Through the generosity of Miss Kenyon it is possible to add an appendix to the report on the Jericho excavations published in the BA just a year ago.1 The 1954 season at Jericho was the sole responsibility of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, although we are all happy that in the season ahead the American School will once more zollaborate.
Work during the first three months of 1954 was continued in all the areas opened up during the first two campaigns. In addition, two new trenches were begun, both running in a roughly north-south direction, one at the north end and one at the south end of the mound. Their purpose was the same as that of the initial trench (Trench I) through the western defenses of the city-to check the series of city walls, their construction and dates, and further, by means of the city wall evidence to estimate the extent of the city in the various periods. The completion of the two new trenches will require at least two more seasons but interesting new evidence has already been forthcoming. The search for tombs and their careful excavation has continued. In describing the new evidence we shall follow the chronological method used in the earlier report.
A. The Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods. The sounding begun in 1953 below the pre-pottery Neolithic structures of Garstang's northern trench was continued downwards another meter or so through "mesolithic" remains. In charge of this area during the 1954 season was Miss Dorothy Garrod, whose experience at the Mount Carmel caves and elsewhere made her the best possible overseer for such a project. Flint chips occurred in this occupational debris below the pre-pottery Neolithic levels but apparently no worked tools which can be considered typical of any culture. Work in this sounding had to be suspended, however, when a structure and floor appeared whose continuation east and west beyond the limits of the narrow trench made it preferable to wait until a larger area could be cleared.
The pre-pottery Neolithic culture at Jericho still continues to provide the greatest surprises. Something more can now be said of the plastered and modelled human skulls found in 1953.2 It will be remembered that they were found jumbled together between two walls and between two floors. The lower floor belonged to the building in which the skulls had apparently been set up in an honoured place. This year a large part of this building was excavated. It is a house whose architecture is typical of the period-straight, well-constructed walls enclosing rectangular rooms,