The second point of interest concerns the phase of woodland regeneration. At several sites in southern England, which comprise long barrows and causewayed enclosures, snail analysis of ditch sediments has demonstrated an episode of woodland or scrub regeneration, often associated with late Neolithic or Beaker occupation horizons: e.g. South Street (Evans, 1968), Wayland's Smithy and Nutbane (M. P. Kerney, pers. comm.), Horslip (Connah and McMillan, 1964), Thickthorn Down (Drew and Piggott, 1936), Knap Hill (Connah, 1965, 19) and Windmill Hill (Smith, 1965). In these cases it is sometimes held that regeneration is a local phenomenon engendered by the favourable environment of the ditch and confined to it. But at Northton there can be no question of this, for the shells in the Beaker II horizon are probably culled from a wide area by wind action, and the virtual absence of open-country species is thus good evidence for widespread woodland regeneration on this site in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC.

RICHARD BURLEIGH, J. G. EVANs and D. D. A. SIMPSON