Abstract
ON more than one occasion recently, French archaælogists have expressed admiration for the methods of excavation followed in Great Britain on such sites as Maiden Castle and St. Albans, and at the same time have regretted that a similar procedure had not been introduced into archaælogical studies in France. In a recently published report (L'Anfhropo-logie, 47, 5–6) of the proceedings at the last sitting of the Commission des Monuments historiques (Section de Prèhistoire) reference is made to the concession to excavate the fortified site of Artus at Huelgoat (Finistère) granted by the Commission to the Society of Antiquaries of London, of which the direction will be in the hands of Dr. R. E. Mortimer Wheeler and Mr. R. Radford. The report goes on to add that while the antiquities discovered will naturally remain the property of France, a greater gain will be the experience thus to be acquired of methods of systematic investigation, of which archaeologists in France have but a very faint idea, not only as regards the work of digging but also in regard to interpretation, through the co-operation of specialists, and the supreme excellence of the planning and photography, to say nothing of the preservation of the stratigraphic record. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add that in this international exchange the gain of Great Britain will be no less in the acquisition of systematized evidence which may be expected to throw no little light on the relation of the cultures of north-western France and the west of Britain in prehistoric times—a relation which recent discovery suggests may have been even closer than has hitherto been anticipated.
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British Archæological Investigation in France. Nature 141, 195 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141195a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141195a0