Caradoc Peters. The Archaeology of Cornwall: The Foundations of our Society.

Caradoc Peters. The Archaeology of Cornwall: The Foundations of our Society. CARADOC PETERS. The Archaeology of Cornwall: The Foundations of ourSociety. 240 pages, numerous b&w & colour illustrations. 2005.Fowey: Cornwall Editions; 1-904880-13-4 hardback 49.95 [poundssterling]. The only serious attempt at a complete archaeology of Cornwall andScilly from the Epipalaeolithic to AD 1000 was over 70 years ago by theHarvard polymath pol��y��math?n.A person of great or varied learning.[Greek polumath Hugh O'Neill Hencken (Hencken 1932). It took himsix years and many visits from Cambridge (England, not Mass.) and it isstill hard to fault it in detail. Now, with the totals of mostfield-monuments multiplied by ten, scientific dating and scores ofexcavations, not all published, a repetition of Hencken's work at acomparable standard, even stopping at the Norman Conquest Norman Conquest,period in English history following the defeat (1066) of King Harold of England by William, duke of Normandy, who became William I of England. The conquest was formerly thought to have brought about broad changes in all phases of English life. , would requirefour or five thick volumes. Dr Peters accepted, obviously at shortnotice, an invitation to contribute an archaeology of his nativeCornwall (with, marginally, Scilly) from the Palaeolithic to thetwentieth century, in a series--'Luxury Editions' indeed atthese prices--featuring the Cornish Family, Mining in Cornwall and otherportmanteau See portmanteau word. topics. Sensibly he chose to write what amounts to anextended essay. Its later sections take us into unusual areas('Capitalism and Class Conflict', 'Cornwall and theDiaspora') with a condensed treatment of Cornwall's separatistfeelings and how they are symbolised. He reproduces many superb viewsand air photographs in colour, some simplified plans and maps, and nottoo many artefacts to choke general readers. It must be said at oncethat in accelerated book-productions of this genre authors cannot alwayscontrol or check captions. Do not blame him that (p. 110) therecently-found greisen grei��sen?n.A granitic rock composed chiefly of quartz and mica.[German, from greissen, to split.]Noun 1. bowl 'from Trethurgy' is aTrethurgy-type bowl from Trewirgie, Redruth, or that (p. 126) thegrass-marked sherd 'from Tintagel' is from elsewhere, Tintagelbeing the one major site without this sort of pottery. There are dozensof mis-spelled placenames in the text and on maps; again, thiswon't affect a lay readership but it suggests that very little timewas granted for proofing. The core of the book comprises four chapters on prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to , from ascant Upper Palaeolithic to a 'middle' Iron Age; one on theRoman centuries, one on 'The Age of Saints in a FrontierLand', and one covering some aspects, historical as well asmaterial, of medieval Cornwall. In the three protohistoric chaptersCaradoc Peters seems less at ease than with prehistory, avoidinglinguistics and the more complex details of post-Roman Dumnonia. Thereare nevertheless surprising archaeological omissions: uniquely, Cornwalland Scilly between the fifth and eleventh centuries never ceased toproduce local pottery, using gabbroic clay and, with other things,pointing to adoptions of novel ideas, probably seaborne sea��borne?adj.1. Conveyed by sea; transported by ship.2. Carried on or over the sea.seaborneAdjective1. carried on or by the sea2. . Nor is it easyto master at short notice the tangled evidence about early Christianity.The four chapters on prehistory place an attractive emphasis on thelandscape and attempt to marshal a long, stone-monument-studded, pastinto acceptable periods. Here, however, errors cannot be blamed entirelyon the publishers. The fogou at Chapel Uny, not 'Cam Euny' (p.91), was unknown to Dr William Borlase (1696-1772; hardly 'activeduring the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries'); itwas not excavated by his descendant William Copeland Borlase William Copeland Borlase MA, FSA (1848 – 31 March 1899) born at Castle Horneck, near Penzance in Cornwall, was a well known antiquarian and Member of Parliament (MP) for the St Austell division of Cornwall. until the1860s, and the woodcuts are J.T. Blight's. Far closer attention tothe building-blocks of local prehistory, less emphasis on loosespeculations about intervisibility and tor-worship (per C. Tilley and B.Bender), and an ability to extract essentials like new aspects of earlyagriculture from recent reports, would be prerequisites for a soundertreatment. Nor does the author seem au fait with early implementpetrology petrology,branch of geology specifically concerned with the origin, composition, structure, and properties of rocks, primarily igneous and metamorphic, and secondarily sedimentary. . The missing 'axe factories' of the groupedgreenstones probably never existed; preferably one might think ofexposed sources, where portable chunks (blanks) were obtained, to beworked into implements at centres like earn Brea. Perhaps the bestpassage, on pages 27-37, deals with the Mesolithic in Cornwall. Too longneglected, European Mesolithic studies are now centre-stage and teemingwith excitement. Caradoc Peters is excited, too; the sheer proliferationof Mesolithic sites and profusion of finds throughout most of Cornwallnow howls aloud for (at last) a major excavation and half-a-dozendoctoral dissertations. And this would take years, not a couple ofmonths. The volume ends with a list of 75 Sites To Visit (of all periods,up to J.L. Pearson's Truro Cathedral) most carefully compiled;another, of Cornwall's museums and organisations concerned with thepast; and an extremely short, and odd, reading list. Eighteen pages ofnotes and references support the ten chapters: the author has done hisbest but many references are so arcane that following them up will taxthe Inter-Library Loan system (ironically, a scheme invented in Cornwallin the 1930s). The index is adequate; books like this seldom have whatis needed most, a bibliography. Caradoc Peters, a Cornishman whose life took him to Nigeria,Cardiff, Bradford and Auckland in New Zealand New Zealand(zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. , where he studied theisland of Rarotonga, widened his outlook through an experience thatitself typifies the Cornish diaspora. He writes from the heart and iswell supplied with original notions. The treatment (p. 19) of that awfulterm 'Celtic', treading warily between the battle lines ofCollis-plus-James, and the Megaws, is sensible and economically written(and correct). We await a further book, composed at leisure andpreferably about the peninsulas deep prehistory. Reference HENCKEN, H.O'N. 1932. The Archaeology of Cornwall and Scilly(County Archaeologies series). London: Methuen. CHARLES THOMAS Lambessow, Truro, Cornwall, UK