November 3. 19 10] 



NATURE 



23 



difficult to judge, as stone, bronze, and iron have all been 

 found. The site, however, shows promise of proving to be 

 of some importance, and a committee has been appointed 

 by the association to assist in its c xamination. 

 A suggestive paper was contributed by Mr. George 

 linch on some unexplored fields in British archjeology, m 

 iiich he directed attention to the amount of destruction 

 ot antiquities which is occurring annually, urged the estab- 

 lishment of regular and systematic oversight of great 

 I engineering works which involve excavation and removal 

 of soil, and directed attention to certain promising forms of 

 archaeological exploration, such as blown sands, peat 

 iposses, marshes, and dried river sites. 



The committee appointed to investigate the lake villages 

 in the neighbourhood of Glastonbury reported the results 

 of the work carried out at Meare, on two distinct groups of 

 low circular mounds. The excavations included the 

 examination of three dwellings and trenching with the 

 object of finding the palisading, but although the ground 

 was examined for some loo feet from the mounds, no such 

 border protection was discovered. The relics found were 

 all of the j'reatest interest and importance, and show 

 clearly that the Mearc people lived under similar physical 

 ■ rinditions and civilisation as did their neighbours at 

 astonbuiy. 



In what may be termed Mediterranean archaeology four 

 pers were presented. Messrs. A. M. Woodward and 

 ;. A. Ormerod described a group of prehistoric sites 

 ' xcavated by them in south-west Asia Minor. Nineteen 

 prehistoric mounds were examined, extending from the 

 plains of Elmeli in N.E. Lycia to Lake Kestel in Pisidia. 

 The potsherds found were mainly of a red hand-polished 

 ware, assignable to the Bronze age, but fragments of a 

 black polished ware were also discovered, some of which 

 ii;ay possibly be of Neolithic origin. Painted pottery show- 

 ing affinities to Cappadocian and Early Cypriote Iron age 

 ; fabrics were also discovered, but this pottery appears to be 

 'pdependent of /Egean influence or importation. The 

 nains of a megalithic rectangular house were found. 

 A paper on excavations carried out in Thessaly in 1910 

 15 submitted by Messrs. A. J. B. Wace and M. S. 

 ompson, the sites chosen for the season's work being 

 ~ ingli and Rachmani. On the first of these, remains of 

 olithic houses were discovered, square in plan with 

 ...ternal buttresses. Celts and vases were found, and also 

 terra-cotta statuettes, of which the male figures, rare in 

 '■ Thessaly, showed markedly phallic characters, while the 

 female were steatopygous. 

 At Rachmani houses were discovered, and a considerable 

 i amount of pottery and a few figurines. A comparison of 

 I the two excavations enables the prehistoric age in Thessaly 

 1 to be divided into four periods : — (i) Neolithic, with red and 

 white painted pottery; (2) Neolithic, with Dhimini and 

 kindred vases ; (3) sub-Neolithic, to which period belongs 

 ; the remarkable encrusted ware ; and (4) Chalcolithic, in 

 1 which period the pottery is unpainted, and the latter part 

 of it is apparently contemporary with Late Minoan II 

 and III. 



Dr. T. Ashby, the director of the British School at Rome, 



! described the excavations carried out by him at Hagiar Kim 



I and Mnaidra, Malta, under the auspices of the Maltese 



' Government. The object of the work was to discover 



! whether the excavations carried out many years previously 



had completely reveakd the ground plan and to endeavour 



to find sufficient pottery to enable the date of the structures 



' to be determined. In both respects the action was justified 



by results. \ large, hitherto unknown, roughly paved area 



was discovered at both places, and at Mnaidra subsidiary 



buildings, perhaps devoted to domestic uses, were disclosed. 



The small objects found, fragments of pottery and flint, 



corresponded absolutely with those from the hypogeum at 



Halsaflieni, so that it seems clear that Hagiar Kim and 



, Mnaidra are also of the Neolithic period. 



1 Some cup and ring markings and spirals from the 

 I hypogeum at Halsaflieni were described by Dr. Dukinfield 

 I Astley. The markings are done in red paint on two of the 

 roofs of the buildings. 



Prof. Petrie gave an account of the work carried on by 



I the British School in Egypt at Meydum and Memphis. 



At the first place the archaic sculptured tombs were 



removed, owing to the damage they had sufTered from 



NO. 2140, VOL. 85I 



native plunderers. Two of these chambers are unique, the 

 colours being inlaid in deep undercut hollows. The burial 

 chamber of the largest tomb was excavated, in which was 

 found a sarcophagus of red granite, the oldest known, 

 di-ting about fiftv years earlier than that in the Great 

 Pyramid. In the' course of the work at Meydum quarry 

 marks were found on many of the blocks. As these name 

 Ihf months of quarrying, it makes it possible to fix the 

 shifting months of the Egyptian calendar, as the season of 

 quarrying is closely fixed by the inundation. The result is 

 the fixing of the reign of Sneferu at 3200 or 4700 B.C. 



kx. Memphis work was begun on the temple of Ptah 

 The main result has been the discovery of a large shrine 

 built by Amenhotep III, and a portrait head of King 

 Amasis. Sealings were found on the palace site, while 

 pottery kilns were also carefully explored. 



Dr. Seligmann contributed a paper on a Neolithic site ii> 

 the southern Sudan, at which hammerstones, pygmy imple- 

 ments, and implements of hornstone were found, all on the 

 surface. 



.\ description of the archaeological activities in the United 

 StiJtes, as carried on by the various universities and public 

 bodies, was given by the well-known American anthropo- 

 logist. Miss .Alice Fletcher, who was appointed a vice- 

 president of the section for the meeting. 



Ethnology and Ethnography. 



Several papers on general ethnology and ethnography- 

 were presented to the section. Mr. E. Torday described 

 the Bu-Shongo of the Congo Free State, a tribe inhabiting 

 the district between the fork of the Kasai and Sankuru 

 rivers. The nation is composed of a number of subtribes 

 all under one paramount chief. The most famous of the 

 chiefs was Shamba Bolongongo, who has become the 

 national hero, and is venerated because he was a man of 

 peace and a great lawgiver and philosopher. The organisa- 

 tion of government now existing is that remodelled by this 

 chief, although it has become greatly weakened. In theory 

 the king is absolute, but his power is limited by two 

 bodies, somewhat analogous to two houses of parliament. 

 Above all is the king's mother. There is a form of 

 totemism. The people are great wood-carvers, amongst the 

 most interesting products of this art being portrait statues 

 of their kings. Five of these are known and three of these 

 are now in the British Museum, amongst these being that 

 of Shamba Bolongongo himself. 



Mr. Mervyn W. H. Beech contributed a paper on the Suk 

 of east Africa. These people, who live to the north of 

 Lake Baringo, are akin to the Nandi, but with a large 

 aboriginal element. This is especially seen in their lan- 

 guage, which, although it contains a large percentage of 

 Nandi and a little Turkana, has a considerable amount of 

 what is probably aboriginal. The tribe is divided into 

 totemic and exogamcus clans, and the social system re- 

 sembles the Nandi ; but, on the other hand, the dress, 

 ornaments, and dances are like those of the Turkana and 

 differ entirely from those of the Nandi. 



Mr. G. W. Grabham read a paper on native pottery 

 n'ethods in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He described the 

 various kinds of pots made, the most interesting, perhaps, 

 being the gobanas, or coffee-pots. Two cup-shaped saucers 

 are made and roughly dove-tailed together ; the join is then 

 smoothed down, a handle and spout added, and the whole 

 is then scraped, polished, ornamented, and baked. 



Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, in his paper on kava drinking in 

 Melanesia, explained that manv facts point to this custom 

 being indigenous and not an importation from Polynesia, 

 or, if introduced, that it has a far greater antiquity than 

 other Melanesian customs to which a Polynesian origin has 

 been ascribed. In the southern New Hebrides the method 

 of preparation resembles the Polynesian, and the name is 

 the same, so that here the practice may have been in- 

 fluenced by the Polynesians ; but in the northern New 

 Hebrides, Banks and Torres Islands, the name is indi- 

 genous, and the whole ceremonial of making and drinking 

 the infusion differs fundamentally from that of Polynesia. 

 In many cases its use has a clearly religious and social 

 character. The occurrence of the practice in the Fly River 

 region of New Guinea suggests that the distribution of the 

 custom may have been very wide, and that in New Guinea 

 and northern Melanesia kava has been replaced by betel. 



