Placed Deposits (Archaeology)

This paper considers the role and persistence of long term memory in communities in the south west peninsula and the way that it affected their disposition and practices as they occupied and engaged with places from the earliest Neolithic period c 4000 cal BC down to the centuries of first millennium cal BC. Case studies from recent archaeological excavations and new analyses of older excavations are drawn upon to give examples of how communities used and at perhaps at times manipulated long held traditions as means of engaging with particular places or for establishing new types of sites in the landscape. Examples include the digging of pits, the continuing engagement with ‘natural’ features and ‘ancient’ monuments and the reuse of roundhouses.

In December 2013 archaeological investigations were carried out at Quintrell Downs, near a large cropmark enclosure at Manuels, in advance of the construction of a housing estate. A few small pits were uncovered and were notable for containing selected stones. One pit contained some probable cremated human bone, which gave a radiocarbon determination in the period 997–844 cal BC. This paper considers the wider context of the pit and its significance and also discusses the undated pits, which are also likely to have prehistoric origins.

Following an archaeological assessment and three geophysical surveys, a succession of archaeological excavations, test pitting and monitoring was carried out by Historic Environment Service, Cornwall County Council Council at the site of the Combined Universities in Cornwall’s campus at Tremough, Penryn between 2000 and 2004. Excavations were focused upon the investigation of a Neolithic flint scatter and pit groups, including some containing Late Neolithic Grooved Ware, together with Early to Middle Bronze Age timber post-rings and a small enclosed Romano-British settlement, situated upon a plateau overlooking the Fal estuary. Subsequent smaller-scale monitoring and test pitting was carried out at the east end of the plateau and on its slopes. This work confirmed the results from geophysical survey, which had indicated that there was a marked decline in significant archaeological features beyond the plateau.

Twenty-two radiocarbon determinations ranging between 3950 BC and AD 1160 were obtained. These dates fell into four major groups; the Early Neolithic, the Late Neolithic, the Early to Middle Bronze Age and the Later Iron Age to Romano-British period. A single earlier medieval date was also obtained from a field ditch.

This paper considers the evidence for placed deposits in later medieval Christian contexts, focusing particularly on parish and monastic churches.  My aim is to consider placed deposits within the contextual framework of Christian ritual, to trace patterns in the types of object deposited in churches and to begin to establish frameworks of reference in which they may be understood.  These practices are not recorded in medieval documents and have therefore fallen outside the orbit of historical scholarship on popular religion and magic.

Archaeological monitoring during the redevelopment of playing fields at Penryn College, Cornwall, revealed activity dating to the Late Neolithic and to the Iron Age – Romano-British period. The Neolithic evidence took the form of pits containing Grooved Ware, the eighth occurrence of this pottery type to be found in Cornwall. Three radiocarbon dates were obtained, indicating activity in the period 2900–2400 cal BC. The investigations also revealed a Middle to Late Iron Age ditched rectilinear field system, over which a settlement of two curvilinear enclosures and several post-built structures developed between the Late Iron Age and the second century AD. A Romano-British toilet set, the only example found to date in Cornwall, appears to have been deposited in one of the structures as a votive object.

Investigations at Hay Close, St Newlyn East were carried out by the Cornwall Archaeological Society over a two week period in 2007. Aerial photography had identified a roughly circular cropmark enclosure with an external bank, and the site was thought to be a probable later Neolithic henge. A partial geophysical survey of the northern part of the enclosure confirmed the site suggested by aerial photography but apart from a circular stony spread, no other internal features were revealed. Five trenches were opened within the enclosure and two beyond it over adjacent cropmark sites. The trenching revealed that the enclosure was not a henge but was instead a henge-like enclosure of Iron Age origin with further use in the post-Roman period. This dating was confirmed by two radiocarbon determinations. The results from the project have opened the possibility of a hitherto unsuspected class of non-domestic enclosures constructed in Cornwall during the first millennium cal BC and of a non-Christian re-use of the site in the post-Roman period.
http://cornisharchaeology.org.uk/publications/

‘Placed’ deposits have received increasing attention over the past 30 years, and researchers have gradually moved away from relatively crude ‘ritual’ interpretations toward more nuanced considerations of how the deliberate deposition of specially selected material may have exercised agency in daily life, social networks and settlement structure.  This paper considers the ‘liminal’ agency of placed deposits in early to middle Anglo-Saxon settlements (5th–9th centuries).  Although it has frequently been noted that placed deposits often lie at spatial boundaries, this paper focuses on deposits made at ‘liminal times’ in the life of the settlement, especially during the demolition of buildings and the closing of pits.  The recognition that certain types of placed deposits were associated with specific liminal times constitutes a starting point for discussing ways in which placed deposits may have mediated rites of passage across temporal boundaries in Anglo-Saxon settlements.

Full citation: C. M. Sofield (2017), Thresholds in the Lives of Settlements: Anglo-Saxon Placed Deposits made at Entrances and 'Liminal Times', in S. Semple, C. Orsini and S. Mui (eds) Life on the Edge: Social, Religious and Political Frontiers in Early Medieval Europe, Neue Studien zur Sachsenforschung 6, Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum with the Internationales Sachsensymposion.

Archaeological investigations along the South West Water pipeline between Engelly and Sevenmilestone took place during the winter of 1995-1996. The results from a geophysical survey near to the Callestock Veor Cider Farm, led to the rescue excavation of a long lived Later Bronze Age circular structure which dated between approximately 1100 and 700 BC. The Structure was situated within an artificial hollow approximately 8 metres in diameter, with a long porch extending from its southern side. The discovery of the Structure has added another type to the range of excavated Bronze Age buildings in lowland Cornwall. The Structure did not seem to have been used as a domestic dwelling, but instead appears to have fulfilled a "ritualistic" function. Its excavation provided further evidence for the elaborate processes associated with the abandonment of Bronze Age buildings in Cornwall. In particular an important, though small, Later Bronze Age ceramic assemblage was uncovered during the excavation which appears to demonstrate evidence for the long term curation and structured deposition of artefacts.

http://www.cornisharchaeology.org.uk/index_htm_files/No.37-38%20-%201998-9.pdf

During November and December 2014, the 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.

During archaeological evaluation trenching at Portscatho in the parish of Gerrans a group of four pits was discovered. They were found to contain structured deposits of Neolithic date, which included pottery, flints, beach pebbles and charred plant macrofossils.
Four radiocarbon determinations ranging over the period 3910-3370 cal BC were obtained from the pits. Analysis of the charred macrofossils revealed rare evidence for cereals dating to the Early Neolithic period in Cornwall.
It is argued that the pits were the result of the ritualized deposition of artefacts and other materials at a liminal place in the landscape, near to the end of land and above the sea.

Ever since Colt Hoare’s excavations in the nineteenth century the Early Bronze Age chalkland barrows of Wessex have become perceived as being ‘typical’ and have affected the way that barrows in other regions have become interpreted. This paper reviews the nature of the evidence from the Wessex chalkland before moving on to a more in depth consideration of the barrows and cairns which are found in the south west peninsula. The paper concludes that although there are points of similarity between the regions, the great range of site types and diversity of practices across the south west region means that they were much more that simple containers for the dead. It is argued that there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ barrow and archaeologists should in future take pains to consider their ‘local character’.

During archaeological fieldwork at Tregarrick Farm, Roche, a group of ten pits were recorded to the north of Roche Rock. The pits were found to contain structured deposits of Neolithic date, which included pottery, flints, a small saddle quern and charred hazelnuts.
A series of radiocarbon determinations ranging over the period 3790-3370 cal BC were obtained from six of the pits, indicating that the site was in use over several centuries. Analysis of charred environmental material indicated that oak and hazel woodland with some clearings existed nearby.
It is suggested that the pits were the result of ritualized activity associated with seasonal gatherings close to the base of a prominent landscape feature. The investigation has given a rare insight into Early Neolithic activity in lowland Cornwall and confirms the significance of Roche Rock as an important place in the landscape several millennia before the construction of the iconic fifteenth-century chapel.

http://www.cornisharchaeology.org.uk/index_htm_files/Cornish%20Archaeology%2041-42-opt.pdf

A large-scale excavation covering some 30 hectares was undertaken by the Historic Environment Service projects at Scarcewater, St Stephen-in-Brannel in 2004. Excavations were focused upon the investigation of three sunken-floored roundhouses of Middle Bronze Age date, together with Bronze Age pits and timber structures, a Late Bronze Age roundhouse and palisade enclosure, a Middle Iron Age ‘cairn’, and Romano-British settlement and funerary activity. Twenty-four radiocarbon determinations ranging between 2340 cal BC and cal AD 220 were obtained. The dates clustered into four groups: the Middle Bronze Age; the Late Bronze Age; the earlier Iron Age, and the Later Iron Age to Romano-British period.
The analyses of the information from the excavated sites has provided the opportunity to investigate shifting settlement foci and changes to Bronze Age roundhouse architecture over a period between 1500 and 1000 cal BC, and to examine the relationships between ceremonial and settlement-related activity in the middle of the second millennium cal BC.
Importantly, the project has allowed a study of sites rarely identified in Cornwall. These include structures of the first millennium cal BC and Romano-British activity that was associated with both settlement and funerary practice. Overall, the project has allowed relationships changing patterns of settlement, architectural traditions, and spatial attitudes between the living and the dead to be considered in several key periods.

The recognition of ritual and ritualized practices within the setting of Middle Bronze Age settlements has undoubtedly provided a useful way of interpreting archaeological deposits. There is, however, a danger that now that ritual has become widely accepted, the application of ‘meta’ or generic paradigms for explaining the archaeological record will lead to a loss of subtlety in interpretation, and that variation and diversity between settlements will be overlooked. This article addresses the evidence for the ritualized behaviour which has emerged from large-scale excavations of a Middle Bronze Age settlement at Scarcewater in mid-Cornwall and its adjacent surroundings. The character of overtly ritual and more subtle ritualized activity within the settlement, as well as the surrounding landscape will be considered for its individual character, and linked to a discussion of the influence of the ‘past’ upon Middle Bronze Age ritual traditions.

During the summer of 1996 archaeological investigations were carried out along a South West Water Pipeline between Sevenmilestone and North Country. A geophysical survey at Stencoose resulted in the rescue excavation of an unusual early medieval structure dated to the fifth to seventh centuries AD. The building was situated within a modified terraced area, and was surrounded by a number of enigmatic pit features and a field system of later prehistoric and Romano-British date. A flint scatter of Neolithic date was recorded along with sherds of Bronze Age pottery which indicate that the area had been occupied for several millennia prior to the construction of the building.  The Structure was composed of two short lengths of earth and stone walling which joined together to form a simple open ended building. No actual occupation evidence was gathered from the interior of the Structure. It could only be dated by the material which was sampled for radiocarbon dating. The excavation at Stencoose was important because it has provided important information about the long term changes to a small piece of the Cornish landscape, situated on the margins of the ‘Anciently Enclosed Land’.

Between 1998 and 2000 three seasons of archaeological fieldwork were carried out by Cornwall Archaeological Unit within the Imerys Stannon China Clay Works, Bodmin Moor. The first two seasons involved the excavation of an Early Bronze Age cairn group and Middle Bronze Age and Middle Iron Age settlement activity. The third season on the Northern Downs involved the evaluation a number of cairns, field systems and palaeoenvironmental sites.
The cairn group consisted of three earlier Bronze Age ring-cairns and two ‘tailed’ cairns. One ring-cairn, Site 9, continued to be used as a ceremonial monument in the Middle Bronze Age and was reused during the Iron Age as a dwelling. An artefact assemblage including Bronze and Iron Age pottery and stonework was recovered. Two prehistoric beads one of faience, the other of amber, were also found.
Ten Bronze Age radiocarbon determinations ranging between 2490 BC and 1120 BC and two Iron Age determinations ranging between 370 and 40 BC were obtained from three of the cairns. Two pollen columns on the Northern Downs were also dated. Significantly, a series of eight determinations were obtained from a single column, which provided environmental information from the Mesolithic through to the early medieval period. The radiocarbon dating showed that impact on the vegetation of the Down commenced during the Neolithic, with larger-scale clearance during the Bronze Age. Widespread open grassland was established by the Middle Bronze Age.
It is suggested here that use of space within the cairn group was structured and that the cairns formed a monument complex which was part of a wider landscape cosmology, involving groupings of particular monument types and the referencing of rocky outcrops and tors.

The investigations on Stannon Down were important as an opportunity to study an Early Bronze Age ceremonial landscape and reconsider how later Middle Bronze Age and Iron Age peoples on Bodmin Moor might have engaged with and interpreted the materiality of earlier prehistoric monuments.