Excavation of Later Prehistoric and Roman Sites along the Route of the Newquay Strategic Road Corridor, Cornwall

A road built south of Newquay brought a buried Cornish landscape into view. Excavations in 2014 uncovered a hollow-set Middle Bronze Age roundhouse and, more extensively, fields and settlement remains from the Iron Age and Roman periods. The ditches and enclosures show land being divided and cultivated through centuries of change.

Andy M. Jones follows these traces from the last centuries BC into the third century AD, examining how farming intensified and buildings were arranged within enclosed spaces. Some pits and boundary ditches contained deposits that may have carried meanings beyond everyday disposal. The report also asks whether certain buildings were deliberately closed at the end of their use, rather than simply left to decay.