SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.- H. 595 



Mr. W. A. Heurtley. — Recent Excavations in Macedonia and the Dorian 

 Invasion. 



At the village of Boubousta, in the valley of the Haliakmon in Western Macedonia, 

 a small settlement of the late Bronze (Aegsean) and Early Iron Age was excavated by 

 members of the British School at Athens in June 1927. The pottery obtained was 

 all hand-made, and decorated with elaborate geometric patterns in matt paint on a 

 red or buff ground. 



The importance of the site is that it falls into line with a series of sites at which 

 pottery of a similar kind has been found, and which, to distinguish it from the matt- 

 painted ware of the Middle Helladic period in the south, may be called ' North Greek 

 matt-painted.' Invariably associated with this pottery is a certain kind of raking 

 handle, known as a ' wish-bone ' handle, which has been shown by recent excavations 

 in Macedonia to be of Macedonian origin. Consequently, wherever this handle appears 

 it may be regarded as proof of penetration by Macedonian tribes. The stages of 

 this penetration in the Bronze Age were as follows : Thessaly (which became a 

 secondary centre of diffusion), Lianokladhi in the Spercheios valley, Thermon in 

 Aetolia, and finally Boubousta and Pateli in Western Macedonia. At the beginning 

 of the Iron Age these tribes seem to have concentrated in North Thessaly and round 

 the Gulf of Volo, reinforced by their kinsmen from Central Macedonia. 



An analysis of the pottery from Marmariani and from Volo shows that, as a result 

 of this concentration, a fusion of these various elements with a lingering Mycenaean 

 culture in Thessaly took place, and produced the Thessalian geometric style — one of 

 the earliest geometric styles of Greece. 



The distribution of the sites agrees closely with the recorded wanderings of the 

 Dorians, and it is suggested that the point of departure of the eastern wing of the 

 Dorian migration was Macedonia itself. 



Mr. 0. Davies. — The Sources of Tin in Prehistoric Greece. 



Tin being unknown in or near Greek lands, archaeologists have sought for the 

 sources of Greek tin in Bohemia, Tuscany, Spain, Cornwall or Khorassan, and have 

 supported their theories by the finds in these regions of small objects of Greek type. 

 It is, however, doubtful if in prehistoric times caravan trade was extensively employed, 

 and perhaps more likely that cultural intercommunication was by tribe-to-tribe barter 

 of small objects only. Moreover, with regard to tin, some mines have recently been 

 discovered in Greece itself near Delphi, containing a large quantity of L.H. and one 

 sherd of E.H. pottery ; though the ore itself had been completely worked out, the 

 deposit on the inside of the crucible fragments from there turned out by chemical 

 analysis to be tin. These mines were also worked in Hellenistic times, and other 

 mines near opened in Byzantine days ; as to other periods we have no evidence, 

 «xcept that if they were in use in the first century a.d. we should probably have heard 

 of them from the geographers. 



Afternoon. 



Mr. S. N. Miller. — Roman York : Excavations of 1927. 



The excavations of 1925 and 1926, as described to this Section last September, 

 had shown that the existing walls of Roman York, in spite of their apparently 

 homogeneous plan, represented work of different periods, and that, while the west 

 comer of the fortress was a reconstruction of the fourth century, there was no 

 structural work in the east corner later than the end of the second century or the 

 early part of the third. The object of the excavations of 1927 was to bring the earlier 

 and the later work into relation with one another. 



It was discovered that the fourth-century reconstruction had extended along the 

 north-west side of the fortress and round the north corner, but not beyond the north- 

 east gateway. On the north-west side trenching inside the fourth-century wall, 

 besides locating an interval-tower of that period, had revealed the existence of an 

 earlier building, probably a barrack. The position of this disused building in relation 

 to the fourth-century wall showed that the earlier defences on this side had lain 

 considerably further out. Thus the accepted outline of Roman York turned out to 

 be its outline only in the last phase of its existence. A striking feature of the 



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