Abstract
MR. PEAKE introduces us to his county with an apology. He points out that it possesses no monuments of outstanding importance—only two, the White Horse of Uffington and Wayland's Smithy, are widely known—and there are no ancient sites of exceptional interest within its borders, Silchester, by the vagaries of county boundaries, being assigned to Hampshire. Yet an area which has the Thames as one of its limits, lies next to Wiltshire, the great centre of prehistoric interest, and includes geographically, if not administratively, one of the important cities of the Roman organisation, could scarcely fail to afford material of archaeological significance. In fact, it has produced evidence bearing on every period which falls within the scope of the “County Archæologies”, from the earliesttwo eoliths are said to have been found at Boxford—to the Norman conquest, when Abingdon was a monastic centre of importance and the county was fully occupied. On certain points, indeed, its archæological material is of considerable moment: such, for example, as the epipalæolithic culture of Thatcham, and the evidence from Wittenham and the neighbourhood, which shows continuous occupation through Romano-British and Saxon times. Questions of chronology depend upon the interpretation of the evidence of the terraced gravels of the Thames, but as Mr. Peake says, these must be regarded as still open. A carefully compiled gazetteer gives details, with bibliography, of all the archæological finds in the county, arranged under parishes.
The Archæology of Berkshire.
By Harold Peake. (The County Archæologies.) Pp. xi + 260. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1931.) 10s. 6d. net.
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The Archæology of Berkshire . Nature 129, 331 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129331a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129331a0