Excavation at Bantham, South Devon, and Post-Roman Trade in South-West England

Early Medieval Settlement at Mothecombe, Devon: The Interaction of Local, Regional and Long-Distance Dynamics

“…The overall quantity of imported Mediterranean pottery remains relatively small; the total number of vessels recovered at Tintagel during recent work has been conservatively estimated at around 150 amphorae and eighty red slip vessels (Barrowman et al 2007, 329), whilst Bantham produced a minimum of fifty-two imported amphorae and three Mediterranean red slip vessels (Reed et al 2011). Nevertheless, the imports are seen as intricately connected to the formation of power structures in early medieval Britain, with sites such as Tintagel or South Cadbury interpreted as elite centres (Turner 2004, 26-8).…”

“…The sherd-to-vessel ratio for the total number of early medieval amphorae at Mothecombe is particularly low at 1:2.4, compared to the 2001 Bantham excavations at 1:13.3 (Reed et al 2011) and approximately 1:11.8 for the minimum estimates at Tintagel (Thorpe 2007a). Overall, the Mothecombe assemblage comprises a comparatively small number of somewhat worn body sherds that come from a relatively large quantity of vessels.…”

“…The recent publication of the assemblage from Bantham of com parable scale (Reed et al 2011) has helped to rectify the prior dominance of Tintagel. The smaller assemblage from Mothecombe reveals similarities in material between the sites, but also significant differences in patterns of deposition and possibly the nature of consumption.…”

“…In each case the intention has been to preserve features and finds by record as they have been exposed by the sea. To date, there has been little attempt to set the site at Mothecombe in a wider context, though occasional comparisons have been made to nearby Bantham Ham (Reed et al 2011). In this article, we note previous work and provide an account of our recent fieldwork at Mothecombe, which has revealed rare evidence of buildings and other archaeo logical features dating from the fifth to the seventh centuries ad.…”

“…An increased awareness of how early medieval sites in south Devon compare to each other will ultimately enable an understanding of how the region was integrated into economic and social networks in southwest Britain, and its wider connections to the late Antique world. To this end, material from Bantham (Silvester 1981;Reed et al 2011) and High Peak, Sidmouth (Pollard 1966) was studied for comparison in the course of our research.…”