SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— H. 395 



Tuesday, September 15. 



Dr. J. Pokorny. — The racial and linguistic affinities of the neolithic 

 Danubians (io.o). 



The question of the origin of the Danubians is of the greatest importance, 

 owing to the fact that they introduced domestic animals and cultivated 

 plants into Central Europe. Their anthropological remains are, however, 

 scanty, and owing to their mixing with their mesolithic predecessors, admit 

 of various interpretations. It is certain that the Mediterranean race is an 

 important element among them. Though completely submerged by the 

 conquering Aryans, they must have transmitted to them the names of rivers 

 and villages, being sedentary peasants. 



In the home of the urnneld culture in Czechoslovakia and eastern 

 Germany, which the author has shown to be Illyrian, we find many names 

 that cannot be explained from Aryan roots. Since this culture consists 

 chiefly of Danubian elements overlain by the Aryans, we may expect the 

 non-Aryan names to be of Danubian origin. It is certainly more than a 

 strange coincidence that these very names can be shown to be distinctly 

 Etruscan. Since we know that the Etruscans had absorbed the native 

 Mediterranean population of Italy in a very large degree, these analogies 

 may be due to the common Mediterranean element and give us a definite 

 clue to the origin of the Danubians. 



Mr. E. E. Evans and Mr. O. Davies. — Stone circles in Northern Ireland 

 (10.30). 



Considerable quantities of stone circles, usually in groups of four or five, 

 are found in co. Derry and Tyrone, and some in Donegal, which has, how- 

 ever been little explored. They are not known in the eastern and southern 

 counties of Ulster, so they seem to have been introduced by the Foyle 

 estuary, probably from the north. They are usually about 25 ft. across, 

 of flat slabs on edge about 6 in. high. Sometimes they contain a small 

 grave structure, and three or four types can be distinguished by the presence 

 of alignments, etc. From the evidence of distribution and of the typology 

 of the graves contained in one of them they should be assigned to the late 

 Neolithic period. 



Miss Lily F. Chitty. — The Irish Sea in relation to Bronze Age culture 

 (11. 10). 



The evidence is presented in a series of maps of type objects of the 

 Bronze Age showing their distribution around the shores of the Irish Sea 

 and extending the survey east to the Pennine passes and south to the 

 mountains of North Wales, the Isle of Man forming a focal area for the 

 overlap of types. 



A basic stone-celt culture was metamorphosed by the idea of the per- 

 forated stone axe-hammer from Yorkshire, but this scarcely affected 

 Ireland. Diverse elements were linked by trade across Britain in flat 

 bronze axes from Ireland and by traffic in precious substances. Interest- 

 ing ceramic hybridisation resulted. The Eden, Ribble, and Mersey basins 

 afforded early communication routes. Distinctive forms of Middle Bronze 

 Age implements developed in the Upland Zone of Britain. Short-flanged 

 Yorkshire axes have an instructive distribution. 



Late Bronze Age upheavals sent Scottish makers of large cinerary urns 



