Archaeologists have long been aware that whales were extensively utilized by dwellers on the Atlantic sea-board of prehistoric Europe (1). The frequent discovery of cetacean bones in ancient middens and, in regions such as the extreme north of Scotland and the Orkneys, of implements and other objects fabricated from them prompts one to inquire into the source of the whales. Were some of them hunted, or did prehistoric man confine himself to stranded specimens? Again, it is interesting to speculate on the various ways in which whales, whether hunted or stranded, contributed to the economy of early man.

The last 150 years of archaeological writing in Britain have seen the adoption and propagation of many models of thought, of which the most influential, necessary and popular was the technological model of the successive ages of Stone, Bronze and Iron. In this article the Disney Professor of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge, England, examines the majority of instances they will be recognized as the work of Professor Stuart Piggott. ANTIQUITY OFFPRINTSThe first three titles in our new series of ANTIQUITY offprints are now available. These are:

Of all the monuments of remote antiquity in the British Isles none are more impressive, both by reason of their size and of the purposes which they served, than the structures of which Stonehenge, Avebury and Woodhenge are the most famous examples. In this paper it is my purpose first of all to record the investigation of a new monument of the ‘henge’ class—to use the convenient term adopted by Mr Kendrick—situated in the parish of Arminghall immediately south of the city of Norwich, and, secondly, to consider its date, purpose, affinities, and origin in relation to material published from other sites.

A basic condition for understanding the past is to avoid applying categories of thought and shades of meaning inappropriate to the period under review. This applies with special force to the study of the prehistoric past, by definition the phase of history most remote from the present and for this very reason most likely to be misunderstood. As Martin Jahn has well said,l much of the controversy between those who write about prehistoric trade and those who deny its existence is semantic: it arises from the different meanings they attach to the word trade. If one takes a definition of trade proper to a society with an advanced division of labour and an economy based on moneyif one chooses, for example, to define trade as an activity carried on by a class of traders for financial gain, it is understandable that no evidence for trade can be found in societies functioning at a simpler level, societies in which there is a bare minimum of specialization and to which the notion of profit in the sense we understand it may be quite foreign. Yet, if one sees it as, in the last resort, no more than the peaceful and systematic exchange of goods, one has no difficulty in recognizing that trade of a kind is practised among even the most primitive societies known to ethnologists; and, by implication, one is entitled to seek for traces of it in the archaeological record of prehistory.The present contribution, offered to a scholar whose lively mind ranges widely but penetrates at all times to the physical realities of existence, will concentrate on the interpretation of a specific archaeological phenomenon in terms of primitive trade, namely the manufacture and distribution over extensive territories of the blades of axes and adzes made from particular kinds of stone. The evidence will be reviewed under two main heads, namely that from north-western and northern Europe between the fourth and the second millenia B.C. and that from Australia, New Zealand and Melanesia down to the nineteenth and even, in the case of New Guinea, to the mid-twentieth century A.D. In conclusion some brief attempt will be made to collate these two sources of information and see how the prehistoric data appears in the light of ethnography.The principle of the adze was well established among the mesolithic hunterfishers for thousands of years before farming penetrated north-west Europe ; and these people had even begun to apply polishing, a technique devised long previously for shaping antler and bone, to stone tools.2 Yet archaeologists have surely been right to see in the polished axe or adze blade a very symbol of 1 Martin Jahn, 'Gab es in der vorgeschichtlichen Zeit bereits einen Handel?', Abh. d. sah. Akad. d. 2

‘Rising from the middle of the Irish Sea, within sight of each of the three Kingdoms, with a history and associations so distinct, yet so intimately linked with those of the rest of Britain, this interesting Island presents in its geological structure features which connect it alike with England, Scotland, and Ireland, while at the same time it retains a marked individuality in regard to some of the rocks that form its framework.’—Sir Archibald Geikie.The prehistory no less than the geology of the Isle of Man is of absorbing interest from its geographical position in relation to the larger units of the British Isles. The island is placed (fig. 1) at an equal distance (31 miles) between the coasts of Ireland and of Cumberland; its northern tip, the Point of Ayre, reaches to within 16 miles of Wigtonshire, and Anglesey lies 45 miles to the south of Langness Point. An observer on Snaefell (2034 feet) can view England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales in one sweep. Since the first settlement of the island, cultural and ethnic influences have approached from all directions, but its size (227 sq. miles) and the distance of sea which isolates it from the coasts of the mainlands have been sufficient to ensure vigorous local developments. The interaction of British and Irish influences and the occasional insular developments are the chief features of the prehistory of the island.Apart from a triangle of flat ground to the north, broken only by the Bride Hills (200–300 feet), and so far as its drift deposits are concerned, relatively recent in origin, the island consists almost entirely of slate diversified by local intrusions of igneous rocks (granite and diabase), by the sandstone of the Peel area, and by the carboniferous limestone of the Castletown district in the south. Most of the area of older rocks lies above the 400 foot contour and quite large areas are more than 1000 feet above sea level. The mountainous mass of the island, divided by the valley between Douglas and Peel, remained almost uninhabited throughout prehistoric and historic times.