Promoting awareness of the archaeology and history of north Devon
Promoting awareness of the archaeology and history of north Devon
Excavation at Mount Folly 2007 - Brian Fox (Newsletter No 14 2007/08)
Brian spent time this summer digging at Mount Folly, near Bigbury-on-Sea, South Hams, where there is evidence of two Iron Age and Romano- British enclosures.
Having the opportunity to write something about my archaeological activities this season somewhat emphatically thrust upon me by Terry, I will overcome my reticence and attempt to describe the activities at Mount Folly. This year will be my second season and third session on what I regard as a rather special dig.
The Mount Folly Enclosures Project started in 2003 on an area originally discovered through aerial reconnaissance by Frances Griffith in 1989.The director, Dr. Eileen Wilkes of Bournemouth University, has made volunteers feel very welcome throughout the dig, and everyone has been offered the opportunity to cover the normal range of activities, including geophysics, the levelling and gridding in of all finds, planning and recording, and, as the dig matures, the chance to thoroughly investigate, interpret and record a chosen feature. This writer seemed to spend much of his time with his head in a pit and his feet in the air. Training days at Devon Archaeological Society's Berkeley House in Exeter have been useful and this venue has provided the opportunity for post-excavation work, including pottery handling and sorting.
Right: The excavation site at Mount Fatly.
If you dig in Devon you get ro do it in some very pretty places'
The site is on a hilltop overlooking Bigbury Bay and Burgh Island, and
a short walk inland will give a panoramic view over the South Hams and
Dartmoor. It would appear to be an ideal occupation site for many reasons,
but particularly if you needed to be visible from a distance, especially
from the sea. Initially trenches were cut, but the excavation has been
extended into a large open area, revealing in the centre of an enclosure,
evidence for a roundhouse, or sequence of roundhouses, cut into a terrace
composed mainly of shillet. Within and around this structure pottery has
been found, dating mainly from first century BC to first century AD, but
also samples extending from the third century BC to the third AD, and
within the area of excavation, a few of Bronze Age date. The pottery types
include local Devon wares, with wares from Cornwall, Dorset, France, Italy
and Germany.
The work was repeatedly interrupted by this year's not so wonderful summer weather, but despite this the diggers were able to work carefully through the terrace fills and the roundhouse floor. Some of the volunteers were given responsibility to excavate record and interpret some very enigmatic features. There are signs for continuity of use through time, with post-holes and other structures suggesting rebuilding through a number of phases. It is being considered that Mount Folly would have made an ideal trading focus for a very long time, perhaps as far back as the Bronze Age, but certainly in the Iron Age, as the wealth of pottery from European sources would suggest.
This excavation has enjoyed a lot of local popular support, which has
gone so far as to help with funding, and this, combined with a friendly
and supportive landowner, and no apparent threat of backfilling due to
the patented out-of-season site preservation method makes this a volunteer
friendly
dig. Should any MDAS. member wish to volunteer for any of next year's
dig, (camping on site for tents only), could they please contact Eileen
(details below)?
Dr. Eileen Wilkes
Centre for Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage,
School of Conservation Sciences,
Talbot Campus,
Bournemouth University,
Poole,
Dorset BH12 5BB