The early Neolithic rondel is a large curvilinear ditched and palisaded enclosure found in increasing numbers in Central Europe. It has close links with the tells of the Danube region, themselves highly suggestive instruments of the earliest Neolithic. Here the authors extend the distribution of rondels further to the north-east, with the discovery and verification of the first example in Poland. As they point out, it is aerial photography that made this advance possible and we can expect many more discoveries, given appropriate investment in the art.

After a promising start in the twenties and thirties, the East German sky remained barred to aerial photography from start of the second world war onwards. The same applies to other east European countries. Their opening up, and the reunification of the two Germanies in particular, has again, since 1991, made archaeological flight possible. However, progress has been hampered by remaining bureaucratic habits. The long delay inflicted to research has been compensated in part by an easier analysis of photographs : the vast areas of past collective agriculture have yielded staggering discoveries, such as the henge at Goseck. However the archaeologists, faced with the present infrastructure developments and road network extensions, are engaged in a race against time.

The end of the Cold War in 1989 prompted the opening of central European skies that had been closed to archaeological air photography for decades. The occasion of a summer school in 1996 provided the opportunity to record some results from Hungary.

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