Period of Cornish history from c. 2400 until c. 800 BCE
Cornish Bronze Age
Geographical range
Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly
Period
Bronze Age Britain, Atlantic Bronze Age
Dates
c. 2400 BCE–800 BCE
Major sites
Rillaton, Trevisker, Gwithian, Harlyn Bay, Trethellan Farm, Bosiliack, Leskernick Hill
Characteristics
Trevisker ware pottery, tin and gold extraction, entrance graves, tor enclosures, hollow-set roundhouses
Followed by
Cornish Iron Age
The Cornish Bronze Age is an era of the prehistory of Cornwall that spanned the period from c. 2400 BCE to c. 800 BCE. It was preceded by the Cornish Neolithic, and followed by the Cornish Iron Age. It is characterized by the introduction and widespread use of copper and copper-alloy (bronze) weapons and tools.
Significant social and economic changes occurred in Cornwall over the course of the Bronze Age. The earliest stage coincided with the arrival of the Bell Beaker culture, the adoption of new ceramic styles, innovations in ritual and funerary customs, and the earliest evidence for exploitation of local tin and gold resources. Throughout the Early Bronze Age, the main focus was on ritual activity and the construction of ceremonial monuments in the uplands, with the few known domestic buildings being relatively fragile and temporary structures. This changed in the Middle Bronze Age, with a decline in monument construction, the expansion of livestock and arable farming, and a pronounced increase in the number of settlements, which by this stage consisted of much more substantial roundhouses. At the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, there was an apparent abandonment of upland settlements, a change in lowland roundhouse construction technique, and a change in pottery style, suggesting increasing influence from South-Central Britain.
Cornwall was part of an extensive trade and cultural network from at least the Early Bronze Age, exchanging goods and ideas with the communities along the Atlantic Façade, the Wessex culture, and to a lesser extent more distant societies in Central Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. Trevisker Ware ceramics from Cornwall were transported to other parts of southern Britain, and the style was copied by potters in Ireland and Brittany. Cornwall was an important source for tin and gold in the Bronze Age, and is the most likely provenance for these metals in a substantial number of artefacts and semi-finished products found from this period in the rest of Britain, Ireland, Germany, and the Middle East.
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The CornishBronzeAge is an era of the prehistory of Cornwall that spanned the period from c. 2400 BCE to c. 800 BCE. It was preceded by the Cornish Neolithic...
Patricia M. (1986). "Cornwall in the BronzeAge". Cornish Archaeology. 25: 81–110. Clark, Peter (2009). BronzeAge connections : cultural contact in prehistoric...
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