No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Landscapes of Stone: Contextualizing Greenstone Working and Lithics from Clodgy Moor, West Penwith, Cornwall
Abstract
Between 2004 and 2011 Graham Hill and Dave Edwards plotted nearly eight thousand prehistoric artefacts from ploughed fields across the Clodgy Moor area of West Penwith. In 2011 a project was carried out by the Historic Environment Service Projects team, Cornwall Council, the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the Cornwall Archaeological Society to catalogue and digitize all the finds recorded from the fieldwalking.The project demonstrated that some places within the project area were persistent locales which were occupied throughout the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. The results were particularly significant because they shed light on the context of the production of greenstone axes, widely exchanged around Britain and across the Irish Sea during the Neolithic, and suggest why, despite large numbers of artefacts, no greenstone ‘axe factory’ site has been found close to the potential sources of the greenstone before.
... A lithics project centred on Clodgy Moor, inland of Mousehole and just outside the project area, identified that Mesolithic activity was concentrated in well-defined areas around springheads, and that this pattern was continued and expanded upon during the Neolithic (Jones et al 2013). ...
The Cornwall South Coast Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey is part of a national programme funded by Historic England. The project was undertaken by Cornwall Archaeological Unit, Cornwall Council, and COARS, Southampton University between 2017 and 2018. The project consisted of a desk-based assessment of the threat posed to heritage assets along the coast by rising sea levels and increasing coastal erosion.
The project area extended from Andurn Point in Devon to Land's End in Cornwall and included Plymouth and the Tamar Estuaries. It included an assessment of surviving remains along the open coast and its tidal estuaries, including the intertidal zone out to Lowest Astronomical Tide, with a 1km 'hinterland' to the landward side of Mean High Water and extending up estuaries to 1km beyond the tidal extent. The project area was sub-divided according to Policy Scenario Areas (PSAs) and the Policy Development Zones (PDZs) as set out in Shoreline Management Plans for Durlston Head to Rame Head and Rame Head to Hartland Point.
The Phase 1 Desk-based Assessment (DBA) assessed the data available on the character of the historic environment within the project area, and potential threats to heritage assets, in order to design a strategy for Phase 2 (Field Survey) which prioritises areas where heritage assets may be most at risk. The project updated and added new records to the Historic Environment Records for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Devon County Council and the City of Plymouth. Overall the project added, updated or amended 2,737 records; the new sites created totalled 2,294 for Cornwall, 82 for Devon and 227 for Plymouth.
Research priorities and themes identified by the desk-based assessment are presented in the context of the regional themes and research aims set out in the South West Archaeological Research Framework (SWARF). Specific sites and areas which would benefit from further research or work are also summarised in the final report.
It is widely accepted that between the beginning of the Early Neolithic period and the end of the Early Bronze Age different regions of Britain were connected to one another by sea, but little is known about the nature of maritime contacts before plank-built boats developed during the 2nd millennium
bc
. This paper considers a series of coastal sites, some of which were first settled from Mesolithic times. From the early 4th millennium they were also associated with artefact production and the use of imported objects and raw materials. Their distribution focuses on the region of isostatic uplift in northern Britain where the ancient shoreline still survives. It is considered in relation to a new model of coastal change which suggests that these locations were characterised by natural havens sheltered behind islands or bars. The sites can be compared with the ‘landing places’ and ‘beach markets’ discussed by historical archaeologists in recent years.
The paper examines the idea of 'regional distinctiveness' using a case study of monument forms identified with west Cornwall
https://www.academia.edu/1141331/The_Neolithic_and_Bronze_Age_periods_in_Cornwall_c_4000_cal_BC_to_c_1000_cal_BC_an_overview_of_recent_developments_Cornish_Archaeology_50_2011_197_230
Synthetic overview of the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods in Cornwall from circa 4000 to 1000 cal BC.
This thesis examines the inhabitation of the lower Exe valley, between the Mesolithic and the Early Bronze Age through the evidence of a series of surface lithic scatters. Research draws on recent confident approaches to surface lithic scatters which view them as key data for understanding the inhabitation of prehistoric landscapes. Theoretically it draws on the dwelling perspective and proposes that both the contents of lithic scatters (the stone tools and debitage of which they are composed), and their contexts (the locations in which they are found) are inseparable parts of the same whole, and are implicated in the processes through which prehistoric populations came to understood and create their worlds.
Research focuses on a small study area centred on the lower Exe valley, Devon. It is one of the most significant prehistoric landscapes in lowland southwest Britain and includes a large surface lithic collection spanning the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age. It also contains evidence for a number of contemporary monuments. Several methodologies are applied to the contents and contexts of the study area’s lithic assemblages. Methodologies utilised include lithic analysis, landscape phenomenology, LIDAR and vertical aerial photography, extensive geophysical survey and targeted excavation.
Four themes are explored in relation to the study area’s archaeological record:
• The character and composition of inhabitation
• The temporality of inhabitation
• Biographies of place
• Scales of mobility and contact
Results indicate the valley floor and its immediate western edge as a particular focus of activity during all periods. Against the background of increasing intensity and extent of inhabitation between the Mesolithic and Early Bronze Age, the repeated occupation of persistent places is noted. Repeated occupation of these locales is seen as key to the development of biographies of place which in turn act as anchors for subsequent acts of inhabitation and monument building. This thesis combines the analysis and interpretation of previously unpublished surface lithic assemblages, with the results of new archaeological fieldwork. At a regional level it has enhanced understanding of the prehistory of lowland Devon. In a wider context it offers a new theoretical and methodological approach to studying surface lithic scatters, and contributes to on going debates in landscape archaeology
The present report is the fifth to be issued by this Committee in the course of 35 years' work on the petrological identification of stone implements. The four earlier reports (Keiller, Piggott and Wallis, 1941; Stone and Wallis, 1947; Stone and Wallis, 1951; Evens, Grinsell, Piggott and Wallis, 1962—hereafter referred to as the Fourth Report) were concerned primarily with stone implements from South-Western England, but also included implements from other parts of the British Isles. Since the early 1960s, when a series of regional implement petrology surveys was set up under the aegis of the Council for British Archaeology, this Committee's official work has been confined to the South-West, a region which, for administrative purposes, now comprises the seven counties of Berkshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, together with the Channel Islands. Hampshire, formerly within this Committee's area of special interest, has been allocated to the South-East, with Sussex, Surrey and Kent. The present report is concerned, therefore, exclusively with implements from the South-West, as defined above.
For five years from 1976 to 1980 the archaeology and environment of a block of landscape centred around Shaugh Moor on south-west Dartmoor were analysed prior to the destruction of some of the evidence by china clay working. The investigations began in 1976 with a survey of the field monuments and the initiation of soil, vegetation, small mammal and phosphate studies in addition to the search for peat deposits of sufficient antiquity. From 1977 the programme was determined by the encroachment of the quarries and other works, so that early in that year a group of cairns were excavated (site 10) and subsequently the first of two seasons work on a walled enclosure (site 15) was initiated. The excavation of the enclosure was completed in 1978 and in that year it was also necessary to undertake a small investigation near the northern edge of the project area on the Trowlesworthy cross-dyke (site 202) and near its southern edge on Wotter Playground (site 201). Settlements and field systems were surveyed and excavated on Wotter Common in 1979 and these investigations were completed in 1980 when the Saddlesborough Reave, which crosses the centre of the project area from east to west was also surveyed in detail and sampled by excavation.
More field work could have been undertaken on threatened areas and indeed a limited operation was undertaken in 1981 on the Saddlesborough Reave to confirm some points of detail. Instead, it was thought best to conclude the project after five years, to complete the publication of the results and to allow mature consideration of these so as to generate a new set of questions.
At an early stage the decision was taken to publish the work as a series of annual reports in these Proceedings rather than as a single monograph. The first report (Wainwright et al. 1979) set out the simple research design for the project and contained accounts of the 1976 survey and of the excavation of the cairn group.
Well-defined late Neolithic structures in lowland Britain are rare. The contents of pits with Grooved Ware have, therefore, been used to interpret both settlement patterns and economic activity in this period. Pits occur both individually and in groups, are normally circular or slightly oval in plan and rarely exceed 1 m in diam or 2 m in depth (Wainwright and Longworth 1971, 250). Most were probably for grain storage (Field et al. 1964, 367) which were later filled with refuse.
The Amesbury area, 3 km E of Stonehenge, has produced several groups of pits of this type. They include five at Ratfyn (SU 15954205) N of Amesbury (Stone 1935; Warren et al. 1936, 196), four at Woodlands (SU 151431) 250 m S of Woodhenge (Stone and Young 1948; Stone 1949), a group within a henge on Coneybury Hill (SU 13434161) (Richards 1984, 183) and others on King Barrow Ridge (SU 135425) (Richards 1984).
While central southern England is well known for its extant Neolithic monuments and for the fine artefacts recovered from some of its Bronze Age barrows, Neolithic artefacts from the region have received relatively little attention. This might be considered surprising, as the area not only witnessed some of the earliest investigations into the source of materials, notably the Stonehenge bluestones, but it also harbours some of the earliest dated ground axes in the country. This article examines the occurrence and distribution of ground axes found in Wessex when compared to other artefact types, but, more importantly, comparison with the location of extant monuments allows a rather different view of Wessex to emerge. The article will consider the influence of local resources, of flint mines such as those at Durrington, Easton Down and Porton Down in Wiltshire, and the extent and processes by which axes of non-local materials may have been introduced and dispersed across the landscape.
Fieldwork by the Dyfed Archaeological Trust during 1989–92 has identified clear evidence for the manufacture of stone axeheads at two locations on the eastern flanks of the Preseli Mountains, Dyfed: at Glyn-y-Fran, Llanfyrnach (SN 186 307) and near Glandy Cross (SN 143 266). At both sites, small quantities of lithic debris were collected from field surfaces after cultivation; unfortunately, no contemporaneous features were found by subsequent, very limited, trial trenching. In this report we describe the fieldwork at these two sites, and the resulting lithic collection, concluding that the latter represents evidence for small-scale and opportunistic exploitation of locally abundant erratics during the Neolithic. The Glandy Cross area was later a focus for the construction of ritual monuments during the Bronze Age, and there is also some evidence for continuing activity at Glyn-y-Fran at this time.
Petrological thin section analysis of some of the artefacts is reported and demonstrates a probable identity with petrological Group VIII; geochemical analysis of some of the same artefacts places the likely geological origin of these at local igneous exposures also in the Preselis. These conclusions are reviewed in the light of current discussion on the usage and origins of raw materials in later prehistory.
This paper presents evidence for intentionally structured deposition at the later Neolithic earthwork and timber setting of Woodhenge, near Amesbury, Wiltshire. Deposition is seen as a process through which a variety of connotations and symbolic references were incorporated in the monument, in addition to contributing towards a complex classification of space that served to order ceremonial and ritual practices. The evidence for formal deposition is also considered in the context of comparable, contemporary, activity at two other extensively excavated monuments in the region — Durrington Walls and Stonehenge I. Finally, complementarity and contrast in such special practices are viewed in relation to individual monument histories and the possiblity that, whilst the product of a general sacred tradition, the way in which each of the monuments was used was structured by different sets of meanings.
This paper presents a re-assessment of the date and constructional sequence of the Sanctuary, a later Neolithic timber and stone setting on Overton Hill, near Avebury. Previous interpretations involving elaborate phasing and a protracted chronology for the site are rejected. Instead, it is argued that the site represents a single or double phase monument, constructed around 2500 cal BC and associated with pottery of the Grooved Ware tradition. The character of the pre-monument activity, construction and use of the site is examined. Patterns of formal deposition, involving pottery, lithics and human bone, are recognized, and considered in the context of the site's architecture and the structured organization of space, access and movement.
The magmatic rocks of south-west England fall within the northern European Variscan fold belt; they are dominated by pre-orogenic basic—acid volcanics and post-orogenic granites, together with minor volcanics, that span the Devonian and Carboniferous systems. These major magmatic groups have played their part in the evolution of petrogenetic theory, but on a more limited scale than, say, the igneous rocks of the British Tertiary province, and generally relative to the development of the Variscan fold belt. For example, the small-volume, effusive volcanic rocks of Devonian—early Carboniferous age in south-west England were identified in the early European literature as representative of the so-called ‘spilite—keratophyre geosynclinal association’ that is, the association of basic and acidic volcanics in a deep basinal setting. They have their temporal counterparts throughout the Variscan Orogenic Belt of Northern Europe and provided the scientific battleground for argument over the primary versus secondary origin of spilitic rocks (for example, Valiance, 1960; Amstutz, 1974), rocks which we now recognize as metamorphosed basalts.
In 1984 the entrance grave at Bosiliack, Cornwall, was excavated by Charles Thomas on behalf of the Institute of Cornish Studies. It was a comparatively small example, approximately 5 m in diameter encircled by a substantial kerb. A deposit of cremated bone was found within the chamber accompanied by sherds of plain pottery from three vessels. Two radiocarbon determinations were obtained on the cremated bone. The dates were almost identical, falling between 1690 and 1500 cal bc.Because Bosiliack is the only entrance grave in Cornwall to have been excavated to modern standards, and to have had any analyses undertaken on the contents of its chamber, it is significant to the study of small chambered tombs elsewhere. This paper outlines the results from the excavations before moving on to a discussion of the use of monument and a consideration of its possible affinities with monuments elsewhere.
https://www.academia.edu/470236/Bosiliack_Carn_and_a_reconsideration_of_entrance_graves_Proceedings_of_the_Prehistoric_Society_76_2010_271-96
An archaeology of aesthetics can be more than a study of past artistic evaluation. It can be extended to encompass an understanding of styles of action considered proper and efficacious, and which drew in a knowledgeable and skilful fashion on specific understandings of the world and the order of things. Through the detail of selected depositional contexts in the British Neolithic, it is shown how the deliberate burial of artefacts and other materials was undertaken with such forms of aesthetic value in mind. In an 'aesthetics of deposition', a perception of effectiveness was intimately related to the effort and care expended upon the appropriate selection, arrangement and burial of things. While individual objects may not in themselves have been ascribed an aesthetic quality, their bringing together and arrangement in burial did serve to create aesthetic effects. In a post-Duchampian tradition they could even be seen as artworks.
The organisation of a recently used stone axe factory in the Papua New Guinea highlands is examined with respect to the concept of chiefdoms and the emergence of centralised societies in the archaeological record. The case of the Tungei illustrates the fact that acephalous tribal societies can mobilise a large workforce for co‐operative, economic ventures. It is shown that a well‐suited ideology helped a great deal to prevent the quarrying effort from becoming fragmented and that leadership involved direction rather than command.
There has been a long but sporadic history of research on stone axes in Ireland, leading to the formation of the Irish Stone Axe Project (ISAP) in 1990. The purpose of this paper is to outline the research strategy of the project and to indicate the petrological techniques that are being applied in parallel with archaeological and archival studies to classify and identify potential sources for Irish stone axes. These include macroscopic studies, transmitted and reflected light microscopy on polished thin sections and X-ray fluorescence analyses. The results of the macroscopic examination of 15916 axes indicate that one rock type, porcellanite, was the dominant source, but that a wide range of other lithologies was also exploited. Several avenues for more detailed research are highlighted. A case study of gabbro axes demonstrates the value of this systematic approach to stone axe studies, and the results of this study suggest that some of these axes are petrographically consistent with British Group I, presumed to originate from sources in Cornwall, south-west England.
The authors review the significance of bracers by undertaking a detailed examination of their morphology,fragmentation, manufacture and wear. The results have a number of implications regarding their use and value and this is supported by the use of petrographic and geochemical analyses which suggest discrete patterns of raw material acquisition. A description of the technical methodology and appropriate data tables are available at http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/woodward.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sheffield, 2000. Thesis (Multivolume)--University of Sheffield, 2000.
Regional perspectives on Neolithic pit deposition, Oxford: Oxbow Books Balaam The Shaugh Moor project: fourth report — environment, context and conclusion
- H Anderson-Whymark
- J N Thomas
- K Smith
- G Wainwright
Anderson-Whymark, H. and Thomas, J. (eds.) 2012. Regional perspectives on Neolithic pit deposition,
Oxford: Oxbow Books
Balaam, N., Smith, K. and Wainwright, G. 1982. The Shaugh Moor project: fourth report —
environment, context and conclusion, Proc. Prehist. Soc., 48, 203–78
Lithic Scatters and Landscape: the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Inhabitation of the Lower Exe Valley, Devon, unpublished PhD thesis Cornish axe factories: fact or fiction? The Mesolithic period in Cornwall
- O Bayer
Bayer, O. 2011. Lithic Scatters and Landscape: the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Inhabitation of the
Lower Exe Valley, Devon, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Central Lancashire
Berridge, P. 1993. Cornish axe factories: fact or fiction?, in N. Ashton and A. David (eds) Stories in stone,
45–56, London: Lithic Studies Society
Berridge, P. and Roberts, A. 1986. The Mesolithic period in Cornwall, Cornish Archaeol., 25, 7–34
Ancient Crosses and Other Antiquities in the West of Cornwall Guide to the Identification, Assessment and Recording of Lithics
- J T Blight
- Simpkin Marshall
- C J Bond
Blight, J. T. 1856. Ancient Crosses and Other Antiquities in the West of Cornwall, London: Simpkin Marshall
Bond, C. J. 2004. Guide to the Identification, Assessment and Recording of Lithics, London: Portable
Antiquities Scheme
Bond, C. J. 2006. Prehistoric Settlement Somerset. Landscapes, Material Cultures and Communities 4300 to 700
cal. BC, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Winchester
26
greenstone working and lithics from clodgy moor
A02 Jones:Layout 1 14/01/2014 15:39 Page 26
Naenia Cornubiae: a Descriptive Essay Illustrative of the Sepulchres and Funereal Customs of the Early Inhabitants of the County of Cornwall Interpreting the Axe Trade Power tools: Symbolic considerations of stone axe production and exchange in 19th century south-eastern Australia
- W C Borlase
- Longmans
- Reader Green
- Dyer Bradley
- R Bradley
- R Edmonds
Borlase, W. C. 1872. Naenia Cornubiae: a Descriptive Essay Illustrative of the Sepulchres and Funereal Customs
of the Early Inhabitants of the County of Cornwall, London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer
Bradley, R. 2000. An Archaeology of Natural Places, London: Routledge
Bradley, R. and Edmonds, M. 1993. Interpreting the Axe Trade, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Brumm, A. 2011. Power tools: Symbolic considerations of stone axe production and exchange in 19th
century south-eastern Australia, in Davis and Edmonds 2011, 85–98
Prehistoric Flintwork Understanding the Inhabitation of the Stonehenge Environs: the Interpretative Potential of Ploughsoil Assemblages Stonehenge, looking from the inside out: a comparative analysis of landscape surveys in southern Britain
- C Butler
Butler, C. 2005. Prehistoric Flintwork, Stroud: Tempus
Chan, B. T-Y. 2003. Understanding the Inhabitation of the Stonehenge Environs: the Interpretative Potential of
Ploughsoil Assemblages, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sheffield
Chan, B. T-Y. 2011. Stonehenge, looking from the inside out: a comparative analysis of landscape surveys
in southern Britain, in Saville 2011, 116–38
Neolithic Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland, Oxford: Oxbow Books Clarke, A. 2006. Stone Tools and the Prehistory of the Northern Isles
- R Cleal
- A Macsween
Cleal, R. and MacSween, A. (eds) 1999. Neolithic Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland, Oxford: Oxbow
Books
Clarke, A. 2006. Stone Tools and the Prehistory of the Northern Isles, Oxford: Brit. Archaeol. Rep. Brit. Ser.,
405
- T H Clough
- Mck
- W A Cummins
Clough, T. H. McK. and Cummins, W. A. (eds) 1979. Stone Axe Studies, London: Counc. Brit.
Archaeol. Res. Rep. 23
Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Cooney Engaging with stone: making the Neolithic in Ireland and western Britain
- G Cooney
Cooney, G. 2004. Neolithic axe quarries and production sites in Scotland and Ireland, in I. A. G.
Shepherd and G. J. Barclay (eds) Scotland in Ancient Europe, the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of
Scotland in their European Context, 191–204, Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Cooney, G. 2008. Engaging with stone: making the Neolithic in Ireland and western Britain, in
H. Fokkens, B. J. Coles, A. L. Vian Gijn, J. P. Kleijne, H. P. Hedwig, and C. G. Slappendel (eds)
Between Foraging and Farming, 25–42, Leiden: Leiden University
Coope, G. 1979. The influence of geology on the manufacture of Neolithic and Bronze Age stone
implements in the British Isles, in Clough and Cummins 1979, 98–101