Report of the Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum (Department of Ethnology and Prehistory) for the year ending 31 July 1963                        
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.O.L. 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 College
Administrative Secretary of the Museum and Librarian: H.P.G. Unsworth
            
During his last year of office the Curator was run over by a car, and suffered a badly broken leg, severe concussion, and various broken bruises. During his time in hospitals, thanks to the loyalty of his Staff, he was able, for the greater part of the time, to dictate or write on all major administrative matters, and to deal with main Museum duties. While still in hospital the appointment of his successor fell due, and Electors chose Mr. B.E.B. Fagg, Director of the Department of Antiquities, Jos Musum, Nigeria, who will take up his duties on 1 January 1964, the present Curator being appointed as his deputy from 1 October until then.

Mr. Fagg, an authority on African ethnology and antiquities, was educated at Downing College, Cambridge, where he first read Classics, then Anthropology and Archaeology, followed by a Colonial Service course. He was appointed a cadet in the Nigerian Administrative Service in July 1939, but on the outbreak of war joined the West African Engineers, and served for four years in the East African campaign. During leaves he undertook archaeological work in Kenya and in Abyssinia, returning in 1943 to the Nigerian administrative service. The next year was notable for his discovery of the Nok culture. Five years later he was appointed to the Antiquities Service, and was active in the establishment of Jos Museum, the first public museum in British West Africa, and in the development of the museums and monuments service in many other parts of Nigeria. This work involved the collection of much technological material on arts and industries, so that we may be well assured that the series for which the Pitt Rivers Museum has always been noted will continue in good hands. Among other work at this time may be noted archaeological investigations on the plateau of Winesfield and at Ise, and 1955 saw his discovery of rock gongs. In 1957 he became Director of the Department of Antiquities, and in 1961 was elected President of the Museums Association of Tropical Africa, and a year later to the executive committee of the International Council of Museums. Lately he has been working on a joint pilot scheme by the Federal Government and UNESCO to establish the world’s first training centre for museum technicians, which is due to open in September of this year. It is clear that we can look forward to a long and successful tenure for him as Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum and Head of the Department of Ethnology and Prehistory.

Our Occasional Papers on Technology continue to have a large demand, both in sales and by exchange for periodicals and books. As we had hoped, a considerable number of people really want exact information, tested if need be by experiment, with no possible question shirked or glided over by generalities. We have already reprinted number 2, Laura Start’s The McDougall Collection of Indian Textiles from Guatemala and Mexica, and number 4, H.H. Coghlan’s Notes on the Prehistoric Metallurgy of Copper and Bronze in the Old World. Number 3, Beatrice Blackwood’s The Technology of a Modern Stone Age People in New Guinea, has nearly all been sold, and is now being reprinted to satisfy a steady demand, and we must continue to make provision in our budget for reprinting. Following on number 9, Anthony Baines on Bagpipes, the large edition of which is still selling rapidly, the Curator and Mr. I.M. Allen were preparing number 10, A Metallographic and Metallurgical Study of Bronze Age Implements in the Pitt Rivers Museum, but in addition to the Curator’s long spell in hospital, Mr. Allen has had to spend some time in hospital and convalescence with a serious heart trouble. We have therefore planned to offer as number 10 a musicological study of some of the tape recordings made by Dr. Audrey Butt in British Guiana, with the help of Miss Joan Rimmer, and hope to accompany the transcriptions and study in the book with some long-playing recordings of the music itself, which can be bought separately by those who desire to do so. This will mean that the metallographical book is now planned as number 11 of our series.[This book will be finished with the help of Mr. H.H. Coghlan and Mr. Dennis Britton.]

This year saw the completion by Mr. Walters and Mr. Rivers of the mahogany case for our three royal Hawaiian feather cloaks, with internal cool lighting and curtains to be used except when people are actually looking at the cloaks. So many of the few remaining examples in the world are faded white by the sun that we are taking no chances of light dimming the original gold and vermilion which we have been fortunate to maintain. The serious illness of Mr. Allen, a practising archer of some skill, and the enforced absence of the Curator, have delayed the exhibition of the extent and history of archery in the world, for which we have already constructed a forty -foot run of mahogany wall cases, and again shortage of staff this year has prevented the clearance and construction of another forty-foot run with the remainder of the Hansell bequest. Neither our architecture nor type and size of collections will allow the ordinary boughten cases, and each crowded space has to be cleared and the material properly housed and stored before new construction can begin. Absence of such work allowed Mr. Walters and Mr. Rivers in intervals between assistance to lecturers and students to help

We regret to announce that Mr. Ivor Michael Allen died early in the morning of 21 October 1963, after a gallant attempt to continue his work at the Museum. He was born on 30 September 1931, and came to us as a boy of fourteen, with an intense interest in the collections, of which he came to have minute and exact knowledge. At first the Curator taught him, then he joined the City Technical College, where he gained great ability in metallography and chemistry, so much so that he became Technical Secretary to the Ancient Mining and Metallurgy Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Besides his work on the book which we have mentioned above, he helped greatly in the preparation of other books in our series and was part author with the Curator of papers on metallurgical and ancient mining subjects.
    
His drawing reached a high standard of accuracy and information, as did all his other work for the Museum. His temperament was steady, unhurried, and unruffled by circumstances, and this, with the great care and understanding of his mother, and later also of his wife, maintained him for many years longer than is usual with his type of illness. We grieve with his family in our loss, but are thankful we kept him so long.
                        
Mr. Unsworth’s need for extra space in the library after moving the large locked case of folios to the Secretary’s room and rearranging the musical instruments and re-levelling them, they built extra bookcases both for books and periodicals. This work, combined with the Curator’s re-sorting of the collection of pamphlets and notes and the transference of those on Physical Anthropology to that department, gave about a hundred feet of extra shelving. Now that Mr. Unsworth, with the help of Mr. Rivers, has rearranged the books, the result is still uncluttered and uncrowded, and looks as though it had been planned like that from the beginning. The space between the Curator’s room and one of Mr. Allen’s laboratories was used by Mr. Walters and Mr. Rivers to build a large cupboard to hold stationery above and clothes beneath, to the advantage of safety and order as well as of tidiness of appearance. This leaves plenty of space in the big entrance cupboards for our large and growing editions on Occasional Papers on Technology, which can now be kept separate from all other material.

A grant of £900 from the Committee for Advanced Studies allowed us to continue the cataloguing of our large collection of air photographs which are of great value for the study of geography, ethnology, and archaeology. We have been fortunate to gain the help of Mr. R.G. Harris and of Mr. L.W. Raitt, both of whom are well experienced from work in the R.A.F., but of course the work has to go on in their spare time, as both are employed otherwise. However, the work makes good progress, and we are happy that the collection is in such capable hands and being made available for extensive use.

This year saw the end of the payment of death duties on the estate of our late friend Mr. James Swan, and we were able to contribute £400 to Mr. James Chaplin for the study of rock paintings in East and Central Africa, the Horniman Fund of the Royal Anthropological Institute giving another £400. The Swan Fund, for study of the archaeological, historical, physical, and cultural nature of the Batwa (small peoples of Africa, e.g. Bushmen and Pygmies, and their prehistoric antecedents, wherever they may have been, in Africa, or possibly in the Mediterranean area), and primarily on field-work and its publication, is administered by the Curator, in consultation with the Professor of Social Anthropology and the Reader in Physical Anthropology, and after this year will amount annually to about £1,100, payable at the end of the year running to 28 February. The income of a further fund, about £20 a year, came to the Museum after the Curator had finished over thirty years as Diploma Secretary for Anthropology. At the request of the Board of the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography, the University took over the collection of all fees, and the payment of examiners and related matters, and transferred the residue in the Secretary’s account to the Museum, thus regularizing a position which had long been anomalous and difficult.

Dr. Audrey Butt was given leave with salary for a further expedition, aided from the Gulbenkian Fund, this time to Dutch Guiana for comparative work on what she has already done in British Guiana. She left in Trinity Term, and will return in time for Michaelmas Term this year.

Among accessions to the Museum we must first mention the bequest of our old friend Mr. F.W. Robins, who for many years had visited us regularly and had helped and advised us on our very large collection of lamps and lighting appliances. At the request of Mrs. Robins, the Curator, who was unable to go to Bournemouth himself, asked Miss Blackwood to take his place, and she spent three days in going through the very extensive collection of lamps and lighting appliances, and making a selection of specimens, many of which are illustrated and described in the well-known book by Mr. Robins published by the University Press in 1939, The Story of the Lamp (and the Candle). Like our own collection, that of Mr. Robins was large and covered the world.

Of African collections, we may mention first a very large cow-skin rug, presented to the University by the President of the Federal Republic of Cameroon on the occasion of his visit to Oxford on 7 May 1963, and transferred to us for safe keeping by Mr. Vice-Chancellor. Another gift from Africa was a collection of beadwork obtained from St. Cuthbert’s Mission, Tsolo, South Africa. This contained thirty-three pieces, mostly from the Pondomise tribe, with some Zulu work, and came to us through the kindness of Miss Graham, Secretary of the Wantage and All Saints’ Missionary Association, Cowley.

Among North American accessions were a sinew-backed bow and six bundles of stone-tipped arrows of the Californian Indian, of which we had previously very few examples. These were given by Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire. From a former donor, Miss M.B. Foote, came three paintings of Blood Indians painted by her mother Mrs. Nora Foote (née Field) in 1895.

Mrs. Robert Aitken who as Miss Barbara Freire-Marreco was, with Sir Francis H.S. Knowles, in our first course for the Diploma in Anthropology and was examined by Sir Edward Tylor, added to her very considerable gifts here twelve water-colour pictures on rice-paper from China, showing men and women in costumes with embroidery. These belonged to her grandmother, Mrs. Laura Freire-Marreco.

An Australian accession which pleases us greatly for historical reasons, and because it encourages us in our own work of re-recording about 800 soft-wax cylinders made by the late N.W. Thomas in West Africa about 1912, and by our pupil Diamond Jenness in the D’Entrecasteaux Islands, was a long-playing 12-inch disc of Sir Baldwin Spencer’s ‘Recordings of Australian Aboriginal Singing’. The originals were on wax cylinders made in 1901 and 1912, and were recorded on tape in 1957, and in their present form in 1959, through the enterprise of the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne, which owns the originals. They are accompanied by an offprint with transcription and analysis by Alice M. Moyle (Mrs. John Moyle) of the Memoirs of the National Museum, Melbourne, no. 24. The first copy arrived hopelessly damaged, but through the kindness of Dr. John McNally, the Director, we are receiving another copy. Readers of previous reports will remember that Sir Baldwin Spencer was a pupil, with the Curator’s predecessor Mr. Henry Balfour, of Professor H.N. Moseley in Zoology in 1883, and that before he took up the professorship at Melbourne the two helped to pack, unpack, and arrange the original gift of General Pitt Rivers to the University. Dorothy, Lady Young, Spencer’s daughter, has lately reminded us of the high and far-off times of great explorations and discoveries by sending us a small colour-photograph of the place near Alice Springs where stands the sacred stone used by the Arunta tribe for the increase of witchetty grubs for food. By this is a stone plaque commemorating the work of Sir Baldwin Spencer, with a long inscription from Spencer and Gillen, The Arunta, about the ceremony.

Another reminder of our history was given by Mrs. Mary Lees, the granddaughter of the late Professor Arthur Thomson. This was a small collection of objects from the Pacific, probably made by his father John Thomson, Fleet Surgeon, R.N., who served in H.M.S. Rattlesnake.

From Miss Hey of Charlbury came a welcome collection of European wind instruments, early to middle nineteenth century by French and English makers, including what is now called a musette (not the earlier bagpipe of that name, but a small oboe with no bag), two clarinets, and a ‘long clarinet’ which is either a basset horn or an alto clarinet. These were collected by her father. A valuable addition to our tape recordings was one from Mr. Foster Charlton playing on the Northumbrian bagpipes, obtained by Mr. L. Gurr of the Department of Zooology, who kindly allowed Mr. K.H. Walters to copy it for the Museum. Another gift was a copper samovar from Miss E.M. Almedingen, made by ‘Heirs of V. Lomov, Tula’. This was the most important centre of samovar makers in Russia.

The ancient yew bow found deep in the peat near Cambridge in 1885, and given by C.J. Longman to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1907, has been dated by C14 analysis to 1731 +/-110 B.C. (Beaker period) by Dr. J.D.G. Clark, Disney Professor of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge. (Code no. Q 684.)

While this report was being written in August and September, an important collection of Egyptian and African material came from our old friend Mr. G.A. Wainwright, and a collection, mainly of Zulu bead work of the late 1880s, just after the Zulu War, from his cousin Miss. E.B. Gardner. In September, to our regret, Miss Lucy Margaret Eyre, a friend of many years, died, and left to us the remainder of her Burmese collection. This is in addition to many former gifts which she had generously made to enrich the earlier gifts of Sir Richard Temple and Mr. M.V. Portman. On the whole the Burmese collections here, including the manuscripts, are of great historical value, and have been for a long time a considerable source of study by the Burmese Historical Commission. Many of them have been unknown in Burma since the devastation of the last world war. Now that Miss Eyre, Temple, Portman and Harvey are gone, it will be a problem to find anyone of an age, memory, and experience who can do justice to our Burmese collections, even to suitable entry of them in our accessions and distributed in the card catalogue.

Mr. Walters, Mr. Rivers, and Mr. Lambert have spent all available time in copying with the microfilm camera another section of our card catalogue, and now have made available for the reader the regional section on Africa and a part of that on America. The films are stored in a metal cabinet, which will ultimately be kept outside the Museum. We calculate that our catalogue of over a million cards can thus be safeguarded by a single cabinet in the unlikely event of accident such as a fire damaging the main catalogue.

Work by Mr. Walters in re-recording on tape our collection of about eight hundred soft- wax cylinders made by N.W. Thomas in West Africa and by Diamond Jenness in the D’Entrecasteaux Islands about 1912 has continued, but is a slow business, considering the amount of other work to be done, lack of suitable isolated space, and the ravages of time on the aged wax. This work has so far received the approbation of the Rev. A.M. Jones, and we should mention once more the fact that this, and our extensive work on tape-recording, and efforts to satisfy research workers and our teaching, require the appointment of a full-time ethnomusicologist and a sound-proof and isolated room. The University is fully aware of our need and of the large number (over 5,000) of musical instruments, and hopes to make suitable provision when money becomes available. As we mentioned last year, our application is supported by both the Boards of the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography and of Music. Mr. Robert Goble and Mr. Andrew Douglas of Headington continue to keep our 1552 virginal and 1770 and 1784 (1803) pianos in repair and in tune, and Mr. F.F. Shackleton (near Godalming) deals with our church barrel-organs, which he has already restored to their original and lovely tone.

Mr. Unsworth has continued to deal with the general administration of the department, including the library, with its 150 readers, both from the University and from all parts of the world, ordering all supplies and equipment and books and periodicals, checking and cataloguing them and repairing damaged ones, and arranging for binding with Mr. Maltby. He has also been responsible for the preparation and distribution of index cards for accessions to the Museum, and for the preparation of index cards for the negatives made by Mr. Walters and Mr. Lambert. The preparation of estimates of revenue and expenditure and the keeping of accounts and schedules to guide the Curator and for presentation to the auditors have been his work, as well as the first encounter with all visitors, and this work has been heavier than usual, because of the Curator’s long time in hospital and Dr. Butt’s absence on field-work, both of which have involved a good deal of extra work in the Museum and a good deal of correspondence. He visited Lydney to collect the bulk of Miss Eyre’s bequest, and arranged transport for the remainder.

Mr. Wootton resigned on 16th March 1963, and his place as Assistant Secretary and Assistant to the Library was taken by Mrs. M.A. Butler, who joined us on 18 March, after being employed by the University Chest, and quickly began adapting herself to our varied needs. Besides helping Mr. Unsworth in the daily routine of correspondence, appointments, the dispatch of our Occasional Papers on Technology, and the intake of new publications, invoicing, and recording, she has helped by preparing the index cards of entries in the Accessions books of the Museum, and distributing them in the catalogue, indexed and checked the registers of periodicals received, and generally helped students in the Library and visitors to the Museum.

We have already mentioned the work of Mr. Walters, Mr. Rivers, and Mr. Lambert in the Library and Museum in the matter of cases, shelving, and storage cupboards, as well as progress on microfilming the catalogue and musical recording. Mr. Walters, with the assistance of Mr. Lambert has photographed 240 items, made 215 prints, and 154 lantern slides, including a good deal of associated work such as the mounting of prints, cleaning and preparation of specimens for photography, among them a Haida totem pole, and preparing documentation for the catalogue of negatives and for recipients of photographs. The help of Mr. Lambert in the photographic studio has allowed Mr. Walters, now promoted to be a Principal Technician, more time to carry out his father’s former work of going through all the collections to ensure their health against moth, woodworm, and all other insect pests; and all of the technicians collaborated in the extensive work of repairing the damage caused on the main north wall of the Museum by freezing and flooding during an exceptionally hard winter. This involved the removal of many exhibited and stored objects, drying out relining and replacement, while the staff was also engaged with attendance and projection and the collection and return and replacement of specimens for lectures. In spare time Mr. Walters found, cut, and placed new veneer on the damaged lid of a large musical box in the Library, and Mr. Rivers, shocked by the quoted price of drawer-cabinets for lantern slides, built us two of twelve drawers each with partitions, fully equal to the best we could buy. A long time age we decided to start equipment of a workshop, and have added machines regularly as money allowed, and practised day-release for education other than we could give at the City Technical College, and the results have more than justified this in the saving of expense and improvement of our services. Moreover, by attendance at lectures and regular work here, the staff have become very knowledgeable about the geography and peoples of the world. We have already mentioned in this and in previous reports Mr. Allen’s work in metallurgy and archery and his minute knowledge of the collections, Meanwhile, with five on the academic staff and three mobile technicians and one for some time confined to laboratory work and the treatment of specimens at the bench, we need to take on another youngster for the general routine of duties, to learn from the others and from teaching the many activities of the Museum and what needs to be done both for the academic staff and for students and research workers.

During the past year we gave lectures and other instruction to 27 students for the Diploma in Anthropology, 64 students in the Honour School of Geography, and 8 Colonial probationers, besides the supervision of students for research degrees and giving help to many research students from various parts of the world. As in previous years, a very large part of the time of the staff was taken in collecting, arranging, and restoring material for practical classes, now so large that we cannot use the public galleries as before, but need to use a large room kindly lent by Professor Wagner in the Department of Geology. An urgent need is a large room in which about 70 students can be accommodated at once, with permanent regional arrangements round the walls, so that students can come in and really study material used in things and gaining no clear impression. Research students need to use the library, our private rooms, or public galleries for prolonged study of material specially collected, which is difficult for us, and makes uninterrupted work impossible for them. We are also much hampered by lack of a sound-proof room where instruments can be played and recording and editing can go on without disturbing staff and students who need quiet, or have to leave off work unless we make furtive arrangements at outrageous times.

The Curator lectured for a part of the year on Origins of Civilization, supervised candidates for the B.Litt., and D.Phil. Degrees, and continued, with Miss Blackwood, the editing of our Occasional Papers on Technology, both of volumes for reprinting and the provision for new numbers, as we have already mentioned. The Curator continued to serve on all the Boards and Committees named in his report of last year, when possible in person, otherwise by visits of members or by correspondence, except that Mr. Rodney Needham has become Diploma Secretary for Anthropology, Mr. K.O.L. Burridge has become Interviewer of Research Students, and Mr. Dennis Britton has replaced the Curator on the Committee for Archaeology.

As there was no Inaugural Address by the Curator, it may not be out of place to offer a brief Valedictory, as this is his last annual report to the University and, through the University, to many others in the world. We have been obliged to hand over to the new Curator with less done than we had planned, some dozen or so of the many exhibitions still needing a new arrangement with a corresponding rectification of storage, but those who read our reports will remember the grievous loss by death of colleagues, valued for their great services as well for many years of close friendship, and the hindrance caused by illness and serious accident. Past reports have noted the considerable increase in the number of staff and of students and many have watched the start and development of the catalogue of more than a million cards, the founding and development of a good departmental library and reading-rooms, pleasant with first editions and flowering plants with an adjoining garden, the founding and steady growth of our Occasional Papers on Technology, books published by the Museum for sale and exchange, the development of a well-equipped workshop, and the building and equipment of a photographic studio and drawing-room, as well as laboratories for conserving and restoration, and working on problems for publication, and for dealing with the recording and editing of musical and linguistic material. It is sometimes said that the great days for collecting are over but our reports have shown that sources are still numerous both for collections made long ago and from present-day expeditions and travels, so that it looks as though we should always continue to develop as well as to preserve. All of us have been devoted to the service of the department and Museum, and can say with truth, 'Joy is peace in having done that which you had to do; to have something to do and do it, that is happiness.'

This year saw the completion and checking by Miss Blackwood of the many cards in the Subject Index, and the compilation in duplicate of a Handlist of subject headings and sub-headings. This has an index in which appear names of objects current only in certain localities or in languages other than English. This has ben done so that anyone wishing to find a reference, for example to quaich, or a taiaha, or kantele, can easily ascertain where to look for it. An introduction explains the system of numbering used in the Museum, and gives some general information on the use of the Regional and Subject Indexes. These two copies will be bound in the same red buckram as the Accessions Books, and will be available to the staff and to research workers. As we are now very near the time when objects are either on show or in one other place, the greater part of our collections are not difficult to find, though some are awkwardly skied and need help with a ladder. Miss Blackwood has also entered, labelled, and distributed various new accessions, besides spending about three days at Bournemouth in making a selection of lamps and lighting appliances in accordance with the will of Mr Robins, and spent much time in keeping the Curator informed about duties in the Museum, and in helping visiting research students and regular pupils, and in correspondence concerning our collections. She continued to serve on the Councils of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Folklore Society and on various committees of both Councils.

 Dr Audrey Butt lectured in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms on Lands and Peoples, dealing with the Americas and Africa, to candidates for the Diploma in Anthropology and for the Preliminary Examination in the Honour School of Geography, using specimens, lantern slides, tape recordings, and cinematograph, giving short practical demonstrations to geography students and full practical classes to Diploma students. During Trinity Term she left for field work in Dutch Guiana, after arranging courses for Colonial Probations with Dr K.P. Wachsmann on African music, and with Mr William Fagg on African arts and industries, for that term. During the first two terms she also gave tutorials for students. Work on her book on the Akawaio of British Guiana continued, and she is now collecting comparative material in Dutch Guiana. On her return in Michaelmas Term she and Miss Joan Rimmer will collaborate on the next of our Museum publications which will be on the tape recordings of music she has already collected, accompanied with long-playing records.

Mr K.O.L. Burridge lectured in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms on Lands and Peoples (Asia and Oceania) to students for the Diploma in Anthropology and for the Preliminary in the Honour School of Geography and on an Introduction to the Study of Mythin Trinity Term, as well as practical classes in all three terms, and tutorials, and also collaboration in B.Litt classes. He supervised B. Litt students, and examined in Trinity Term for the Diploma in Anthropology and the Preliminary in the Honour School of Geography. Among external work he examined for the M.A. in the University of London, and gave lectures at the city College of Technology.

Mr Baden-Powell gave his usual lectures on Palaeolithic Stratigraphy and on the Mesolithic in all three terms, both for the Diploma and to students of Geology, together with a practical course in which the students handled stone implements from the most primitive to the Mesolithic, and were also able to practice to compare Upper Palaeolithic art objects and bone and ivory tools with those of Eskimo and other cultures. The course as a whole stressed a comparison in the progress of early man in Europe, Asia and Africa. In Trinity Term the students also did practical work on teeth and bones, and were shown allied work in other departments. They were introduced to radioactive dating methods and preparation of microscope slides (as in the study of Neolithic axes) in the Department of Geology and Mineralogy and methods of magnetic survey in the Research Laboratory of Archaeology and the History of Art. Work was also done in the Ashmolean Museum, and there was a field visit to Avebury, West Kennet and Stonehenge. Students were given individual tuition and short tests throughout the course as needed. When time allowed Mr Baden-Powell was able to continue his own work on the origin and evolution of hand-axes, comparing the theories of Hazzledine Warren and Leakey, and making a detailed study of the work of the late Sir Francis H.S. Knowles, Westlake's collection from the Auvergne, and Sandforth's recent revision of Oxford implements now in progress. On the geological side, Mr Baden-Powell has finished his editorial work with Dr K.P. Oakley on the Pliocene and Pleistocene part of the International Lexicon of Stratigraphy, and has helped with inquiries about the Holocene deposits of the River Severn, the extinct Greek City of Sybaris, Weyland Smith's Cave, and Eskimo stone circles in Greenland, as well as continuing his general work on the use of marine shells to date events in the evolution of Man.

Mr Britton lectured to Diploma Students in Anthropology and to students for the Diploma in Archaeology in Michaelmas Term on The First Farmers in Europe (the origins of agriculture in the Near East, and the earliest Neolithic cultures in Europe), in Hilary Term on The Later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in Europe, leaving later periods to Professor Hawkes's lectures, and in Trinity Term on Methods and Aims of Prehistoric Archaeology. In the first two terms he gave practical courses on the material culture of the Neolithic in the Near East and Europe and the Early Bronze Age in Europe and in Trinity Term joined with Mr Baden-Powell in visits with classes to the Ashmolean laboratories and field monuments of the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Wiltshire. He gave tutorials throughout the year, acted as external examiner for the Academic Postgraduate Diploma in European Archaeology in the University of London, served on the Committeee for Archaeology in Oxford, and the Council of the Prehistoric Society, and has in press for the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society xxix, December 1963, Part 1 of a long paper on the earliest phases of copper and bronze metallurgy in Britain. He also gave a lecture to the spring conference of the Prehistoric Society on Traditions of Organization and Technology in the Late Bronze Age Metal-working of Britain, and reviewed for Antiquity, xxxvii, June 1963, Junghans, Sangmeister, and Schroder, Metall-analysen kupferzeitlicher und fruhbronzezeitlicher Bodenfunde aus Europa. He took an active part on the organizing committee of the spring conference of the Prehistoric Society, contributing to its exhibition, in 1963, and spent a good part of September 1962 in studying the collections of the archaeological institutes at Amsterdam and Groningen, Leiden, and Assen, as well as various field monuments of the Netherlands.

It remains to thank again our oldest and liveliest member Mr F.J. Nipress for his imperturbable and good-humoured management of the Court and of duties as shopper and messenger, and Mrs M.E. Fowler for the cheerful way in which she keeps the museum and library clean and shining and a place in which it is a pleasure to work and to receive people.

Apart from research workers and regular students, there were 8,344 visitors, including parties from 81 schools and other organizations.

T.K. Penniman