Description

In October 2006 an archaeological evaluation was undertaken by Channel 4’s ‘Time Team’ at a site on the western slope of the Roughtor, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall (NGR 214081 81735) to investigate the remains of a Bronze Age roundhouse settlement and a structure known as the Bank Cairn, a possible Neolithic ritual monument.
The roundhouse settlement had been previously investigated in the 1950s with a number of trenches placed across the structures. The current programme of works aimed to revisit the roundhouses previously excavated, and also to investigate an undisturbed structure. The settlement had initially been dated as Bronze Age by comparison to other excavated sites on Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor, and the main aim of the current project was to confirm (or otherwise) the date of the structures.
The Bank Cairn had initially been linked with a number of stone landscape divisions but, following the extensive Bodmin Moor Survey of the early 1990s, its significance as a separate monument was identified.