.ac.uk or the Society’s Londonaddress. The duties of an Independent Examiner aredescribed on the Charity Commission website.

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RROOYY AALLLLEENN BBEEQQUUEESSTT

In July this year Council learned that probably oneof our longest serving Society members, Roy Allen,passed away leaving a small sum of £3000 to thePrehistoric Society, which we were delighted toreceive. For many years Roy was a regular on UKand foreign study tours and he also left us a coupleof albums of photos taken on our trips to the likes ofSpain, Cornwall, the Channel Islands, Wessex andSicily in the 1980s. In addition to photos of many ayoung tour leader of our aquaintance and anynumber of other familiar faces, there are also shotsof the likes of Stuart Piggott, Richard Atkinson,Pieter Modderman, Thurston Shaw, and BernabòBrea and some excellent views of monuments. Thealbums will become part of the Society’s archive andyour editors are open to bribes to publish (or not)youthful photos of Bradley, Kinnes, Shepherd,Briggs, Topping, Stoddart, Wainwright, Lawson . . .the list is endless.

Photos supplied are of Richard Atkinson (talking togroup) and Stuart Piggott on the 1985 Wessex tour.

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The 2009 Europa prize winner is Professor PeterWoodman who retired in September 2006 after 23

years as Professor of Archaeology at UniversityCollege Cork, and previously Assistant Keeper ofPrehistoric Antiquities at the Ulster Museum,Belfast. His research interests lie in the areas of theearly human settlement and ecology of Ireland andAtlantic Europe and the antiquarian history ofArchaeology. He has carried out excavations atmany sites in Ireland (including Mount Sandal,Newferry, Killuragh Cave and Ferriter’s Cove) andhas revolutionised the way in which the IrishMesolithic is studied. He has also worked in otherparts of Europe, and has a particular interest inNorway and Scotland.

The Europa day conference will be held on the 30thMay in the Tempest Anderson Hall at the YorkshireMuseum, York. Six international speakers willpresent their research on the Late Glacial, Mesolithicand Mesolithic/Neolithic transition: Hein Bjerck(Norwegian University of Science and Technology);Caroline Wickham-Jones (University of Aberdeen);Roger Jacobi (British Museum); Rick Schulting(University of Oxford); Alison Sheridan (NationalMuseums of Scotland); and Doug Price (Universityof Wisconsin and University of Aberdeen). PeterWoodman will be presented with the Europa prize atthe end of the day and will give a paper on ‘Thepleasure of finding things out: living with the IrishMesolithic for 50 years’.

In addition, Oxbow will be launching MesolithicHorizons (edited by Sinéad McCartan, RickSchulting, Graeme Warren and Peter Woodman).This marks the publication of the proceedings of theseventh international conference on ‘The Mesolithicin Europe’ (Belfast 2005). This is an enormouscompendium of research published in two volumeswith over 140 papers drawn from the whole ofEurope, ranging from the European Arctic to manyparts of the Mediterranean, and from the British Islesto Russia. There will be a special offer on the day of£99.95 (publishers price £150).

See enclosed leaflet or the Prehistoric Society websitefor details of how to register for this event.

Students of the Mesolithic may also be interested toknow about a Mesolithic conference for studentsonly, to be held the day before at the University ofYork. For further details see:http://sites.google.com/site/mesolithicstudents/Home

DDIISSCCOOVVEERRIIEESS TTOO TTHHEEEEAASSTT OOFF CCRRAANNBBOORRNNEECCHHAASSEE:: TTHHEE DDAAMMEERRHHAAMMAARRCCHHAAEEOOLLOOGGYY PPRROOJJEECCTT

Cranborne Chase is one of the best researchedprehistoric landscapes in Europe. However, thediscovery of two previously unrecorded earthworks,alongside a remarkable series of cropmarks to theeast of Cranborne, proves that there is yet more to be

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found in this region. Last year we formed theDamerham Archaeology Project to find out moreabout these discoveries. The Prehistoric Societysupported one week of fieldwork in September. Theimmediate goals were to enhance existing knowledgeusing geophysical survey and to identify potentialfuture approaches. This article summarises thecontext of discovery, fieldwork findings anddirections for future work.

DiscoveryThe presence of an extraordinary cropmark complexon land belonging to Ashley Park Farm, Damerham,was first identified in 2003 through EnglishHeritage’s annual aerial reconnaissance programme.Detailed study by Martyn Barber of those aerialphotographs, and others held by the NationalMonuments Record, led to mapping (at 1:2500scale) of the following cropmarks:

1. Two large circular enclosures (just above the farmon the aerial photograph here). The largest, c. 57metres in diameter, with a ditch c. 5m across,contained at least two rings of slighter, concentricfeatures. The smaller enclosure, immediatelyadjacent, contained a large negative feature.

2. At least 26 ring ditches and other features. Amongthese, a circular ditch with a U-shaped extension(below the enclosures on the aerial photograph).Both circular and U-shaped features surroundedconcentric pit- or post-settings. Anotherinteresting feature - an elongated oval ditch - lieson the other side of the enclosures.

3. Linear features, disappearing over the right edgeof the photograph.

4. At the top of the photograph, a long mound c. 78metres in length, flanked on either side by astraight ditch. Aerial photographs of the longmound taken in 1997 when the field was clear ofcrop suggested a chalky mound that retained someheight. A 2004 visit confirmed the existence of alow earthwork.

Interpretations are provisional at this stage. It ispossible that the large enclosures may representceremonial, henge-type structures of Late Neolithicto Early Bronze Age (c. 3000 to 1800 BC) date. Mostof the 26 ring ditches are probably plough-levelledround barrows of broadly Early to Middle BronzeAge date (c. 2500 to 1500 BC). Clear analogies forthe circular ditch with U-shaped extension are fewbut not unknown. It would be reasonable to assumea date broadly contemporary with the enclosures,although excavation would be needed to confirmthis. The elongated oval ditch may be the remains ofa Neolithic oval barrow or long mortuary enclosure,or may equally represent a single ditch surroundinga pair of Bronze Age round barrows. The linearfeatures are of unknown date - they appear torepresent a field system, possibly later prehistoric orof relatively recent date.

That an earthwork - almost certainly an EarlyNeolithic long barrow (c. 4000 to 3500 BC) - could

have remained unrecognised in this well-exploredlandscape was extraordinary, but further surpriseswere in store. During the planning stages of the 2008fieldwork another probable long barrow was founda short distance to the east. This was spotted byMartyn Barber on the Windows Live Local website,which currently features aerial imagery forDamerham dating from about 1999. Site visitsconfirmed the presence of a second mound, lowerand shorter (around 30m in length) than the first.

FieldworkFieldwork aims were to:1. Test the potential of different geophysical survey

techniques (including gradiometer, earthresistance and ground penetrating radar).

2. Investigate field-walking potential.3. Target areas and devise methodologies for future

work.

Full details of sampling strategy, methodology andresults are available in our forthcoming report.Geophysical techniques were strategically targetedwith intensive methods like earth resistance used tocomplement the more rapid gradiometer survey.Here we summarise a subset of our findings todemonstrate the results achieved:

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Cropmarks near Damerham, NMR 21270/36 (SU 0815/43) - ©English Heritage, NMR

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The enclosures The accompanying figure shows the gradiometerresults for an area including the enclosures andcircular ditch with U-shaped extension. Thesubstantial ditches of the enclosures showed up well.No unequivocal entrances could be found in eitherenclosure. Shallowing of the ditch and bank on theeast-west axis of the larger enclosure may indicatecauseways, or may reflect plough erosion. Theditches of the circular feature and its U-shapedextension were clearly apparent, with a definitebreak between the U-shaped ditch and its circularneighbour.

The interiors of the enclosures were particularlyintriguing. Two concentric rings, possibly ditches orpost settings, showed up inside the larger enclosure.Within these rings, just to the north of the centre,was an area of marked disturbance. Gradiometeranomalies within the enclosure corresponded withfour substantial negative features visible on aerialphotographs. Within the smaller enclosure was alarge (>10m), curiously shaped, negative feature.

Linear features were apparent, some of which maybe boundary ditches, probably related to the fieldsystem visible on the photographs. These featuresswerved to avoid the enclosures, or reused theditches as part of their length, suggesting they post-dated the enclosures, but were constructed when theenclosures were upstanding bank and ditchstructures. A double linear feature that runs acrossthe figure and slights both enclosures’ southern edgesis a route for farm machinery.

A series of anomalies running from north to south,curving around the circular and U-shaped ditchesand then exactly between the two enclosures wasinterpreted as an alignment of substantial pits. Thepits were widely spaced (c. 8 to 15m) and probablymade after the circle, U-shaped ditch and enclosureswere in place, but while all three were extantearthworks.

Dampney long barrowGeophysical survey strongly confirms Barber’s initialinterpretation of the larger long mound as a longbarrow. The body of the mound is clearly visible onthe ground and showed up as an area of highreadings in the earth resistance results. Theaccompanying figure shows the gradiometer results,clearly showing the two flanking ditches (alsodefined using earth resistance). A GPR profileconfirmed the survival of buried deposits, suggestingthe flanking ditches reached up to c. 1m in depth.Both gradiometer and earth resistance located anegative feature in the mound’s northern flank,possibly an antiquarian trench, although we havefound no documentary records for any such venture.It is not impossible that there is a chamber in thispart of the long barrow (R. Bradley pers. comm.),but the strength of negative readings give a morerecent feature greater plausibility. Futuretopographic survey will reveal more about thecharacter of this earthwork. It is christened‘Dampney long barrow’ after Mr Dampney, the latefather of the landowner.

Assessment of fieldwalking potentialThe fields were inspected under poor surfaceconditions (stubble and unbaled straw).Nonetheless, artefacts, including numerousprehistoric lithics, medieval pottery and oyster shellswere visible on the surface. A sherd of prehistoricpottery was picked up close to the enclosures andidentified by Rick Peterson (pers. comm.) as from anEarly Neolithic carinated bowl. The fresh,unabraded condition of this sherd shows that

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Gradiometer and aerial photographic survey of circular enclosures

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archaeological deposits are being severely truncatedby ploughing, underlining the urgent need forinvestigation before features are lost.

Future work During our short field season we were able toconfirm and refine existing knowledge of thecropmarks and identify new features invisible in theremotely sensed dataset. Productive as our fieldworkhas been, we have barely begun to characterise thearchaeological landscape around Damerham. Westill do not know for sure where the limits of thecomplex are. Remote sensing has identified further

cropmarks outside the sample areas of the 2008fieldwork. There may be many more, as yetunsuspected, sites under pasture. Our discovery ofanother long mound this year demonstrates thatthere may be a great deal yet to be found.

More survey to fully characterise the resource isclearly a priority. Our next steps will extendgeophysical techniques successfully applied in 2008.GPR was especially useful for dealing with a plough-damaged resource. Future use of GPR will comparethe degree of plough damage between areas to modelthe impact of intensive agriculture. We are alsoinitiating a field-walking programme, offering analternative approach to past activities. The processof learning about this intriguing, and remarkablyunder-explored, location has only just begun.

Acknowledgements Alongside the authors, the field-team comprisedSarah McCarthy, Jess Hancock-Piper, John and PaulQuinlan. Mark Dover and Kate Welham ofBournemouth University and Chris Ellis of WessexArchaeology provided vital assistance and advice.See www.damerhamarchaeology.org for moreinformation.

Helen Wickstead, Chris Carey, Olaf Bayer andMartyn BarberWebsite: www.damerhamarchaeology.org

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Over the past three years, your Council has beendiscussing initiatives to improve and increase thefacilities we offer our members. This is a part of theimprovements the Society is making which includesthe new format for the Europa lecture, taking morelectures and events around the country, andorganising more budget accommodation study tours.

Over the next six months, two new initiatives will berolled out to members. These will include acompletely redesigned website with moreinformation for members on our activities, but alsoinformation on key archaeological sites around thecountry. Some of this information will only beavailable to members. There will also be onlinesubscription facilities.

In addition, we will be launching the PrehistoricSociety Research Papers this year. This is a peer-reviewed monograph series, published with OxbowBooks, with hard covers in a similar format to theProceedings. These will be available to members at a25% discount off the normal price. The series aimsto publish collections of edited papers covering

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aspects of prehistory. These may be derived fromconferences or research projects, although theyspecifically exclude the publication of singleexcavation reports. The Research Papers present thefruits of the best of prehistoric research,complementing the Society’s respected Proceedingsby allowing broader treatment of key research areas.

Forthcoming volumes include Land and people:papers in memory of John G. Evans (eds Michael J.Allen, Niall Sharples and Terry O’Connor). This willbe published in association with the ConchologicalSociety of Great Britain & Ireland and will beavailable in September. The volume will cost £35but will be offered to members at the special pre-publication price of £25 for a limited period of time(see flyer with this edition). A further volume,Materialitas: working stone, carving identity (edsBlaze O’Connor, Gabriel Cooney and JohnChapman) will be available in October-November(see flyer with this edition for offer price and orderdetails). Downloadable order forms are alsoavailable on our website.

Land and people will contain selected paperscovering a wide range of topics, and is dedicated toJohn Evans in celebration of his contribution toenvironmental archaeology. The 20 papers addressthemes and landscapes on a variety of levels. Theycover geographical, methodological and thematicareas that were of interest to, and had been studiedby, John Evans. In some instances, papers have beeninspired by John’s approaches to landscape andlandscape analysis and their application to new orwider areas than John himself studied in detail.Others take forward, re-examine or elaborate onsome of his specific theories and interpretations,looking at new or improved datasets. As a collection,the papers in this volume provide a diverse yetcohesive picture of how archaeological landscapesare viewed within current research frameworks andapproaches, while also paying tribute to theinnovative and inspirational work of one of theleading protagonists of environmental archaeology.

Contributors: Michael J. Allen, Martin Bell, M. JaneBunting, Oliver E. Craig, Paul Davies, Jane Downes,Andrew Fleming, Charles French, Julie Gardiner,Neville Gardiner, Frances Healy, Richard Jones,Steve Mills, Nicky Milner, Jacqueline A.Nowakowski, Terry O’Connor, Simon A. Parfitt,Aikaterini K. Paschali, Mark Robinson, NiallSharples, George R. Speller and Alasdair Whittle.

The book will be launched at the Association forEnvironmental Archaeology’s 30th anniversaryconference in York on 3-5 September 2009. It will beoffered to members at a special pre-publicationprice, and there will be an opportunity for membersto include their names in a list published in thevolume of those who wish to honour the memory ofJohn, his work and contribution to environmentalarchaeology, conchology, and archaeological

thinking. Details of this offer and a downloadableform will soon be available on our website.

Mike Allen, Series Editor

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The label on the cover of the old year six physicshomework book (belonging to ‘J. Wymer Sci: VI’)bears the title ‘Archaological (sic) Rec’s, VOL 11949-1952 (1-1016)’. At the top of the first page, inneat cursive handwriting, is the entry: ‘W1 Yiewsley,Middx - gravels. Chellean hand-axe 5½” long -abraded (From Father’s collection)’. So begins theunique personal archive of John Wymer’s life’s workin Palaeolithic archaeology.

The first impression is that this is an archive from apast era and, when seen in the light of the currentplans to transform it into an accessible, on-linedigital resource, it probably is, although thescholarship retains its value to this day. The sevenhardbound field notebooks that followed on fromVOL 1 (in all some 1600 pages), written in anincreasingly neat and precise italic hand, containdated accounts of excavations, site visits andartefacts, illustrated with small, hand-colouredlocation maps and section drawings of quaternarystratigraphy, and accompanied by numerous black-and-white photographs of sites, sections andcolleagues.

John Wymer’s parents, from whom he inherited hisinterest in Palaeolithic artefacts, were keen amateurarchaeologists, and it was in 1956, during one oftheir excavations of the Upper Middle Gravels at theBarnfield gravel pit at Swanscombe, that he found anin situ fragment of human skull. That the boneshould fit with two other fragments found some 20years earlier was an accident of remarkably goodfortune, but the very fact of the find within itsprecise stratigraphical Middle Palaeolithic context,and Wymer’s appreciation of its full significance (itremains the earliest known find of human remains inBritain), was down entirely to the patient andsystematic approach to observation, excavation andrecording which he had brought to the task, andwhich characterised his work (as evident in thearchive) throughout his long career.

While Wymer had no formal training in archaeology,there was nothing amateurish about the work thatthis archive documents, or the dedication thatpropelled the young amateur to become the foremostauthority in his field - serving variously as President

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of the Quaternary Research Association, Chair ofthe Lithic Studies Society and a Vice-President andHonorary Life Member of the Prehistoric Society,receiving an honorary doctorate from ReadingUniversity and the Stopes Memorial Medal from theGeologists' Association and, in 1996, being electedto the British Academy. In fact, the archive probablyowes its distinct and individual character to the factthat Wymer was largely self-taught and approachedhis work with an independence of mind which mightnot have found such ready expression within theacademic system. Moreover, the archive’sconsistency of approach from that first entry, and itsmethodical and meticulous attention to detail,suggests that from the beginning, even before hisSwanscombe discovery, Wymer appreciated the needfor a systematic investigation of the Palaeolithicarchaeology of Britain. In 1997 he organised acelebration of Suffolk landowner John Frere’srecognition, 200 years earlier, that Palaeolithicartefacts were the tools of people living in the veryremote past, but when Wymer started his work therewas still no consistent understanding of thegeological sequence which could provide achronological framework for the British Palaeolithic.

Wymer embarked on this ambitious and oftensolitary task at a time, therefore, when the study ofthe Palaeolithic in Britain was both unfashionableand unresourced, something which his lifetime’swork, as documented in this archive, played a majorrole in reversing. Central to the changing status ofthe subject was Wymer’s publication of three major

synthetic works on the Palaeolithic, covering first theThames Valley (1968, Lower PalaeolithicArchaeology in Britain as Represented by theThames Valley), then East Anglia (1985, ThePalaeolithic Sites of East Anglia) and culminating inThe English Rivers Project (TERPS), the results ofwhich were published as the two volumes of TheLower Palaeolithic Occupation of Britain (1999).

Along with the archaeological and geological recordprovided by his field notebooks (which are, equally,a fascinating social and historical document), thearchive includes a 6000-card index of every Lowerand Middle Palaeolithic artefact then known fromBritain, many with illustrations in his clear anddistinctive style. The index comprised the primaryrecord of TERPS, and during the course of thisresearch Wymer visited every Palaeolithic findspotand museum collection in Britain to assess itssignificance and to relate each find to its relevantgeological deposit.

However, as a record of Wymer’s career, this archiveextends far beyond the Palaeolithic of Britain, and istherefore of much wider archaeological interest. In1956 he took up his first professional post atReading Museum, from where in addition to hiscontinued investigation of the Thames gravels, heexcavated the important Early Mesolithic site atThatcham (his knowledge of the Mesolithic wasbrought together in the 1977 Gazetteer of MesolithicSites in England and Wales), as well as theLambourn Neolithic long barrow and otherprehistoric sites in Berkshire. In 1965 Wymer wasappointed by Prof. Ronald Singer of the Universityof Chicago as research field director for a series ofexcavations in Britain (Clacton and Hoxne) andSouth Africa (Klasies River Mouth), and his skills asa field archaeologist helped him to establish newstandards for Palaeolithic archaeology, and to createa typology and chronology for Britain and much ofSouth Africa. All these strands of a remarkablecareer are woven together in his notebooks.

Following John Wymer’s death in February 2006,Wessex Archaeology, with the help of a grant fromthe Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ASLF)through English Heritage, set about securing thelong-term curation of this archive of nationalarchaeological importance, and so ensure itsdissemination to public and professional audiences.The complete archive which comprises, in additionto the field notebooks and card index, numerousphotographs, box files, folders and other items, hasbeen sorted and catalogued by Wessex Archaeology,and the bulk of it transferred to the British Museumwhich has agreed to be its permanent home (apart

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from artefacts and records relating to Klasies RiverMouth which will be returned to South Africa, aswell as John’s personal collection of more than 4000artefacts, including some fine hand-axes, and anyitems of little or no academic interest).

To further secure the archive and make it accessibleto the public, the field notebooks (which have beenindexed by volume and page), the card index andselected photographs of archaeological significancehave been digitally scanned and deposited with theArchaeology Data Service (ADS). The note bookshave been turned into digital text by copy-typinginto database format, and will have further detailedindexing to enable users to search the archive atvarious levels (such as by site, artefacts, etc.) via theADS website. In addition, a new Palaeolithicdatabase containing the results of TERPS, aspublished in The Lower Palaeolithic Occupation ofBritain, will also be made available on the ADSwebsite. This is in the same format as the UpperPalaeolithic and Mesolithic archive (PaMela) basedon Roger Jacobi’s archive, currently the subject ofthe Colonisation of Britain project under the aegis ofWessex Archaeology, allowing the two datasets to bemerged at a future date.

The wide reach of Wymer’s interest and influence isreflected in the final numbered artefact record inWymer’s field notebooks - below a photograph ofthe Namib dunes near Gobabeb is the entry: ‘4439-4441 Two blade-like flake(s), probably M.S.A., andone of a coarse textured rock, in varying states ofweathering. Typical of material within stonescatters.’ The notebook ends, a few pages later, withphotographs, dated 27th August 2004, of a slightlyless exotic location, the village of Churchill nearChipping Norton, showing the monument (and acul-de-sac) commemorating the life of William‘Strata’ Smith, the father of British geology, ‘who’, asWymer notes in his distinctive script, ‘created “themap that changed the world” ’. There is no doubtthat John Wymer held a similarly pivotal role inBritish Palaeolithic studies, and the preservation ofhis archive will allow its continued use as anarchaeological and geological record, as a social andhistorical document of considerable public interest,and as a fitting memorial to a life’s dedicatedresearch.

AcknowledgementsWessex Archaeology would like to thank AndrewLawson for his invaluable advice and assistancethroughout the project, particularly with regard toliaison with John Wymer’s family. We would like tothank the Wymer family for facilitating this projectand to English Heritage for funding it. The projectwas managed by Lorraine Mepham; Christine

Butterworth and Helen MacIntyre sorted andcatalogued the archive.

Andrew B. Powell

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Despite occasional claims for a ‘Palaeolithic’presence on Cyprus, it is only in recent years that theisland’s pre-Neolithic heritage has become a majorfocus of archaeological research, concentrating onboth the ancient shoreline and the foothills of theTroodos mountains. As part of the former, AlbertAmmerman and Jay Noller’s work on the cementedsand dunes (aeolianite) along the coast hasuncovered a series of eroded lithic scatters, notablyat Nissi Beach in the southeast and at AkamasAspros in the west, which are likely to representsome of the earliest campsites on the island. CaroleMcCartney, Sturt Manning and Sally Stewart’s surveyand excavation work in the northern Troodosfoothills as part of the Elaborating Early NeolithicCyprus (EENC) project has not only produced thefirst potential pre-pottery Neolithic A site on Cyprusat Ayia Varvara Asprokremnos, but also begun tocreate a map of raw material exploitation andprehistoric mobility through this resource-rich region.

Under the umbrella of the EENC project, the currentproject aimed to expand knowledge of chert sourcesused for the manufacture of stone tools, and to findconnections both in landscape and lithic technologybetween the various sites and geological andtopographical regions in the survey area – a processknown as Landscape Learning. Building on

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A short trip to the mountains: Aredhiou Kallikas in its landscapesetting. The lithic scatter covers the white hill in the foreground.

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