Description
Book SynopsisDuring 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.Table of ContentsSummary
SECTION 1: BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
Chapter 1: Introduction to the project – Andy M Jones
SECTION 2: INVESTIGATIONS
Chapter 2: Results from the fieldwork – Andy M Jones and Ryan S Smith
SECTION 3: THE ANALYSES
Chapter 3: The ceramics – Henrietta Quinnell with petrological comment by Roger Taylor
Chapter 4: The stonework – Henrietta Quinnell with petrological comment by Roger Taylor
Chapter 5: The flint – Anna Lawson-Jones
Chapter 6: The plant macrofossils – Julie Jones
Chapter 7: The charcoal – Dana Challinor
Chapter 8: The radiocarbon dating – Andy M Jones
SECTION 4: INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS
Chapter 9: Introduction: Themes for discussion – Andy M Jones
Chapter 10: Structures and boundaries: The wider later prehistoric and Roman period context – Andy M Jones
Chapter 11: Inscribing the landscape and hiding in plain view – Andy M Jones and Graeme Kirkham
Chapter 12: Review and overview – Andy M Jones
