Padstow, North Cornwall
First screened 9 March 2008

What they found

Time Team's visit to the site at Lellizzick, near Padstow in Cornwall, began with a reappraisal of aerial photographs of crop marks taken by archaeologist Steve Hartgroves and two geophysics surveys dating from 1998. These clearly showed dozens of circular and semi-circular shapes, linear features and enclosures running across the clifftop fields.

Roundhouses and industrial activity
Investigation of some of the circular features confirmed that these were, as expected, the outlines of roundhouses. These contained internal pits, hearths and other features; and the fact that some of them were overlaid on top of others indicated that this site had been used over a long period with various phases of occupation, building and rebuilding.

There was also evidence of small-scale industrial activity on parts of the site, principally slag from metal working. Large amounts of material, including pottery, food waste and coins, were uncovered from the Roman period, while other finds dated from the pre-Roman Iron Age and possibly earlier. A bone stylus, dated to about 200 AD, was claimed as perhaps the earliest known evidence of writing yet discovered in Cornwall.

Ditches and enclosures
Two linear ditches excavated in one trench were identified by Time Team's prehistory expert Francis Pryor as the edges of an ancient drove way on a terrace worn down over the course of many years by the hooves of domesticated animals. Francis also identified one enclosure as a likely stockyard, and two others of roughly similar size as arable field enclosures. Landscape archaeologist Stewart Ainsworth, meanwhile, pointed out a still-visible bank and ditch cutting across the headland – a typical feature of an Iron-Age promontory fort. At the time that this was in use, it was likely to have been the political centre of a powerful tribe.

According to Francis, the whole site was likely to have been occupied from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age and on into the Roman era, when the finds suggested that it had been a trading station importing exotic goods from as far afield as the western Mediterranean. Imports of wine, oil and pottery were likely to have been exchanged for Cornish copper and tin and related metal products. This trade continued right through the Roman period.

African red slip ware
But perhaps the most important finds were those suggesting that this trade had continued after the departure of the Roman legions from Britain in 410 AD. In particular, the discovery of sherds of north African red slip ware in undisturbed archaeology in a trench excavated by Phil Harding implied that trade with the Mediterranean had continued well into the fifth and sixth centuries AD. As Byzantine archaeologist and historian Anthea Harris explained, in Cornwall this kind of red slip ware (which ranges from fine table wares to coarser cooking pots) generally dates from these centuries – although it was manufactured and widely distributed from the second century AD through to the Arab invasions of the seventh century.

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