17. Report of the Pitt Rivers Museum (Department of Ethnology and Prehistory) for the year ending 31 July 1962    

Staff
Curator: T.K. Penniman, M.A., Trinity College
University Demonstrators and Lecturers in Ethnology: A.J. Butt, B.Litt., M.A., D.Phil., Lady Margaret Hall; K.OL. Burridge, M.A., Exeter College
Lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology (also Senior Research Worker in the Department of Geology): D.F.W. Baden-Powell, M.A., Oriel College.
University Demonstrator and Lecturer in Prehistory: Dennis Britton, M.A., Queens’s College.
Administrative Secretary of the Museum and Librarian: H.P.G. Unsworth.

His many friends throughout the world will be sorry to hear of the death of Henry Frederick Walters, our Principal Technician, on 13 March 1962. He was born on 8 May 1893, and was in his 69th year, though he had the spirit and energy of a much younger man. His death was a severe blow to us all, coming as it did so shortly after the death of Ronald Gurden, our Administrative Secretary and Librarian. Apart from our personal grief, there was the loss of two key men, on whom so much of our proper working depended.

For over thirty years Mr. Walters served the Pitt Rivers Museum and gave all his devotion to it, following his father Henry John Walters (who had served the former and present Curator for just under half a century), and he is succeeded in his office by his son Kenneth Henry Walters, the third generation to serve the Museum as Head Technician.

Mr. Walters was highly skilled, and completely faithful to duty, even under trying circumstances, as when he spent long nights with the Curator during the late war when the Museum was flooded and the electricity failed. In the second war he served in the Royal Observer Corps, and during the First World War served throughout in the Royal Flying Corps (later the R.A.F.)

He was responsible for the good health and safety of nearly a million objects, and supervised the Staff in their maintenance in good condition. Many objects of an ephemeral nature through his care and treatment became eternal, and he never tired of regular and careful inspection.

No problem with which he was faced ever daunted him, even when his health was less than good and he might have been excused for taking life more easily. He was especially good in finding space where there seemed to be none, and we found that we had extra accommodation for teaching and showed more of the collections with less apparent overcrowding than before. We shall always be grateful for his system of storage, whereby we can easily roll one rank out of the way to get at another

On the day of his funeral, the Curator was asked to undertake the repair of some delicate musical automata, including singing birds. Mr. Walters, as a former watch-maker, would have undertaken this, both the precision and the Heath Robinson parts. He kept such things in good condition for the Museum, and has no successor in this.

The University valued his skill and faithfulness so highly that his term of office was extended from the age of 65 to 70, and the whole Staff was relieved and happy that it could still rely on his resourceful and able presence. ‘Ask Harry’ was a stock answer to problems. When people came from abroad, he was often the first man they wanted to consult.

Fortunately for us, Mr. K.H. Walters was fully qualified by ability and experience to take over the supervision of the collections, technical staff, and the general needs of the academic staff, and thus takes his father’s place as Head Technician. The technical staff were all capable of moving upward, and we decided to follow our usual plan of taking on a youngster who would grow up with the Museum, and learn the many duties required over a period of years. We have chosen Roger Lambert, a sixteen-year-old boy, now doing his G.C.E. examinations, and highly recommended both for character and ability. His specialities are photography and drawing, and he will receive the usual day-release teaching as well as our own, and being young and interested, will gradually learn enough of our many and varied activities to be able to help his colleagues, and ensure, as we must in a small staff, that the absence of one of us does not bring his activities to a complete end.

Finding an Administrative Secretary and Librarian after Mr. Gurden’s death was a serious problem, as here we needed a mature man of experience to deal with a complicated and difficult situation. Mr. Gurden was well-known to the staff of the University Chest, as well as in the Registry, both for his work here, and for his qualities as a cricketer and sportsman. They knew the type, which was what mattered. Colonel Cochrane, now on the Staff of the Chest, recommended Major H.P.G. Unsworth, who had served under him towards the end of the war, and the recommendation was supported by Mr. R.A. Malyn of the Registry Staff. Major Unsworth’s army service extended from 1939 to 1947, in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, India, and North Borneo, and at the end of the war he stayed on with the Colonial Service in North Borneo, acting first as Controller of Supplies and Food Controller, and later as Accountant-General and Commissioner of Inland Revenue. On his retirement at 45, his Government’s confidential report stated that his administrative ability, mental capacity, and judgement were thoroughly sound in all respects, and based on mature experience, and that his capacity for organization, ability to get good work from subordinates, ability to co-operate with other officers, and relations with the public were all excellent. Mr. Unsworth joined us in October 1961, and we can all endorse the recommendations with which he came.

The publications of the Museum, Occasional Papers on Technology, most of them substantial books, continue to sell at the rate of about 350 a year. Number 4 on the Prehistoric Metallurgy of Copper and Bronze in the Old World was reprinted during the year, and the first edition of Number 2 on Guatemalan and Mexican Textiles, is nearly exhausted. As the series is based on experimental work, asking ‘exactly what, how, and why?’ and does not accept general statements without testing, it cannot be popular and bring big sales. Thus reprinting is a strain on the sums we are able to set aside for new publications, though we are heartened by the number of people who continue to desire publications which were not designed for large sales. Number 10 on ‘The Metallurgical and Metallographic Study of British Bronze Age Implements in the Pitt Rivers Museum’, by the Curator and Mr. I.M. Allen, is further advanced. Of the 150 implements, 130 have been analysed by Mr. Allen and Mr. Anthony Wootton has drawn 96 artefacts and 125 micrographs. We hope to get it through the press before Number 9 sells out. We printed 1,250 copies of Baines on ‘Bagpipes’ in 1960, and the edition is more than half exhausted.

So much for publications issued by the Museum, which bring us by exchange about 50 periodicals each year, apart from sales. Other publications by members of the staff are mentioned in accounts of their work during the year.

Museum work was slowed down by the readjustments needed after the deaths of two key men. But before he died, Mr. H.F. Walters had finished the fortieth of his specially designed large cupboards on castors, and these with the seven half-sized cupboards have pretty well filled all available space in the iron storage building, which has been relighted under his supervision. Just before he died, he was working on a mahogany display case for our three Hawaiian feather cloaks, and this had been beautifully finished by his son and Mr. R.P. Rivers. These cloaks are of great rarity and value, and we are fortunate to have two large and one small cloaks in perfect condition, unfaded. The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu has listed just over a hundred in the world, of which not more than a dozen are in really perfect condition, and we felt that these ought always to be under our eye, and looked at daily, as moths are gluttons for feathers, strong light fades them, and they are apt to get brittle unless regularly treated. The 40-foot run of wall case for the exhibition of a history and distribution of archery has been completed, and while we have not yet begun the display, a lot of preliminary work has been done by Mr. Allen, a practising archer and an archer-antiquary, helped by Mr. Wootton. Between them they have collected data from over forty museums throughout the world to supplement our own extensive collections. Some considerable amount of work in moving material will need to be done before we can clear the way for the second 40-foot run made possible by Miss. G.A. Hansell’s bequest. Neither our architecture nor our specimens will submit to the standard boughten cases, and it is necessary to get a cabinet maker who will build to our specifications at a reasonable cost, without the idea of making a fortune by doing something unusual.

The Curator has long been uneasy at the prospect of fire or other calamity destroying our very large card catalogue, getting on for a million cards, and has at last been able to buy a microfilm camera and reader. Mr. K.H. Walters and Mr. Rivers are copying the cards, and we hope to store the single cabinet of film-rolls in a fire-proof place elsewhere in Oxford. This will be a labour of some time, considering our other occupations and of course there will be supplements going on for ever. The present filming will give accessions to 30 June 1962.

Work on recording our large collection of soft-wax cylinders on tape as well as editing tapes as they accumulate from expeditions has continued under the direction of Mr. Walters. To accommodate these tapes, which must have an even temperature away from magnetic influences and fluorescent lighting, as well as the microfilm apparatus, Mr. Walters has shown all of his father’s ingenuity in rearranging, with the help of Mr. Rivers, the catalogue and other material in the basement to make a spacious and easily workable place with good lighting and suitable temperature.

In a previous report, we spoke of the work done by Mr. Robert Goble and Mr. Hugh Gough in putting into perfect playing order our 1552 virginal, and 1770 and 1784 (1803) pianos. During the year Mr. F.F. Hill of Shackleford (near Godalming) restored to perfection our three church barrel organs, dated 1764, c. 1790, and 1815-31, each with four stops. Their tone is mellow and beautiful, and the two later ones have the real pipe-organ quality. Mr. Hill also gave us the full specifications which can be made available to anyone interested, and are of much use to us. After the work already mentioned last year in recording our xylophones from Burma, Africa and South America in the Museum, the Rev. A.M. Jones of the Institute of Oriental and African Studies has furnished us with a complete account of their scales and affinities. It was a laborious work, but adds greatly to their value and to our own understanding of their music. This again is available to interested musicians.

During the year, we lent several of our instruments to the Faculty of Music for concerts in Oxford. The Curator is happy to be able to say that the Board of the Faculty of Music fully supports the request of the Board of the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography for the appointment of an Ethnomusicologist, who can deal with the teaching of the subject, the better use of our 5,000 or so musical instruments, and our growing work in the recording and study of the various types of musical expression in the world. This would be the first post of the kind in a British university, and fortunately there are at least three candidates in view who could make the post fully equal to any on the Continent or elsewhere in the world. Once more we must reiterate the need for a sound-proof studio, so that perfectly proper and necessary work need not be done furtively or only after high-powered diplomatic negotiations. Another urgent matter is the cataloguing of about 200,000 air-photographs collected by Mr. Bradford at the end of the last war, which for various reasons he never catalogued. All other material in the Museum is catalogued, or arranged so as to be easily and quickly consulted. Many people wish to use these photographs, but is is totally impossible, and this puts us in an unhappy position. The Curator has found two ex-R.A.F. men whose former work was in just such specialized cataloguing, and they are willing to undertake this work in spare time. Application has been made to the University to find a sum of money for a few years, by no means large, and a method has been worked out so that an ordinary Librarian can direct people on their use, and all measures necessary to safeguard security and copyright have been arranged. All we now await is a bit of money.

Last year the Curator mentioned that the Museum garden and the plants and flowers in the Museum had been endowed as a memorial. During this year the Curator designed and fixed on the Library wall a bronze tablet: ‘The Museum Garden is maintained, and plants and flowers are supplied in the Museum in perpetual memory of our friend and colleague Ronald Cyril Gurden, 8 July 1917 - 8 July 1961, Administrative Secretary and Librarian of the Pitt Rivers Museum.’ New bright life ever springing afresh is one of the few memorials that will survive the ages and triumph over the injuries of time.

Since October, Mr. Unsworth has been responsible for the general administration of the department, including scrutiny of expenditure and advising the Curator thereon, ordering all that the department requires, keeping and presenting accounts to the auditors and paying wages, supervising the Library and its 150 or so readers and research workers, and attending to the many people from all parts of the world who use the Museum personally or by correspondence, much of which requires identification of objects or materials and advice about them. He has also continued Mr. Gurden’s work of supervising the monthly preparation of the card index of museum accessions and of distributing the cards in both the regional and subject indexes, and of keeping the index of negatives made by Mr. K.H. Walters up to date. In general, as the first person to receive visitors and inquiries, he has proved to have Mr. Gurden’s flair for seeing that all runs smoothly and well, without fuss or frustration.
            
As Assistant Secretary and Librarian, Mr. Wootton has helped with correspondence, and spent a good deal of time in checking and rearranging the Library and renumbering and labelling the Periodical shelves, the frames for the large labels being made by Mr. R.P. Rivers. He has also assisted in preparing and distributing the cards for accessions to the Museum each month, and in sending out our publications for sale and exchange, and our annual reports. He entered several specimens in Accessions, and labelled many more. His considerable work in drawing artefacts and micrographs for our forthcoming book on British Bronze Age Metallurgy as represented in the Museum, and correspondence in connexion with our forthcoming exhibition of archery has been previously mentioned. His and Mr. Allen’s ‘Notes on the Cleaning and Preservation of Ancient Coins’ which have for some time been appearing in Seaby’s Coin and Medal Bulletin are now translated into Serbo-Croat for the Numismaticky Vesnik of Belgrade. Mr. Wootton has also published further material on ‘Dowry head-dresses from Palestine’ in Seaby’s Coin and Medal Bulletin October 1961, and two papers in the Bulletin of the Amateur Entomologists’ Society, one on the ‘Death’s head hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos Linn.)’, vol. 21, no. 253, Feb. 1962, and one on the ‘Eyed Hawkmoth (Smerinthus ocellata Linn.) at Stone, Bucks., 1958-1959’, vol. 21, no. 254, March 1962. At the invitation of the Oxford Numismatic Society he gave a lecture on ‘Primitive Currencies in the Pitt Rivers Museum’ illustrated by lantern-slides and specimens.

On the death of his father in March 1962, Mr. K.H. Walters took over his duties as Head Technician, involving the never-ending inspection of the collections, helped by Mr. R.P. Rivers, and general direction of the technical staff. We have already given some account of the scope of his duties, and of the work he has done with the help of Mr. Rivers in the Museum, catalogue room and recording studio, in which his work, apart from routine on our tape recording, on our old soft-wax cylinders has received the approbation of the Rev. A.M. Jones of the School of Oriental and African Studies. To accommodate the mircofilm camera with ample working space, he and Mr. Rivers completely rearranged the bulky card catalogue and other furniture in the basement, and Mr. Rivers completed the specially designed cupboard for tape recordings previously mentioned. Mr. Rivers took over all lantern and other projection work, thus freeing Mr. Walters for his supervisory duties. During the year Mr. Walters photographed 92 objects or groups of objects, and supplied 202 finished prints and 77 lantern-slides all with full documentation both for the users and for the catalogue of negatives.

As previously recorded, Mr. I.M. Allen continued work on the metallurgical and metallographic analysis of our British Bronze Age material for our forthcoming publication, and has been able to do a lot of comparative work on material from other parts of the world, and draft some summaries of conclusions, as well as to gather material and sort our collections for the 40-foot run of an exhibition on archery. Much of his time has been taken with identification, treatment, distribution, and finding of specimens, and in drawing for various publications. His drawing of stone implements is exceptionally good. He has continued to serve as Technical Secretary to the Ancient Mining and Metallurgy Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and has helped in identifications, and getting analysed furnace materials from Northern Nigeria, getting together iron and iron-ore samples for work on the identification of early British iron-ore sources, collecting furnace data, and making furnace experiments and ore calculations.

Among accessions this year, pride of place must be given to the intended bequest by our late friend Dr. A.H. Hill of a beautiful collection of silver and of silk textiles from Malaya. We were content, on hearing of his intention, to wait for a very long time, and so hoped to do, but he was killed by an aeroplane crash in Java on 24 January 1961, and his Executor, Mr. J. Wilbur G. Cocke, completed the intention of his friend, and so they came to us, as a collection of national importance to be maintained in a museum. They are the most lovely of all our Malayan possessions, and serve as a memorial to a well-loved and generous friend.

Following our usual plan of collecting material poorly represented here or unrepresented, we continue to commission or accept material from current expeditions, either as a gift or by contributing to the expenses of collection. In this last category we received 45 characteristic items from the Oxford Expedition to the Atlas Mountains in 1961, mainly from the Ait Haddidu, a Berber tribe living in the High Atlas Mountains, east of Marrakesh and in the region of the Government administrative centre of Imilchil. These were collected by Dr. Audrey Butt, a member of the expedition. In 1962, through Mr. John Kesby, a pupil, we were given a collection of 13 specimens from Mauretania, made by the Oxford and Cambridge Expedition to Mali and Mauretania in 1960.

We were very happy to hear from Mrs. J.C. Higgins who, with her late husband, was a friend and contemporary of Professor J.H. Hutton and of the late Mr. J.P. Mills and Mr. C.R. Pawsey, whose collections have so notably enriched us in the past. She gave us about 60 specimens, a few from the Naga Hills, but mainly from the Chin Hills of Manipur, including flint-lock guns of British manufacture captured during the Kuki rebellion, and various other objects of use and ornament. These supplemented the collections from the Naga Hills of the same period as the former gifts.

Among accessions to our musical collections we may mention a long-playing disc of South Moroccan tribal music, and 5 records made by the B.B.C. from David Attenborough’s tape recordings of 1955 in British Guiana, both given by Dr. Audrey Butt, a long tape recording of our Marcus Jadra 1552 virginal, played by Mrs. Elizabeth Goble, and of our church barrel-organs, restored and played by Mr. F.F. Hill, given by Mr. John Levy with drums and jingle from Ceylon, and a small collection of wind instruments made by the late Miss FitzRandolph, and presented by her friend Miss J.M.E. Price, including a Japanese oboe and Balkan double flageolets.

An interesting small collection came from Mrs. Naomi Mitchison, mainly Melanesian and Polynesian. It belonged to her mother, Mrs. Haldane of Oxford, who died on 10 December 1961 in her 99th year, and was mainly collected by her father, who was Consul in Samoa about 1870. Another small collection made by the donor in 1939 was given by Miss A.M. Percival, of which the most interesting were two stools of heavy wood supported by human figures, made in the Trobriand Islands.

In addition to other African specimens already recorded, were 6 photographs given by Professor E.E. Evans-Pritchard of valuable and unique objects in the Sudan Museum at Khartoum, now directed by the Curator Sadik Nur, with full typed descriptions of their use and history, 6 specimens from the Sudan and one from Abyssinia given by Mr. And Mrs. A.J. Forster, an enormous stone club-head and a digging-weight, both perforated, from Kenya, collected by our former pupil Mrs. E.J. Knowles, and a pair of Moroccan bridal slippers given by Dr. A.E. Alport.

From America, we have a Kwakiutl rain-cape of cedar bark, given by Mr. Adrian Digby, a former pupil, now Keeper of the Department of Ethnography in the British Museum, two sorcerer’s puzzles from British Guiana given by Dr. D. Moody, and another pair of oil paintings given by Miss Margaret B. Foote. These were painted by her mother in Canada in 1895, one of an Indian of the Assiniboine tribe at Medicine Hat, and one of a typical scene on the Blood Indian Reserve near Calgary.

From Asia, in addition to gifts previously noted, we record a Burmese picture in water paint, made to hang on the pyre of a respected monk and to be burnt with him. This was from our old friend and generous donor, Miss Margaret Eyre. Mr. E.W. Fletcher gave us a Tibetan libation bowl made from a human cranium mounted with brass of floral design, and Mr. Albert Brown rescued a Tibetan tinder-pouch for us.

European gifts included five iron nails, varying from about 10 inches to about 2 inches, from the Roman legionary fortress at Inchtuthil, Perthshire, dated A.D. 83-87. We were glad of Professor Ian Richmond’s kindness in getting these for us, as we are not overblessed with perfectly dated examples for our metallurgical programme, especially in iron. A shepherd’s grass rain-cape from Portugal was given by Mr. Alan Armstrong, a porcelain pipe of intricate design, probably of Staffordshire ware, from Devon, was given by Mr. E.H. North, and English nineteenth-century netted silk purse by Mr. J.M.F. May, lady’s garments from Czechoslovakia by Mrs. Lawrence, and a pair of Oxfordshire folding lorgnettes in gold frames with a ring for finger-hold, by Miss P. Watters

Among our donations from time to time are diaries and letters given to us for safe keeping by widows or other relatives. There is increasing demand to consult these, and the Curator has always consulted relatives if alive and know to him before considering such requests. Normally only material of direct scientific interest is shown to inquirers. There is of course a feeling abroad in the world that a man’s work can be better understood by approaching him from the ‘human angle’. With this idea, the Curator is completely out of sympathy. What is perfectly proper for friends or relatives to write to each other, is not the business of outsiders, unless the man or his relatives have wished to make it so. This does not mean that biographies must not be written, but simply that both relatives and friends of the deceased and the Curator of these manuscripts must take the greatest care in the choice of biographers, or of persons who desire to write about some aspects of a man’s work.

Another question that frequently arises is the request by private collectors to exchange some of their material for some of ours. We consider it wrong in principle to alienate material from a national museum except to another national museum. Only this can we keep account of our heritage, and be assured of its continuance.

During the past year we gave lectures and other instruction in Ethnology or Prehistory to 60 candidates for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography, 16 Colonial Probationers, and 23 candidates for the Diploma in Anthropology, besides the supervision of students for research degrees and giving help to many research students from various parts of the world. As usual, a vast deal of time was spent by the staff in looking out, arranging, and re-storing material for practical classes in the public galleries, which have to be closed for the purpose. A most urgent need, coming ahead of more exhibition space, is a room in which about 70 students can be accommodated at once, with permanent regional arrangements round the walls, so that students can really study material instead of having one short look at what is unfamiliar, and gaining no clear impression. Moreover, research students have to occupy the library, our private rooms, or public galleries, which is awkward for us, and make uninterrupted work impossible for them. Space for teaching and research, and laboratory and studio space for ourselves and our students, are the first need for us, so that we can do different kinds of work without such regular disruption.

The Curator lectured in all three terms on Origins of Civilization, supervised candidates for the B. Litt. and D.Phil. degrees, and continued, with Miss Blackwood, to edit our Occasional Papers on Technology, including the forthcoming No. 10, on the metallurgy and metallography of our British Bronze Age implements, the reprinting of No. 4, on Copper and Bronze in the Old World, now accomplished, and early work on No. 2, on Guatemalan and Mexican textiles, which will very soon need reprinting with some revision. In the midst of much work concerned with the succession to the Curatorship and questions of expansion, the Curator was faced with a demand for a completely revised 3rd edition of his Hundred years of Anthropology, which first covered the years 1835-1935 with what came before that, and was enlarge in 1952. In this, as in 1952, he was greatly helped by Dr. J.S. Weiner, who contributed a chapter on Physical Anthropology, and by Miss Beatrice Blackwood, who wrote a chapter on Americanist Studies, and very self-sacricingly undertook the grinding work of amalgamating the new bibliography with the earlier material. As Diploma Secretary for Anthropology, the Curator spent a considerable time with his colleagues on the complete revision of the Diploma course. The three sections, Ethnology and Prehistory, Social Anthropology, and Physical Anthropology have been strengthened and elementary courses are provided in each section to give specialists in any branch some acquaintance with what the other two are doings. Thus we continue, though three, to work as one. The Curator served as usual on the Board of the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography, the Committee of Management of the Griffith Institute, the Board of Management of the Near Eastern Archaeological Fellowship and Prizes, including work as an Examiner, the Committee for Archaeology, the Joint Advisory Science Committee of Council, the Ancient Mining and Metallurgy Committee and the Committee for Ethnomusicology, both of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and continued as an Interviewer of Research Students.

Miss Blackwood continued her valuable work on the revision and checking of the cards of the Subject Index, and the Hand-list of Subjects. She entered and labelled a number of accessions, the most important being the extensive collection of silver and silk textiles bequeathed by the late Dr. A.H. Hill. Some time was spent in putting into order a collection of lantern slides made from photographs taken by the Rev. A.W. Hands in New Zealand and Australia between 1880 and 1887, and presented by his daughter Mrs M.G.S. MacLeod. These are in remarkably good condition, considering their age, and form a valuable record of native life and European activities in New Zealand and also in Australia in the 1880s. As already mentioned, she contributed a long chapter on Americanist Studies to the Curator's Hundred Years of Anthropology deaing with both ethnology and archaeology and spent some time in amalgamating bibliographies. Her obituary of Robert H. Lowie, a friend of long standing, appeared in Man, June 1962, no 143, and she also contributed reviews to Folklore (Dec. 1961) and to the Antiquaries Journal (in press). She relieved the teaching staff by attending to the requirements of many visitors and correspondence who needed considerable attention, and continued to serve on the Councils of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Folklore Society, and on the R.A.I. Committees for British Ethnography and for Middle and South American Research.

Dr Audrey Butt lectured in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms on Lands and Peoples, dealing with the Americas and Africa, to candidates both for the Diploma in Anthropology and for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography, using specimens, as well as lantern slides, tape recordings, and cinematograph, giving short practical demonstrations to geography students and full afternoon practical classes to Diploma students. In Trinity Term she gave a course on one prescribed area for the Diploma on Art and Material Culture of East Africa and  on Material Culture of East and West Africa for Commonwealth Cadets. She also gave tutorials in Ethnology to 17 candidates in the Honour School of Geography, examined for the Preliminary in Geography in Michaelmas Term and for the Diploma in Anthropology in Trinity Term.

During July and August she was away on the University Expedition to the High Atlas in Morocco. Her time was mainly spent with the Ait Haddidu Berber tribe, studying kinship organization and economy as a necessary background for obtaining and interpreting blood samples and analyses. For the Museum she secured tape recordings of Berber music, a film of daily life and activities, and a collection representative of the material culture of the people. In Museum work, apart from the routine of dealing with appropriate correspondence and visitors, she entered specimens falling within the provenance of her lectures, continued her annotated catalogue of lantern slides, and arranged a display of Peruvian textiles for a day visit by Gloucester Art College students.

Publications included 'Symbolism and Ritual among the Aka-waio' in West-indische gids, 's [sic] Gravenhage, and the anthropological section in the Report of the University Expedition to the Atlas Mountains, 1961. She continued to work on the full report of her expedition to British Guiana. She served on the Board of the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography, and as a senior member of the University Anthropological Society and of the University Women's Exploration Club. Among outside activities she gave two B.B.C. broadcasts and a lecture to the Royal Holloway College.

Mr K.O.L. Burridge gave lectures in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms on Lands and Peoples dealing with Asia and Oceania, to candidates for the Diploma in Anthropology and for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography; including short practical demonstrations for geographers and full afternoon practical classes for Diploma students as well as a course for Commonwealth Cadets on Oceania in Trinity Term. He gave tuition for 24 pupils in Ethnology for the Preliminary Examination in Geography, supervised four candidates for the B.Litt degree, and examined in Ethnology for the Preliminary in Geography. Publications included 'Cargo Cults' in Discovery, February 1962, and Museum work, besides dealing with visitors and correspondence relevant to his areas, included the completion of 79 entries in Accessions from Kew Gardens, and 66 entries for the collection from Manipur and the Naga Hills given by Mrs J.C. Higgins, and collected by her late husband. 

So much for the teaching of Ethnology. In prehisotry, the past of the same subject, Mr. Baden Powell has been responsible for the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, and has given lectures not only for us but for the students in the Department of Geology. Mr Britton has given lectures on the Neolithic and Bronze Age up to the period at which Professor C.F.C. Hawkes takes over, and his lectures are attended by our own pupils and by those reading for the Diploma in European Archaeology under the Committee for Archaeology. With the Curator's lectures on the Origins of Civilisation which take principal ancient inventions through historical times, students are able to get some grasp of the elements from which they can continue in various directions according to their tastes and abilities. A valuable feature of this year's work was the visits under the direction of Mr Baden-Powell and Mr Britton to see antiquities at Avebury, Stonehenge, West Kennet, and the experimental earthwork at Overton Down. Visits were also paid to the School of Forestry (pollen analysis), the University Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, for techniques developed by Physics for use in Archaeology, and the Department of Geology, for the making of microscopic slides of rocks and the use of fossil shells for archaeological dating, this last being a subject on which Mr Baden-Powell is actively working in the Department of Geology.

During the year Mr Baden-Powell lectured in all three terms on Palaeolithic Stratigraphy  both for the Diploma and Geology students, dealing mainly with Europe in the first two terms, adn in the third with examples from Africa and Asia, both because of their importance to the general picture, and to suit those Diploma students who had chosen either the Indian or African prescribed area. Practical courses dealt woth the stone and bone implements and Cave Art of Europe and Africa, and with the animal remains, teeth, bones and ivory, of the French caves. Special tutorial practicals were arranged on sites in Asia and Africa e.g. Dorothy Garrod's Mt. Carmel and Armstrong's Victoria Falls.

Research work was divided between the Museum and the Department of Geology. In the Museum, he has continued the experimental work which Sir Francis Knowles and Professor A.S. Barnes did on the making of stone implements, and proceeding experimentally and by observation, has worked especially on the evolution of the hand-axe, using the extensive collections from the various parts of the world in the Museum and in the Department of Geology. Research of direct value to courses taught by the Museum done in the Geology Department includes a long term test on the use of fossil shells for dating strata with fossil men and their implements, backed up this year by geological fieldwork on the Yorkshire coast, and the preparation of a publication on shells from an interglacial layer in the Nar Valley in Norfolk, as well as the identification of material for the Museum. This work is to be recorded in the Annual Report of the Department of Geology and Mineraology, and is mentioned here because it is connected with our collections and teaching.

Mr Britton lectured in all three terms to students for the Diploma in Anthropology and to students for the Diploma in European Archaeology, his titles being The First Farmers in Europe, The Later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in Europe (Professor Hawkes dealing with later periods), and Methods and Aims of Prehistoric Archaeology. During the first two terms his practical classes dealt with the main technologies of the European Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, and in the third term, as already mentioned, he helped to organize the field trips and the demonstrations in different departments of scientific techniques used in Archaeology. He also gave tutorials to our archaeological students and acted as assessor for the archaeological papers in the Diploma examination. In Museum work he collected specimens for the Museum, and attended to many visiting research workers. One interesting instance may be mentioned. Professor J.G.D. Cark is working on ancient bows, and was looking for a bow described as being in the Longman collection. Mr Britton notified him that the bow was here, and arranged with Mr K.H. Walters to remove a 4-inch slice for radiocarbon dating. This Mr Walters did very skilfully and restored the damage beautifully. We await the report with interest, as this bow is one of the few of which we are not reasonably certain.

During the year he published 'A study of the composition of Wessex Culture bronzes (based on spectroscopic analyses by E.E. Richards)' Archaeometry 4 (1961) and worked on the preparation of 'The finds of the Heathery Burn Cave (Co. Durham)' for Inventaria Archaeologica, Great Britain(general editor, C.F.C. Hawkes), 10th set. He was elected to the Committee for Archaeology in the place of the retiring Curator, served as Senior Treasurer of the University Archaeological Society, and on the Committee of the University Anthropological Society. Outside the University he lectured to the West Essex Archaeological Grou, the Radley College Archaeological Society, and the Enstone Local History Circle on various aspects of Bronze Age metal-wroking in the British Isles, and took part in the Summer Conference of the Prehistoric Society in Ireland, 1961, the Spring Conference in London, 1962, and the Conference of the Council for British Archaeology in Edinburgh, 1961.

It remains to thank an old friend of the Museum, Mr G.E.S. Turner, for the great amount of help he willingly and kindly gave to us during Mr Gurden's last illness and after his death, knowingso intimately as he did the affairs of the Museum. This occurred while he too was for a time subject to hospital restraint, and we wish to record our gratitude.

As usual our oldest and most active member Mr F.J. Nipress met every situation triumphantly both in the Court and while on messenger and shopping duties, and Mrs M.E. Fowler never failed to maintain a clean and shining place in which it was a pleasure to work and to receive people.

Apart from research workers and regular students, there were 8,272 visitors, including parties from 115 schools or other organizations.

T.K. Penniman