Prehistorians and early historic archaeologists often puzzle over seemingly random distributions of artefacts remote from settlements. Here is at least one possible explanation. Using ethnographic and archaeological evidence the author reveals how an early historic people of central Russia used trees in their religion, and describes some of the meanings that lay behind their rituals.

During my leave to England in the spring of 1930, I revisited Iraq to acquaint myself further with the objects on view in the Baghdad Museum. As a result of excavations since I left that country the museum had acquired a large increase of material that I was not familiar with before, and I am now able to add to the links between the cultures of the Indus Valley and of Sumer which I have already pointed out in Mohenjo-dam and the Indus CiviZization,' to be published almost immediately.

On plate 146,fig. 43, of that book there is reproduced a red carnelian bead, bearing a somewhat elaborate design in white, that was found in the uppermost levels of the vs area. Several almost exactly similar beads found by Woolley in the early graves at Ur are now in the Baghdad Museum. The slight difference between the two designs, in that there are concentric circles on this first found Indian bead of the type in place of the single circles on the specimens from Ur, is negligible in face of the general similarity ; and especially in view of the fact that another of these beads has since been discovered at Mohenjo-daro with single circles, so that the design is identical with that on the beads from Ur (fig. 2).

The Year 1946 is the Two Thousandth Anniversary of the first historical event in our Island Story, the first Invasion of Julius Caesar ; 1947 that of the first appearance of the first British personality, the first man in England whose name we know, Cassivellaunus. It is fitting, therefore, that ANTIQUITY should choose the turn of the years for its own discussion of England's first ‘ bimillenary ’.

Recent investigations at the Lateran by the present writers, with the indispensable collaboration of Professor Enrico Josi, and under the auspices of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, have added considerably to our knowledge of the Constantinian basilica. The 4th-century foundation walls of this church are easily identifiable. They consist of massive baulks of concrete made principally with big fragments of grey-white marble which are obviously the product of the breaking-up of some quite important building, since pieces of architectural mouldings, capitals, ashlar, etc., frequently appear. During the past century (the first significant excavations date from 1851) such foundation walls have been exposed in many places, and an extensive system of vaults has been formed beneath the floor of the church as one investigation after another has added to our knowledge of the Constantinian building; to say nothing of the earlier structures on top of which the basilica was built, namely the Castra Nova Equitum Singularium of the early 3rd century, and certain rich private mansions which lie at a still lower level.

In December 1993 Brazilian, European and American researchers joined forces in São Raimundo Nonato, Piauí, Brazil, to analyse the state of research on the peopling of the Americas (conference proceedings in press).

Among the earliest monuments of the Buddhist faith as propagated through India by king Asoka in the third century B.C. is a peculiar class of structure known as a stupa, and since Fergusson (1) first put forward the idea at the end of the last century it has been vaguely realized that these monuments were in all probability a formalized version of nothing more or less than a specialized type of prehistoric (and pre-Buddhist) round cairn. The possible implications of this prototype's peculiar features in reference not only in oriental, but in European archaeology, were pointed out by Mr Harold Peake with characteristic acumen (2), but no convenient summary of the relevant Indian material has appeared in an English archaeological journal, and a recent discovery in Jaipur State has thrown most interesting light on the subject at large. It seems therefore desirable to bring the results of the Bairat excavations before a wider archaeological public than that reached by the original report by the excavator, the late Rai Bahadur D. R. Sahni, and to consider it in relation to the wider question of the origins of the stupa and of the curious features which are presented in formalized guise on the elaborate monuments which represent the supreme artistic achievements of the Sunga Dynasty in the closing centuries of the pre-Christian era. I am deeply indebted to Mr Peake not only for material amplifying his original thesis, but for stimulating discussion and correspondence on the whole question. The latter part of this paper is in fact to such a degree based on his ideas that it amounts to an appendix in which I have paraphrased views exprcssed by him and shared by myself.

In 1855 C. Müller published the first volume of his Geographi Graeci Minores: in the introduction to the ‘Periplus of the Erythraean Sea’ he states that he has studied six hundred writers on the question’ what was murrhine, but that it may be now regarded as certain that murrhine vases were made of fluorspar’. Since, however, the opinions which Müller discarded have been revived by writers entitled to respectful consideration, some of whom have also given reasons for rejecting the identification with fluorspar, it seems desirable to review the matter and to put on record certain new evidence.

Navan, Co. Armagh, is one of the major ritual sites of Irish and of European prehistory. Its 2.5 square km encompass the bronze- and iron-age Navan ‘fort’, the bronze-age ritual pond of the King's Stables, the bronze-/iron-age Haughey's fort, and the iron-age ritual lake of Loughnashade – and, surely, other sites not yet detected. It figures largely in the early history of Ireland as the ancient capital of Ulster. For years, a limestone quarry has been eating into the archaeological landscape; its erosion was finally halted last year, thanks to the vigour with which the Friends of Navan fought the archaeological case. Here, one of the founder Friends sets out the issues, and what kind of victory was won.

Half a century on, the principals in the Mildenhall affair are deceased. Paul Ashbee, senior prehistorian of East Anglia, has no direct evidence, but material recollections from near to the time. His account, drawing on those memories, notices aspects different to those which are stressed by Richard Hobbs (above), a researcher of a younger generation looking at the written record.