Andy M. Jones - Böcker

Excavation of a Scheduled burial mound on Whitehorse Hill, Dartmoor revealed an unexpected, intact burial deposit of Early Bronze Age date associated with an unparalleled range of artefacts. The cremated remains of a young person had been placed within a bearskin pelt and provided with a basketry container, from which a braided band with tin studs had spilled out. Within the container were beads of shale, amber, clay and tin; wo pairs of turned wooden studs and a worked flint flake. A unique item, possibly a sash or band, made from textile and animal skin was found beneath the container. Beneath this, the basal stone of the cist had been covered by a layer of purple moor grass which had been collected in summer. Analysis of environmental material from the site has revealed important insights into the pyre material used to burn the body, as well as providing important information about the environment in which the cist was constructed. The unparalleled assemblage of organic objects has yielded insights into a range of materials which have not survived from the earlier Bronze Age elsewhere in southern Britain.

During November and December 2014, Cornwall Archaeological Unit undertook a programme of archaeological excavation in advance of construction of a road corridor to the south of Newquay. Evidence for Middle Bronze Age occupation took the form of a hollow-set roundhouse; however, the majority of the excavated features have been dated to the Iron Age and Roman periods. The area was enclosed as fields associated with extensive settlement activity throughout the last centuries cal BC into the third century AD.The excavations revealed the character of settlement-related activity during the later prehistoric and Roman periods. The evidence strongly suggests growing intensification of agriculture, with ditched fields and enclosures appearing in the landscape from the later Iron Age and into the Roman period.The results shed light on later prehistoric and Roman practices involving the division of the landscape with ditched fields and enclosed buildings. Many of the structures and pits were found to be set within their own ring-ditched enclosures or hollows, and the field system ditches were in some instances marked by ‘special’ deposits. As has previously been demonstrated for Middle Bronze Age roundhouses, structures could be subject to formal abandonment processes. Gullies and hollows were deliberately infilled, so that they were no longer visible at surface. However, unlike the abandoned Bronze Age roundhouses, the later structures appear to have been flattened and not monumentalized. In other words, buildings could be both etched into and subsequently erased from the landscape and thereby forgotten.This volume takes the opportunity presented by investigations on the Newquay Strategic Road to discuss the complexity of the archaeology, review the evidence for ‘special’ deposits and explore evidence for the deliberate closure of buildings especially in later prehistoric and Roman period Cornwall. Finally, the possible motives which underlie these practices are considered.Includes contributions by Ryan S Smith, Dana Challinor, Julie Jones, Graeme Kirkham, Anna Lawson-Jones, Henrietta Quinnell and Roger Taylor.

Later Prehistoric Settlement in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly reports on the excavation between 1996 and 2014 of five later prehistoric and Roman period settlements. Three of the mainland sites – Killigrew, Nancemere and Higher Besore – are located in central Cornwall, near Truro, with the fourth, at Porthleven, situated on the south coast in west Cornwall. The fifth settlement, Porth Killier, is on the island of St Agnes on the Isles of Scilly. All the sites were multi-phased, revealing both similar and contrasting patterns of occupation stretching from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age and beyond. Despite having broadly comparable chronological sequences, there are considerable differences in both the tempo and intensity of occupation, and significant contrasts in practices associated with them. Significantly, all four mainland sequences culminate with an enclosed settlement in the Late Iron Age and especially during the Roman period, a time of significant economic and social change following the conquest. During this period there continued to be differences in the character of occupation. Notably two of the enclosures seem to have been strongly associated with industrial activities, including metalworking at Killigrew, suggesting that the working of iron may have been a controlled or ritualized activity undertaken within a dedicated space.The volume presents the results from each of the five settlement sites, before reviewing the key themes which have emerged from the investigations.

Close to the Edge reports upon the recent excavation of five Early Bronze Age barrows undertaken by Cornwall Archaeological Unit. Three of the five sites are located close to the coast and two are located in an elevated inland ridge with sea views. All are complex monuments which reveal episodes of remodelling and reuse, stretching from the first half of the second millennium BC into the Iron Age, with one site producing evidence for activity in the Roman period. A notable feature of the investigated barrows is the range of practices associated with them. Interestingly, only one of the barrows seems to have had a primary function as a place of burial, with others containing only token amounts of human bone, or none at all. Despite being broadly comparable monuments with similar radiocarbon determinations, there are also major differences in both the form and intensity of activity between the barrows, and there are significant contrasts in practices associated with them.The volume presents the results from each of the excavated barrows. A final synthetic section then reviews some of the major themes which have emerged from the excavations.