The second Archaeology in Cornwall day school will be held at Truro College on Saturday, May 9th, 2009.

This Day School, the second of a series, provides an unique opportunity for all interested in Cornwall's archaeology to hear presentations from those actively investigating the county's past. Insights into current work will cover prehistoric pottery, Iron Age enclosures and medieval churches as well as discoveries in the laboratory. There will be time for questions and discussion. The day will be chaired by the Society's President Tony Blackman.

Help Clear Up Important Sites in Penwith

Our Penwith Area Representative, David Giddings, is working with the Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network (CASPN) and the Friends of Cornwall's Ancient Sites (FOCAS) and has asked for help with clear ups as follows (all start at 2pm):

March 15 and October 18, Bodrifty Settlement

(445 353), meet in lane beside settlement

April 19 and November 8, Bosullow Trehyllis

(409 342), meet at Trehyllis Farm

For further details contact 01736-787230, dave@cornishancientsites.com

www.cornishancientsites.com

"New work in Devon and Cornwall Prehistory: a day of papers to celebrate the contribution of Henrietta Quinnell to the archaeology of the peninsula".

There will also be a field day at Tintagel on the 11th in honour of Henrietta.

The programme will be sent out with the June Newsletter, but please reserve the dates now.

AGM Saturday, 18th April, 10.30 am

County Hall, Truro, TR1 3AY

2.15 pm AGM Lecture:   

Simon Mays, Human Skeletal Biologist, English Heritage

Wharram Percy and Human Bone Analysis

Cornish Archaeology - Annual Journal of the Society

Volume 43& 44, 2004-5

Published, March 2008, 215pp

For more information see the Publications section

Graeme Kirkham and Nigel Thomas will lead a second short trip to Brittany over the weekend of 14-16 March 2008.

The detailed itinerary has not yet been finalised but possible candidates for visits include a passage grave complex, a cliff castle, a Roman-period salt-working site and some interesting Breton churches. We will carry out a recce in advance to make sure the itinerary is feasible.

Find out more under 'Guided Walks'

On Friday, 31st August 2007, we attended the Esethvos Kernow (the Eisteddfod of Cornwall) and showed off our new display stand.

Shown below is Valerie Jacobs convincing a visitor to join the Society.

The Winter Lecture Season programme has now been published.  Full details together with details of practical activities and training are in Lectures

The Somerset Heritage Service has produced a 396-page document covering the current state of archaeological research in the South West with plenty of data on Cornwall.

Highly recommended.

http://www.somerset.gov.uk/somerset/cultureheritage/heritage/swarf/publications/

The square earthwork seem from the air in 1989 (CAU/ABP/F19/108)
Steve Hartgroves, Historic Environment Service, Cornwall County Council

Archaeologists working for the Historic Environment Service (HES) of Cornwall County Council have confirmed that a square earthwork sited on a promontory overlooking the River Fowey not far from Restormel Castle is a Roman Fort. This is only the second Roman fort confirmed in the County and the discovery will have major implications for interpretations of the period.

Interest in the site was recently rekindled by the results of fieldwork carried out by Jonathan Clemes of St Austell; his finds joined an assemblage of material recovered over several years which includes imported Samian pottery, Roman coins, fragments of stone querns, glassware, gaming counters and slag from iron smelting.

The Duchy of Cornwall provided funding for an assessment of the finds assemblage which was carried out by Carl Thorpe of the HES. This revealed that, when compared to other excavated sites of the Iron Age and Romano-British periods in Cornwall, the site has produced an unusual quantity of ‘exotic’ material imported from the Continent and areas bordering the Mediterranean. In ‘native’ sites, the imported wares account for less than 25% of the total whereas at Restormel the exotic material accounts for over 75% of the total. The only comparable site is the Roman fort at Nanstallon, west of Bodmin, excavated in the 1960s by Aileen Fox and William Ravenhill.

The possibility that the earthwork was a Roman fort is not a new idea, but it had been classified as a native defended settlement when it was Scheduled in 1973. Since that time several episodes of fieldwalking have dramatically increased the quantity of finds and the preponderance of exotic material has become more apparent. In order to test the hypothesis a geophysical survey was carried out by Peter Nicholas and a team of volunteers from Saltash Heritage (Tamarside Archaeological Survey). The magnetometer survey has now provided conclusive evidence that the earthwork is indeed a Roman fort.

The results of the magnetometer survey, Saltash Heritage (Tamarside Archaeological Survey)

The survey shows that the site comprises two sets of banks (and ditches) surrounding a rampart which defines an internal area approximately 60 by 70 metres, with opposed entrances in all four sides. This is closely comparable to the Roman fort at Nanstallon; they are similar in shape and size, and in the arrangement of their entrances, but the Nanstallon fort had only a single ditched rampart, and excavations showed that occupation was relatively short lived, lasting perhaps for a decade or two in the latter part of the first century, whereas the finds assemblage indicates that the fort at Restormel was occupied continuously from the first to the early fourth centuries AD.

At Nanstallon, excavations revealed evidence for an HQ building (the Principia) and Commandant’s residence (the Praetorium), barrack blocks, workshops and stables. The magnetometer survey at Restormel produced faint traces of structures in the interior and three areas of high readings which are thought to indicate burning (ovens or furnaces), and it is planned to carry out a resistivity survey to clarify the fort’s internal layout.

With two forts now recorded, it becomes feasible to speculate about their wider geopolitical context . Both forts are sited on hilltops overlooking the highest navigable point of a major river – Nanstallon overlooks the river Camel which flows north into the Bristol channel at Padstow, and Restormel overlooks the river Fowey which flows south into the English Channel at Fowey. It is possible that these sites were reached and supplied predominantly by ships sailing (or rowing) along the coast rather than overland, which would mean negotiating the inhospitable uplands of Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor. However, a number of forts and marching camps which have been recognised in Devon (at Okehampton for example) indicate that soldiers of the 2nd Augustan legion were also extending their influence overland westwards from their base at Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) in the first century. The all-important Tamar crossing, though, has yet to be located.

[Click on the image for a larger version]

The two forts are separated by a ridge which forms the central spine of Cornwall, along which a prehistoric ridgeway is though to have run, but a short distance of only 5 miles (9 km) separates the two. They are strategically sited on either side of this watershed and would be able to ‘oversee’ traffic moving east - west along the ridgeway and north - south along the two river systems. It is worth noting that Castle Canyke, one of the county’s largest Iron Age hillforts sits astride this ridge overlooking the present A30 (Bodmin Bypass).

The discovery of the new fort has also highlighted another aspect of the Roman period in Cornwall which has long occupied local archaeologists, even more so since the designation of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site. The discovery of iron slag among the finds assemblage at Restormel suggests that iron smelting was being carried out in the immediate vicinity of the fort. At the moment there is no direct link between the fort and the slag, and they may be separated in time by many centuries. However, it may be no coincidence that Restormel fort is located just 300m from a prominent iron lode, known to have been exploited in the post-medieval period. Nanstallon fort is located within 2 miles of deposits of silver, lead, tin and copper, and crucible fragments and a single drop of silver-rich slag found during the excavations seems to indicate that the Roman military were prospecting for workable deposits of minerals in this locality. The presence of an iron lode one mile to the west of Nanstallon fort now takes on an added significance.

Further fieldwork is planned. We hope to be able to return to the site to extend the area covered by the magnetometer survey, and to carry out a resistivity survey to clarify the internal layout of the fort. A survey of the iron lode is also planned and it is hoped that we might be able to associate the fort with the ironworking. Documentary research is also required to investigate the history of iron mining in the area.
...............................................................................................................................................

Thanks are due to the farmer, Steve Hutchings, for allowing us access to the site; to the Duchy of Cornwall, and to the Duke of Cornwall’s Benevolent Fund for supporting the artefact assessment; to Shane Gould of English Heritage for arranging the Section 42 licence for the survey; to Peter Nicholas and the Saltash Heritage (Tamarside Archaeological Survey) for the geophysical survey, to Carl Thorpe of HES for the Artefact Assessment, and to colleagues from the Historic Environment Service who shared their experience, expertise and knowledge. The project was devised and coordinated by Steve Hartgroves and John Smith of the HES Information Team.

SH & JRS
Historic Environment Service
Cornwall County Council
17 May 2007

(Submitted to British Archaeology)

12 January 2007

Cornish Archaeology, Volume 25 1986 - Now available on line in full

Silver Jubilee Volume

The Editorial of Volume 25 begins:

Volume 25 of Cornish Archaeology departs temporarily from its normal format. To celebrate the 25th birthday of the formation of the Cornwall Archaeological Society (from the honoured ashes of the old West Cornwall Field Club, the 50th anniversary of whose foundation we celebrated in 1985) the usual array of excavation and survey reports has been replaced by a series of specially commissioned papers that together review the archaeological achievements of the past quarter century.

Taken together these papers provide an excellent summary of archaeology in Cornwall and, recognising that Volume 25 is long out of print, the Society is publishing these in full as a reference for students of the subject.  We know that a lot has happened in our understanding of archaeology since 1986, however, there is still much to be learned from this volume.  We hope you enjoy it and welcome your feedback.

Click here to go the Contents of Volume 25.