Padstow, North Cornwall
First screened 9 March 2008

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Other websites

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Flying through Cornwall's past
www.historic-cornwall.org.uk/flyingpast
This absorbing website from Cornwall County Council's Historic Environment Service reconstructs Cornwall's past through aerial photos and explanatory text. Includes references to the settlement at Lellizzick.

Imported Pottery in Dark-Age Western Britain
http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/
adsdata/arch-769-1/ahds/
dissemination/pdf/vol03/3_089_111.pdf
Online copy of a 1958 paper by Charles Thomas, of the University of Edinburgh. Although many more finds have been made since, this is still an interesting account – though very detailed and specialist – of archaeological discoveries of imported pottery in Dark-Age western Britain up to that date.

For links to other websites, either on archaeology generally or specific to the periods and subjects raised in the programme, see our extensive section on Archaeology websites.

Further reading

Dark Age Traffic on the Bristol Channel, UK: A hypothesis by Nancy Hollinrake International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 36 (2), 336–343 (2007)
Exotic pottery from the eastern Mediterranean and southern Gaul in the late fifth to seventh centuries is recognised as the characteristic find from Dark-Age sites in Ireland and western Britain. But there is no consensus on the mechanisms by which it arrived. Interpretations range from diplomatic gifts through souvenirs to commerce. This academic paper, which attempts to resolve the issue, is based on sites around the Bristol Channel. The quantities of pottery and numbers of sites are used to generate a rough estimate of the number of ships carrying the pottery to the area. It is argued that the estimated volume represents commercial trade.

Britain AD: A quest for Arthur, England and the Anglo-Saxons by Francis Pryor (Harper Collins, 2004) hardback £14
Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans by Francis Pryor (Perennial, 2004) paperback £9.99
Time Team prehistory expert Francis Pryor's books provide an authoritative and radical rethinking of British history through to the 'Dark Ages', based on remarkable new archaeological finds made over the past 30 years.

British Prehistoric Pottery by Alex Gibson (Tempus, 2002) paperback £12.59
It can be precisely dated, can tell us about the diet, economy and even ritual acts of prehistoric people, and is often richly decorated. As this study and guide to identification shows, pottery can tell us more about prehistoric society than any other artefact.

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