244 British Association Notes and Comments. 
stated : — I have just been turning over the pages of an excellent 
journal which makes it its business to present the results of 
scientific archaeology to the general public, and my eye has 
caught three articles by three of the most distinguished 
archaeologists of the day. On one page I am caught up in the 
astonishing hyphenated word ‘ leaf -shaped-sword-culture - 
complex ’ ; on another, I see the dark phrase ‘ the diagnostic 
value of negative lynchets ; on a third, the remarkable 
sentence, ‘ These names were left by the equestrian inhumators 
who brought in the later Hallstatt culture.’ One may perhaps 
suppose that the ‘ equestrian inhumators ’ had their counter- 
part in such folk as ‘ pedestrian incinerators,’ and were the 
forbears of such distinguished sects as the ‘ aerial seventh-day 
Adventists ’ and the ' submarine Rosicrucians.’ In any case 
we may best describe this obscurantist jargon by the one 
simple word, Hokum. And, whatever may be the case in 
other branches of science, it is sufficiently certain that in 
professional archaeology at the present day, Hokum is on the 
increase. Learned and estimable young men in baggy 
trousers and suede shoes are spreading contagiously from our 
universities and are beginning to cloud their science and their 
own minds with a whole lot of unnecessary Hokum, fortifying 
themselves the while with the disastrous slogan, Odi profanum 
vulgus et arceo. 
ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH. 
Dr. Wheeler continues : — -The. remedy, could it be enforced, 
is an easy one. Could these young men- — and, indeed, some 
of their elders — but be compelled to explain their ideas 
periodically to, shall we say, the Netherwallop Antiquarian 
Society and Field Club in language intelligible to the local 
birdscarer, then could we begin to hope at length for clarity 
of expression and clarity of thought . But what in fact happens 
in all too many cases is this. A young man of ability goes up 
to one or other of the older universities and there comes under 
the influence of a highly-specialised teacher, who instils his 
own special tastes and ideas into his disciple and ultimately 
secures a fellowship for him. The youth remains at the 
university for the rest of his mortal existence, coming only 
intermittently and accidentally into contact with the profanum 
vulgus beyond its walls. I am speaking now in particular 
of my own science of archaeology, where the number of pro- 
fessional openings outside the universities is restricted to an 
extent perhaps unparalleled in any other branch of science. 
In the discussion the Chairman, Mr. Sheppard, stated that he 
was particularly glad to hear the president’s remarks, as 
for more years than he cared to remember, he had, in the 
The Naturalist 
