28 JANUARY 1944, Page 20

Prehistoric Britain. By Jacquetta and Christopher Hawkes. (Pelican Press. 9d.)

IN this brilliant book the well-known archaeologists, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkes, have told the fascinating story of Prehistoric Britain, that is Britain from the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Ages to the Tog Age (c. 550,000 B.C. to A.D. 43). Naturally, the period covered

between about 550,000 s.c. to about tom° s.c. lacks all detail except for certain roughly ascertained geological facts ; but from to,000 B.C. onwards the stream of knowledge rapidly widens and deepens. Thanks to the indefatigable labours and enthusiasm of innumerable amateurs and pioneers, the facts accumulated during the last hundred years or so have enabled scientific archaeologists of today to form an astonishingly vivid and circumstantial picture of the pre-Roman inhabitants and immigrations of the British Isles. Here we have the results of their labours chronicled in a fascinatingly human story. It is a book of the first importance, which every man and woman in the country ought to read.