606 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 
it is important, is not of the superimportance of those already found. Their 
presence in river terraces is of considerable moment, as a careful study of the 
rate of erosion of the river gives us data for an estimate of the interval between 
our present civilisation and theirs. 
8. An Account of the Discovery of Human Skeletons in a Raised Beach 
near Gullane. By Professor A. Kerru and Dr. EK. Ewarr. 
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9. 
The following Papers and Report were read :— 
1. Excavations at Halos in Achaea Phthiotis. 
By A. J. B. Wacr, M.A., and M. 8. Tuompson, M.A. 
Excavations were carried on at two places, just outside the city wall, where 
a group of tombs was discovered, and at a tumulus about fifteen minutes away. 
The tombs close to the wall were with one exception, which was circular in plan, 
all rectangular cist tombs built of slabs. The vases found in them all belong to 
an early phase of the ‘ geometric’ style in which the designs, though geometric, 
recall the decoration of the preceding period. The only metal object found was 
a bronze pin with twisted top. Similar tombs also belonging to the early Iron 
Age have been found at Theotoko in Southern Magnesia and in Skyros. 
The tumulus, which forms one of a group, was composed of large river-worn 
stones with only a small admixture of soil. It was found to conceal sixteen 
separate pyres. Each pyre was covered by a cairn of larger stones, usually 
unhewn slabs, and beneath these were a heap of pottery, fragments of bone, iron 
weapons, or bronze fibule. Six pyres contained, besides pottery, which was 
common in all, bronze fibule and only small iron knives; the remaining ten 
pyres contained no fibule, but swords, spears, and knives of larger size. These 
ten seem therefore to have been men’s pyres and the others to have been those of 
women. A man’s equipment was a long sword, a spear, and two or more knives, 
all of iron; there was no trace of a helmet or of body armour. The pottery 
found all belongs to the ‘ geometric’ age, but is distinctly later in style than that 
from the tombs by the city wall. 
2. Ona ‘ Find’ of Bronze and Iron Javelins in Caria. 
By Professor W. Ripceway, F.B.A. 
In the ‘Early Age of Greece,’ vol. I., I argued (1) that the culture of the 
Early Iron Age of Central Europe was that of the Homeric Acheans, who had 
brought it with them into Thessaly, where they were settled in Homeric times; 
and (2) that the older race and those who could not obtain the new metal had 
to content themselves with weapons and implements of bronze; and that (3) there 
was consequently a distinct period of overlap when bronze and iron weapons were 
in use side by side. This accounts for the fact that whilst the weapons in the 
hall of Odysseus are collectively termed sideros, yet in descriptions of individual 
combats the phrase ‘smote him with the bronze’ (chalkos) is generally used. 
As the language of Homer is that of the older race, whose bards sang the praises 
of the Achean lords, it is natural that poetic diction used the name of the older 
metal for weapons long after the new was in use, as indeed is the case in every- 
day language—e.g., we speak of ‘instruction in musketry,’ though the Brown Bess 
musket has not been used in the Army for some sixty years. The tombs of East 
Crete have already given evidence for the overlap of bronze and iron swords. 
The ‘find ” now described was discovered at Cnidus, in Caria, in 1911. It con- 
sists of six bronze javelin-heads, five iron javelin-heads of exactly the same 
type, a small iron knife, and ene or two iron fragments, and a small whetstone 
