Excavating the CA archive

I am now on the home stretch of my explorations of the counties of Britain through the pages of Current Archaeology. I will begin this month in Devon, before moving on into Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire, and finally Wiltshire in subsequent columns. When I sat down to write about Devon, I assumed that there would be more content from there than I could contend with. But, in comparison to other counties, surprisingly little has been published down the years. So I begin with a plea – if you are digging in Devon, then do please drop us a line: we would love to report more from there.

North and West Devon

I start in a part of Devon that most of us have never been lucky enough to visit: Lundy, an island lying ten nautical miles from the mainland, north-west of Bideford. These days it is a carefully managed nature reserve and marine sanctuary, but it has a long history of human occupation dating back to the Mesolithic, as examined through fieldwork undertaken by Charles Thomas in the late 1960s, which was reported in CA 8 and 16 (May 1968 and September 1969). From there, we head to the mainland, and to modest pickings in the north-west of the county. The bulk of the coast and its settlements are unvisited across the decades of Current Archaeology’s coverage, with the notable exception of Barnstaple, where CA 45 (July 1974) paused to explore its medieval castle and post-medieval industries, especially its potteries. My final stop in this part of the county is then on the Devon/Somerset border, where CA 192 (June 2004) explored the multi-period landscapes of Exmoor through the eyes of its environmental archaeology. But this was a rare visit to an important landscape, so – as above – if you have more to share with us about Exmoor, then do get in touch.

Mid and Central Devon

Heading south from Exmoor into central Devon, you reach Burlescombe, ten miles to the east of Tiverton. CA 199 (September 2005) reported on a great piece of fieldwork from there – the recovery of an exceptionally well-preserved Iron Age shoe within a waterlogged well. After that, my next stop is in Exeter. There we have regular updates down the years on the Roman, medieval, and modern history of the city, commencing in CA 28 (September 1971), when there were investigations under way in and around the cathedral. Compare this to a visit made to the same site 50 years later in CA 401 (August 2023).