Gold Fibula,Found at Odiham,Hampshire

A cropmark complex of ring-ditches and square-plan ditches in the Vale of Clwyd, North Wales has been partially excavated. Mesolithic activity is represented predominantly by lithic waste in local cherts. A small bronze age cemetery, dated to between about 1660–1400 b.c., comprises a large and small ring-ditch and a ‘flat cemetery’ associated with Beaker inhumation burials, and by cremation burials, of which some were found with Food Vessel Urns. The larger ring-ditch was superseded by an undated rectangular enclosure with causeways at the centre of each side. An early medieval inhumation cemêtery, with associated dates of about a.d. 510 and a.d. 860, was established to one side of the larger ring-ditch. A small proportion of the graves are enclosed by square-plan ditches, two of which had a causeway at the centre of the eastern side. Generalized parallels are drawn with other sites in eastern and northern Britain and within Wales itself.     

An English approach to the American frontier

Studies of frontier migration in the American west are hampered by lack of data because few records contain evidence of reasons for migrating or evidence of decisions taken by individual migrants or groups of migrants. An extensive collection of letters from two English brothers who, in 1882, migrated to an English farm colony in north-west Iowa, then moved into horse-raising in Wyoming, then returned to Iowa, and later went back to Wyoming, provides an unusually illuminating case study in frontier migration. The letters reveal reasons for the frequent moves in the west over a seventeen-year period ending with the brothers' successful establishment as sheep ranchers in Wyoming. They show how each shift was conditioned by their previous experience of economic difficulties and by their persistent reliance upon contacts in England.     

ROME'S Rise to Power. Geochemical Analysis of Silver Coinage from the Western Mediterranean (Fourth to Second Centuries BCE)

We present the results of geochemical analysis of silver coinage issued by Rome and dated between the fourth and second century BCE, which are complemented by data of coinage issued by Carthage, the Brettii, and the Greek colony of Emporion. Each of these minting authorities represents one of the major parties involved in the struggle for hegemony in the fourth to second centuries BCE Western Mediterranean region. This study retraces how the metal supply shifts in response to the transforming power relations and how this change is related to Rome's rise to the virtually uncontested ruler of the region.