446 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 
culture in England and established the fact that this development was of a distinctive 
character and practically free from Magdalenian influences. 
Excavations in the Mendip caves and elsewhere have since confirmed these con- 
clusions, and it is now recognised that the latest phase of this developed Aurignacian 
culture is essentially an English one. 
Hitherto, definite occupation sites have been confined to caves, but four years 
ago what appeared to be an open station was located on the North Lincolnshire Cliff 
Range, in the Scunthorpe district. This has since been consistently examined each 
year, and the original conclusion proves to be correct. 
The site, though confined to a limited area, has yielded a typical series of Developed 
Aurignacian tools, including long batter-backed blades, keeled scrapers and burins 
of various types ; also microlithic blades. The Scunthorpe area has long been known 
as one of the type stations of the Azilio-Tardenoisian culture in England, and the 
Upper Aurignacian site forming the subject of this communication is situated within 
a few miles of one of the areas where pygmy tools are most abundant. The industry 
represented, however, is free from Tardenoisian influences. Pygmy tools are extremely 
scarce and it is believed to be a representative site of the native culture upon which 
the Azilian and the Tardenoisian was engrafted. Tools which appear to belong to 
the same cultural epoch have been collected on the Ridges southwards towards 
Lincoln, occurring upon the surface, together with tools of later industries, and what 
is likely to prove a second definite occupation area has recently been located in the 
vicinity of Willoughton and is under examination. 
Mr. V. E. Nasu-Witiiams.—The Early Iron Age Hill Settlement at Llan- 
melin, Monmouthshire. 
During the summer of 1930 the National Museum of Wales carried out tentative 
excavations on the site of a fortified hill-settlement at Llanmelin in Monmouthshire, 
two miles to the north of Caerwent, the site of the Romano-British town of Venta 
Silurum. The settlement crowns the flattened summit of one of the southern spurs 
of a range of low, wooded hills. The Llanmelin spur is defined on the west by the — 
valley of a small mountain stream, called the Troggy, on the east by a shallow 
re-entrant into the hills; it rises to a maximum height of 335 feet above sea-level. 
The defences of the camp in their circuit of the end of the spur cling steadily to 
the 300-foot contour-line. 
Structurally, the earthwork comprises two main parts—the camp preper, a roughly 
elliptical enclosure comprising an area of nearly 5} acres, and a narrow oblong 
‘annexe ’ with an area of about 2} acres, tacked on to one of the two longer sides of 
the ellipse. There is no direct means of intercommunication between the two parts. 
The camp is defended by a multiple series of banks and ditches, with a single narrow 
inturned entrance situated in one of the angles at the junction of the camp and the 
annexe. The annexe is similarly defended, with multiple banks and ditches on one 
(longer) side, but by a single steep bank and a ditch on the other. Entrance to the 
interior was apparently gained through an inturned entrance in the narrow side 
farthest from the camp. A remarkable feature of the annexe is a series of cross-banks 
and ditches, of the same massive build as those of the main defences, traversing the 
interior and dividing it into three separate bays or enclosures. 
The work carried out on the site during the summer of 1930 was limited to a general 
survey of the ground and the cutting of a single section across the earthwork on the 
line of its major axis. The section showed the earthwork to have been constructed _ 
directly on the natural rock. The defensive ditches were cut in the rock. They were — 
U- or V-shaped in section, ranging from 17 feet to 34 feet in width and from 8 feet to 
12 feet in depth. The banks were composed of earth and rock-fragments representing 
the upcast from the ditches. They varied from 15 feet to 25 feet in (basal) width, 
and from 4 feet to 8 feet in present height. Originally, however, they must have been 
at least twice as high. Where drawn around the steeper slopes of the hill, the banks 
were revetted on the outside with rough stone walling, dry-built. On thenorth-west, 
where the slope is steepest, the builders had made the ascent still more precipitous 
by cutting back the rock just below the defences to a vertical face nearly 6 feet high. 
Traces of occupation within the earthwork were found at four separate points— 
immediately inside the entrance to the main camp and, in three places, inside the 
annexe. At the first of these points the cutting revealed a slight occupation-layer, 
