An enigmatic stone and turf structure on Bodmin Moor, previously thought to be a medieval animal enclosure, has been found to be 4,000 years old – and unique anywhere in Europe.
The rectangular monument was not built in the early Middle Ages to trap livestock, as recorded by Historic Englandbut rather in the Middle Neolithic, between 5,000 and 5,500 years ago, archaeologists discovered.
Nothing like it is known in Britain or beyond, according to experts, meaning the original purpose of the monument known as King Arthur’s Hall is a mystery.
“There isn’t one of these anywhere else,” said chief archaeologist James Gossip. “There is nothing built at that time or later in prehistory that is a rectangular earth and stone bank with a setting of stone orthostats around the interior. There is no other parallel.”
The so-called “hall”, which is on the west side of Bodmin Moor near Helstone Cornwallconsists of an enclosed enclosure measuring 49 meters by 21 meters, lined on the inside with 56 standing stones up to 1.8 meters high.
Cornwall National Landscapewhich looks after the province’s protected land, commissioned the excavation after initial investigations by a group of local amateurs raised questions about its medieval recognition, Gossip told the Guardian.
Through careful excavation and soil dating using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), members of the Cornwall Archaeological Unittogether with experts from the universities of Reading, St Andrews and Newcastle, determined that the interior of the monument was dug away around 3,000 BC.
“They dug through the earth of Bodmin Moor to the loose granite on the surface, and they piled it up to make these banks. And what they did in our favor was they buried these very old grounds under them that we could target for OSL,” Gossip said.
As for the intriguing name, which dates from at least 1583, the monument was certainly not built by or for King Arthur, who – if he existed at all – is associated with the early Anglo-Saxon period in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. .
“The Middle Ages was a period when the name Arthur was attributed to all sorts of unusual sites that the local population at the time probably didn’t understand,” Gossip said. “It suggests that its original function was lost by then, but people attributed it to King Arthur because he had this association with something mythical and powerful.”
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The middle Neolithic, which predates the stone circles of the Bronze Age, was a time when people first began to settle in the same place and build camps, often on the high towers, he said. “The idea is that these are meeting points for communities, perhaps to celebrate special events or to perform ceremonies.”
His own favorite theory is that King Arthur’s Hall functioned in the same way, as a place for the community to gather. “It remains an enigma, but we now know a bit more about it, and we can place it firmly in the prehistoric landscape context of Cornwall.”
