Tool hoards and Neolithic use of the landscape in north-eastern Ireland

Summary. Archaeologists frequently suggest that the Neolithic occupants of Ireland and Britain may not have been fully settled farmers, but were, instead, at least partially nomadic pastoralists. However, human use of any landscape is more complex than the current debate suggests, and this debate has included few systematic studies designed to evaluate this issue in detail. This paper examines hoards (or ‘caches’) of flaked stone tools in County Antrim, Ireland, to consider the links between anticipatory tool storage and human land‐use patterns. Our data imply regular human movements over the study area, possibly linked to transhumant use of different altitudinal zones, with functionally and, sometimes, technologically specific classes of tools stored in different areas. However, the larger context of data on the Irish Neolithic clearly indicates that these movements were part of a way of life centred on permanent horticultural homesteads.     

The Mid‐Victorian navy and imperial defence

British Naval Policy in the Gladstone‐Disraeli Era 1866–1880 by John F. Beeler. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. Pp.xviii + 354, tables, illus. $49.50 (hardback). ISBN 0–8047–2981–6.

Birth of the Battleship: British Capital Ship Design 1870–1881 by John Beeler. London: Chatham Publishing, 2001. Pp.224, illus. £35.00 (hardback). ISBN 1–86176–167–8.

Imperial Defence 1868–1887 by Donald Mackenzie Schurman, edited by John Beeler. London: Frank Cass, 2000. Pp.xx + 192. £39.50 (hardback). ISBN 0–7146–5006–4.