ANCIENT MONIMEEIVIS. [TO THE ED/TOR or ems " Sescieroa.. ") Sne—Referring
to year review' (September 24th) of Vol. VI. of the ancient monument series of inventories issued by the Welsh Commission, may I mil attention to one defect, among the mane merits properly appreciated in your review, that ie, the omie- sion of altitudes-above sea-level of the sites of the more' ancient vestiges. The science of prehistoric archaeology is not " in its infancy," as some writereput it; but nevertheless it is still in the stage of observation of data, with various sorts of data not yet by any means collected; and the significance of certain sorts of data, it may be, still overlooked. Altitudes are a case in poi-nt. There are reasons for thinking that early men, at some stage of time and in some districts, lived only on- the dry ridges and hill-spurs; where admittedly so many cairns and " forts " survive. In Lower Brittany megaliths' are found submerged in tidal waters, which seems to-imply a stoking of the eaeth's crust there, and- a very long period of time since the erection of those works: In other localities the earth's crust has risen: e.g;, on the Sussex coast, where the sea is thought to have' penetrated' inland' through the valleys of the' Arun, Adur; e-c., where early' man' first built and occupied the great earthworks on the South Deems. That is to say, the cairn sites' may have' been considerably higher above- sea-level than at present; but the Sussex sites not so high.
A series of cairns; say over a regions such as Wales, if found to be of approximately the same altitude above the sea, may, from a common- cense, bet of the same period of time while as series of other vestiges, if found to be of: a different altitude, lesser or greater, may-be of a' different period of time in effect, altitude may be' an important element of the data, for firing the chronology of prehietory. It is too- much to expect every real worker in archaeology to possess a full: set of O.S. six-inch, maps. Moreover; while- some' sheets' are contoured;- other sheets have no' centotrre, only B31. merke; and on such, slseets the altitudeof a site must remain: are unsatisfactory approximation. Therefore; if the Commissioners, fee, their highly competent surveyers; would- add in the case' of every prehistorie site; or vestige; its' height ahove•O.D., it would add working value• to all future volumes of their' invaluable inventories of ancient
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