Close to the Edge

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.

Andy M. Jones BA PhD FSA FSAScot MCIfA is Projects Manager with the Cornwall Archaeological Unit. His PhD focused on the Earlier Bronze Age barrow and monument complexes in Cornwall and South West Britain. His research interests include the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods, as well as the archaeology of the upland and coastal areas of western Britain. Significant publications include Preserved in the Peat: an Extraordinary Bronze Age Burial on Whitehorse Hill, Dartmoor, and its Wider Context and The Drowning of a Cornish Prehistoric Landscape: Tradition, Deposition and Social Responses to Sea Level Rise. His recent research has been concerned with the prehistory of Penwith and Mount’s Bay.