pedigree; for the recent additional work in Samos does little but confirm Dr. Boehlau's results of ten years ago.

Hellespont and Troy.-In the north, however, an important contribution has been made to our knowledge of the conditions under which arose the culture of Hissarlik and the Hellespontine area generally. Dr. Vassitch, of Belgrade, whose monograph on the Servian Neolithic site at Jablaniča appeared some three years ago (see Man, 1903, 41), has now published a remarkable summary of recent work in Northern Servia, in its bearing on the Trojan question. The earlier stages of Trojan culture are revealed as a far south-eastern outlier of a Balkan culture, the existence of which had been indicated but not demonstrated by observation on Danubian sites, and at Butmir. On the new Servian sites, however, the characteristic spiraliform decoration of Butmir only seems to be present occasionally, and the greater part of the ornament is rectilinear; but paint is used occasionally in a way which recalls the Neolithic painted wares of the South Thessalian site, Sesklo; and the evidence from Jablaniča of a school of naturalistic modelling is confirmed by a remarkable series of female figures with elaborate detail of costume and personal

ornaments.

AEGEAN INFLUENCES IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN.Outside the Aegean, quite the most remarkable advance, which is being made in archaeological discovery in the Mediterranean region, is in tracing the range of contact and influence of the Minoan phases of Aegean culture on the lower cultures of other shores. The lead was taken, some ten years or more ago, by Dr. Orsi's investigation of the Early Bronze Age culture of South-eastern Sicily; and the rapid increase of our knowledge in the west since the Cretan sites were laid open to exploration is largely due to the distinguished part which Dr. Halbherr and his colleagues have taken in work in the Aegean itself. One Italian archaeologist after another has gone back to the Western Mediterranean, knowing what to look for in the way of Minoan influences, and

knowing also, thanks to Dr. Orsi, that a trained eye would not look in vain.

Sicily.-In Sicily itself fresh cemeteries of all three "Sikel periods" (into which Dr. Orsi subdivides the local Bronze Age culture) are reported from Ortygia, Camarina, Motyke (Modica), and Grammichele. Their contents, however, do no more than confirm and expand previous impressions. Closer study, meanwhile, of the magnificent material collected in the museum of Syracuse suggests that the three Sikel periods of Dr. Orsi probably need only marginal adjustment to become correlated with the three "Minoan" periods of Dr. Evans's Aegean scheme. The third certainly corresponds almost exactly with its analogue; and the first clearly begins in Sicily, as in Crete, with a sudden wakening to new activity which has many features in common in the two regions.

In Syracuse the recent discovery of a Sicel tomb on the Island of Ortygia has brought an interesting confirmation of the statement of Thucydides (vi. 3), that the Sicels once occupied it, and were expelled by Archias and the first Greek settlers (P. Orsi, Not. Sc. 1905, 381).

Italy. In Southern Italy and in the Adriatic the widespread influence of Aegean civilisation finds abundant proof. Casual finds, such as the Cycladic vases in the Louvre, the Fitzwilliam, and the Peel Park Museum of Salford (of Early or Middle Minoan date), are now backed by the discovery, first, of a regular Late Minoan site at Tarentum, with a ceramic sequel lasting far on into phases which make touch with the "Messapian" pointed style and explain some of its peculiarities, and also with the earliest Hellenic fabrics. Second, of a Mycenaean (Late Minoan) settlement superimposed on the Neolithic culture at Molfetta, north of Bari (Arch. Anz. 1905, pp. 70-3), and itself superseded in turn by an Early Iron Age phase with a necropolis on the Murge plateau adjacent, with strong analogies with the Istrian type across the water. Third, in Istria itself, Dr. Pigorini notes signs of Mycenaean contact (B. P. It.

1904, pp. 138-41); and Mr. Dawkins's discovery of the traces of a Mycenaean colony at Torcello (already published in J. H. S. xxiv. p. 125) proves direct intercourse between the Aegean and the head of the Adriatic.

Before leaving South Italy it may be worth noting that, whereas in the Murge necropolis the Early Iron Age tombs are slab-lined cists, reminiscent of an old endemic type, there is found at Timmari, near Matera, in the interior of Apulia, a regular necropolis of incineration urns, with a culture like that of the North Italian terremare and their sequel. Here, as at Murge and so often, the Early Iron Age site is not superimposed upon the older settlement, but lies apart, as though the new conditions involved at least temporary juxtaposition of the representatives of two warring traditions.

Timmari has been systematically excavated, and is described in Monumenti dei Lincei, xvi. (1906), 5 seq., by Q. Quagliati and D. Ridola.

The former author publishes an article on the Neolithic tombs of Taranto and its district in Bullettino di Paleontologia Italiana, 1906, 17 seq.

In North Italy there is little new to record. A prehistoric tomb of the Bronze Age, though still containing flints, and with pottery of the earliest Villanova period, was found at Lozzo Atestino in April 1904 (id. ibid. 289 seq.).

An important publication on the prehistoric archaeology of Rome and Latium is that of G. Pinza, in Monumenti Antichi, xv. (1905).

Sardinia.-In Sardinia, too, Italian archaeologists are reaping rich harvests in an almost untouched field. At Alghero, near Sassari, a necropolis of rock tombs, already partly explored by Dr. Taramelli (N. Sc. 1904, p. 301 ff.), yields to Dr. Colini results very like those from the Cassibile fenestre, from the grotto of S. Bartolomeo, and from the kitchen-middens of S. Elia (N. Sc. 1904, pp. 12-3), and supplies many analogies with the Neolithic culture of Stentinello and similar sites in South-eastern Sicily, and

also with certain phases of early culture in Spain. At Busachi the survival of Chalcolithic culture is traceable down to the end of the Bronze Age (B. P. It. xxxi. pp. 176-194); but a "giant's tomb" at Sinnai contains sword and spear of recognisable intrusive type and late Bronze Age date; and at Nora, Dr. Patroni traces, in a remarkable series, the culture of the Nuraghe-builders, which has wide over-sea communications as far back as the centuries before 1000 B.C. -i.e. into Late Minoan time at least-onwards into a decadence which lasts till the arrival of the Phoenicians (as at Tharros, and at Nora itself), in or just before the sixth century. Other interments, in rock-cut pits, carry the story on into the fifth century, and show independent intercourse both with Carthage and with Campanian Hellenism, though not apparently with Greece direct: yet one grave contains a fifth-century Attic vase. A sanctuary, with an open colonnade enclosing a baetylic cult-object, and votive columns with volute-caps, affords obvious parallels with the open-air shrines and similar stelae of Idalion and other parts of Graeco-Phoenician Cyprus. A furnace for the production of zinc shows that the place depended, in part at least, on its metallurgy, and raises curious problems in the archaeology of brass (Mon. Ant. xiv. 1905, pp. 109-258).

Spain.-From Eastern Spain casual finds of Mycenaean objects have been reported for some while (e.g. PerrotChipiez, vi. p. 940, No. 5), and Mycenaean analogies have been sought; prematurely, for the tholoi of Palmetta, near Lisbon (Man, 1903, 9.); and for the Early Minoan period the cist-grave from Marseilles is well known. But the excavations of M. Albertini near Elche have shown the existence in Murcia of a native school of painted pottery of early date, which shows unmistakable evidence of Aegean influence, particularly in certain very characteristic friezes of flying birds (C. R. Acad. Inscr. 1905, pp. 611-20). Other pottery of red and black fabrics from Archena is said to recall an Early Cypriote style (Athenaeum, November 14th,

1905); but this does not necessarily indicate more than a fabric of Mediterranean red ware with askoid-and phytomorph vessels, and appropriate decorative schemes. But, as noted above, nothing stimulates discovery like knowing what to look for. Within a few months the large necropolis of Mont Laurès, near Narbonne, begins to yield similar fabrics to those described from Spain by Paris and Engel (C. R. A. I. 1905, p. 283), showing evidence of commerce before the sixth century either between Gaul and Spain, or, as seems not unlikely, between both Gaul and Spain on the one hand and an oversea focus of culture on the other. And again, in the neighbourhood of Marseilles, similar "IberoMycenaean wares, attributed by their discoverer to the twelfth century (C. R. A. I. 1905, p. 353), are clearly of the same cycle as those of Narbonne.

North Africa.-North Africa follows suit more slowly; but a beginning is being made to fill the vast lacuna in our knowledge between South-east Spain and Egypt by investigation of the ardjem tumuli, of Neolithic type, at Ain Safra, Wed Namous, Beni Ouef, and in the Sousfana and Saoura valleys (C. R. A. I. 1905, pp. 83-93, 249-53). Foreign contacts do not seem to be made out as yet; but there is much to be done among the monuments of the Numidian interior, and we shall probably hear more of this and similar work in the near future.

EARLY IRON AGE: Dipylon and Cremation.-In regard to the Early Iron Age there is little fresh to record in the west; but in Greece Dr. Poulsen's essay on "Geometrical Art" (Die Dipylongräber und die Dipylonvasen, Leipzig, 1905) deserves brief mention. It contains a full analysis of the evidence as to the Dipylon necropolis and its geometric vases, with essays on geometric art in general, and on the practice of incineration, its motives, and its spread in Greece. He seems to regard incineration as a practice which spread gradually; and not (as has sometimes been supposed) as a symptom of any intrusive population.

Dr. Dörpfeld also has concerned himself with this topic