Hendraburnick ‘Quoit’: recording and dating rock art in the west of Britain

What is it about?

In 2013 a small-scale excavation was carried at Hendraburnick ‘Quoit’, which lies to the north of Camelford, in Cornwall. The project was undertaken to establish whether the site was a ruined megalith and to obtain dating for the cup-marks which had been recorded at the site. The excavation revealed that the ‘quoit’ was in fact a large propped ‘axe-shaped’ stone that had been set upon a low platform of slates, and that a second fallen standing stone was located at the eastern of the site. Subsequently, the site appears to have become the focus for the smashing of vein quartz blocks, as well as for the deposition of mostly fragmented artefacts. Two charcoal samples were submitted for radiocarbon dating and these produced determinations which fell in the Late Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age the periods

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