Bernard said,
"There is a superb Bronze Age settlement....For some reason or another it was eventually abandoned."
I believe that this is where we have to be very cautious in what we presume. Was the settlement eventually abandoned, or did it continue into the Iron Age, the Roman period and early medieval. What actual evidence is there to presume that it was abandoned?
In North Devon we have many, many settlement sites which until recently were presumed by the most authoritive of historians to be of Iron Age origin. Archaeological excavation on two or three of the sites have shown that this is clearly not the case, and on each the data from excavation shows clearly that they commenced in the early Bronze period, through middle and late Bronze Age (from carbon data analysis), through the Iron Age and into the Roman period where they were taken over to exploit mineral resources, mainly iron ores, and were used almost exclusively for the smelting of iron ores. Charles in North Devon is a perfect example of this.
Whilst landscape survey can provide clues, such 'clues' must then be 'tested out' to provide physical evidences. Whilst technologies like geophysics can assist, I believe that only excavation can provide the 'true' answers.
regards,
Trevor
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