Ten thousand years of Cornish history unearthed during A30 road upgrade

The development of the busy A30 road in Cornwall has unearthed 10,000 years of Cornish history, giving us a glimpse from the Bronze Age to World War Two.

The A30 in Cornwall is the busiest major road, where an upgrade taking place has unearthed amazing archaeological finds.
The A30 in Cornwall is the busiest major road, where an upgrade taking place has unearthed amazing archaeological finds.

As much as 10,000 years of history in Cornwall has been discovered by the Cornwall Archaeological Unit (CAU) of Cornwall Council, during the upgrade of the A30 between Carland Cross and Chiverton.

The building works have caused traffic diversions for many commuters hoping to use the busiest main road in the county, but the archaeological artefacts found in recent years have been unprecedented. Archaeologists discovered Mesolithic tools, a burial mound from the Bronze Age, a Roman road and some unexpected more recent finds.

Major finds from the Mesolithic

The oldest finds are among the most significant. Large varieties of flint tools were found which were originally made from flint pebbles. The archaeologists gathered these flint tools through rigorous sampling which allowed them to gather the sheer extent of artefacts found. Over three years and a half, they successfully recovered as many as 100,000 individual flint artefacts. They also found tools and beads made from slate.

Through the analysis method used for sampling, numerous hollows and posthole morphologies arose that could be parts of structures used by the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic in Cornwall. At these communities, they could have sat together, sculpting the flint from 10,000 to 6,000 years ago.

Chalk layers in Devon contain large nodules of flint which are suitable for sculpting big tools from.
Chalk layers in Devon contain large nodules of flint which are suitable for sculpting big tools from.

This time was followed by the Neolithic period, when pottery and agriculture became common. A stash of large flint nodules was found within a structure, around 6,000 years ago, which would have come from East Devon’s chalks.

Next to the A30, a hidden stone circle structure was revealed, which was mentioned by the well known TV Show Time Team as well as Historic England.

Bronze Age to World War Two

For the archaeologists, transitioning through history was seamless, as there was also clear evidence of the Early Bronze Age, when metalwork became introduced. Curiously, the archaeologists identified in an urn with cremated remains, which appeared to have a style more reminiscent of eastern Britain, suggesting they were a travelling visitor to Cornwall.

At Trevalso, a round house was excavated, revealing a stone mould for a bronze object (maybe a razor). There was also a type of pottery called Trevisker ware, which was common in Cornwall in those times, previously reported from other building works in Cornwall. At, Marazanvose, a larger roundhouse was discovered, holding evidence of industrial activity, quite possibly metalworking.

Medieval items were sparse, possibly as they evolved to the farms we see today in parts of Cornwall. But some items from WWII were identified, as next to the Chybucca junction, the remains of an army base for the United States Army from 1943 were found, used from 1943 to 1944, littered with an ammunition dump, enamel mugs, beer bottles, and broken radios.

After beginning in the summer of lockdown, in 2020, the final phase of fieldwork is being completed in conjunction with the archaeological mitigation programme that has been a part of the highway upgrade. The initial results are now being released, Cornwall Council announced.

Cornish curiosities

Archaeological analysis during roads developments like these provide a historic cross-section of the landscape, that may not have otherwise been seen. This 10 miles of Cornish landscape was a particularly extensive find, both in the number of sites to analyse, and the depth of history going back thousands of years, to when Mesolithic hunter-gatherers recovered from the last ice age, and began repopulating the region.

As we can tell, the diversity of items found has been all-encompassing through the ages, showing the value of archaeologically surveying land during new developments and even upgrades like that of the A30. Cornwall is particularly unique in having stone remains intact as remains of larger structures, as opposed to only preserving holes in the ground.