The project involved the survey and selective excavation of an area of field system adjoining the RomanoBritish 'courtyard house' settlement of Chysauster, near Penzance, Cornwall, supported by soil and pollen studies and by the extensive landscape surveys. The excavation had two main elements: study of the rectilinear field system and excavation of a Bronze Age funerary cairn incorporated in one of the field boundaries. The earliest field system, probably with origins in the 2nd millennium BC, was largely modified by a more irregular and strongly lynchetted field pattern, probably associated with more intensive Iron Age and Romano-British agriculture. There was also some medieval or post-medieval reuse and modification. The cairn pre-dated a boundary bank of one of the early fields and was the focus for a number of cremation burials. Six of these were accompanied by pots which, together with their radiocarbon dates, provide a significant group of the middle phase of the Trevisker variant of the British Food Urn ceramic tradition. Excavation of field boundaries showed evidence of long periods of modification and lynchet accumulation but lacked good artefactual or radiocarbon dating evidence. Soil and pollen analysis produced significant new evidence for this region, showing the former existence of a brown soil under open oak/hazel woodland, with some cereal cultivation taking place, prior to the construction of the Bronze

Two projects – “Mapping the Sun” and “Reading the Hurlers” – have shone new light on the multiple stone circle complex, The Hurlers, on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, in southwest Britain. In 2013, excavation revealed a stone “pavement” between the central and northern circles: this inter-circle link had first been discovered in 1938 but had then been re-covered. Work in 2016 discovered a solitary fallen (once standing) stone which lay 100 m to the north of The Hurlers complex. Geological studies of the standing stones accompanied by astronomical surveys have prompted new insights into the make-up of this monument, its landscape setting and astronomical significance. Astronomical observations of this major Bronze Age landscape reveal a design with significant alignments between key monuments and near and distant landmarks. Additional astronomical links suggest a number of interesting phenomena which would be experienced at the site, particularly surrounding the materiality of the inter-circle link.

The chance discovery in 2007 at Pentire, on the outskirts of Newquay, Cornwall, of a leaded bronze neck-ring offers an opportunity to update our knowledge of other neck-rings of the ‘Wraxall’ class, predominantly from south-western Britain. The shared metallurgy and stylistic similarities of the neck-rings confirm previous opinion that the ‘Wraxall’ class belongs to a period when indigenous communities were being influenced by provincial Roman technology, while maintaining elements of indigenous art forms.

A recent assessment of the evidence, old and new, for the nature and dates of the main sites within the Tintagel complex appeared first in Antiquity (Thomas 1988a). The paper ended by stating that ‘properly planned and rigidly controlled excavation … is not just desirable, but overdue’, and a second article (Thomas 1990) demonstrated that the large quantity of finds from the post-Roman occupation on Tintagel Island can now be related to structured commerce, linking Ireland and Atlantic Britain to several regions in the Mediterranean during the 5th and 6th centuries AD. During 1988/9 Tintagel Castle (that is, the Island and the mainland wards) as a Property in Care administered by English Heritage moved up to 7th place in the table of visitor-numbers, with a total of 140,000 and a combined admissionsplus-retail income of £162,000 (source: E.H. Marketing 1989). However, since it is abundantly clear that the archaeological importance of the whole site-complex must outrank the commercial status of the Castle as a PIC, an independent Tintagel Research Committee has been formed. It held a first one-day meeting at Tintagel and Truro in April 1990, under the chairmanship of Professor Malcolm Todd (University of Exeter). The Committee operates under a combined aegis of the Duchy of Cornwall (the owner, since 1337, of the Castle), Royal Institution of Cornwall, Cornwall County Council and the University of Exeter, and its membership is principally academic.

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