GULVAL 1

The site was excavated by Peter Pool and Vivien Russell between 31st December 1957 and 3rd January 1958. The menhir, known locally as the Cuckoo Rock, was considered by the two excavators to be one of the most elegant in West Penwith and had probably been shaped by ‘flaking’, although no tool marks were visible. The ground was cleared down to the rab about 1.24 metres (4’) around the base of the stone. It was found that the standing stone had been erected in an oval pit 1.24 by 1.08 metres (4ft by 3ft 6in) cut into the rab. The shape of this pit suggested that the stone had been slid downhill until its base was over the pit; it was then tipped upright and wedged with five small stones.

During the excavation steel guy ropes had to be placed around the stone to support it  but, unfortunately, the work done did not produce any finds whatsoever and in view of this negative result it was decided not to publish the draft report. Russell also noted how she had found a 3.95 metre (12ft 9in) long stone lying downhill by the same hedge; it lay next to the block of stone from which it had been detached, yet showed no signs of any drill marks nor other rock-splitting methods and, if trimmed slightly, “would make a monument very similar to the Cuckoo Rock.*

GULVAL 2

Although standing in a field with an obvious ‘stone’ name, this 2.55 metre (8ft 6in) tall menhir with a pointed top does not appear to have been recorded prior to the Second World War. It has a lichen covered top and leans slightly close to the field hedge at the lower end of a cultivated field; Mulfra Quoit across the valley is not visible but the field named Longstone at Trythall is [see Gulval F4].  The site was excavated during the autumn of 1958 by Vivien Russell and Peter Pool.* A number of interesting finds were made.

The menhir was found to be standing by a cairn of stones covering a stone cist containing a Beaker burial. The standing stone, which was sunk 1.35 metres (4ft 6in) into the ground, was put in place prior to construction of the cist although it was considered probable that they formed a single monument. This cist was placed just over 90 centimetres (3ft) from the eastern side of the menhir in a pit dug separately from that containing the menhir (indicated by the upcast rab), and was constructed with four stones wedged vertically against each other to form the ‘box’: the floor was paved with flattish stones and the whole covered by a single large slab of granite; it was thought that some of these stones had been trimmed to shape.

A handled beaker was found lying on its side at the bottom the cist near the southwest corner, close to two unburnt bones that were too decayed to allow for identification of species. The whole cist had been deliberately infilled before being covered with “very gritty soil with frequent traces of rab, and scattered throughout it were fragments of calcined human bones” as well as a few sherds of pottery, charcoal, two small pieces of hematite, and many small waterworn pebbles. The filling of the beaker was of identical composition apart from the red hematite.

Close to the southwest corner of the cist another pit had been dug into that previously made for the cist; this was filled with dark soft soil that contrasted strongly with the soil in the main pit. A few traces of charcoal with three pieces of beaker lay in this pit that was covered by a single stone.

The cairn of rough unshaped stones included “occasional flecks of charcoal and waterworn pebbles” – as well as a saddle quern broken in two pieces but “evidently” intact when inserted into the cairn – that lay over the whole area around the main cist and partly around the standing stone. A patch of “heavily charcoal flecked soil two or three inches thick”, containing some sherds and a large quantity of waterworn pebbles, was found on the south side of the cairn as well as a slight depression 15 centimetres (6in) in diameter also packed full of these pebbles.  The eastern side of the cairn had been ploughed down, probably during medieval times, but sherds of pottery, calcined human bone and four flint flakes were found; considered by the excavators to represent a possible secondary burial inserted into the cairn.

Some relatively undecayed horse bones, together with a coin of the Emperor Gallienus (AD 259-268), were unearthed on the western side of the menhir suggesting that this animal burial (or offering) was carried out during the Roman period. It was thought that the original Bronze Age cremation would have taken place elsewhere and the remains scrapped up and put in the cist together with the beaker; the unburnt bones possibly being “a joint of meat put in as a funerary offering”.

Cremated bones taken from the cist consisted of bits of skull, mandible, limb-bones and “extremities”, all very incomplete but belonging to an adult, “possibly female”. The charcoal was found to be derived from oak, birch, willow and ivy: the “first two only were found in the collection from the small pot” but all types were present in the cist.

The presence of large quantities of waterworn pebbles occurs at many burial sites and the nearest stream source to Try is some 180 metres away from this site; however the pebbles did not resemble any to be seen there “and their provenance is not known”. The Earlier Bronze Age pottery was decorated with thumbnail impressions, possibly a female or small male hand; other sherds had probable comb impressions as decoration. The handled beaker from the cist was the first to have been found in Cornwall and was of a type uncommon south of the River Thames; it is suggestive of contact with Central Europe where this type of pottery is commonplace, an idea reinforced by the uniqueness of this pottery being used in a context of cremation.

Barnatt*  considered that the 1958 interpretation was not entirely satisfactory since both the sealed cist and cairn had sherds of the same vessel: “Perhaps the cist was used more than once and earlier deposits partially cleared out. Or that no secondary burials took place – the whole assemblage being deposited at once”. He thought the beaker, cremation, and food offering, might represent a ritual offering deposited together with settlement debris used to fill the cist and cover it as an inner layer of the cairn.

The finds open up intriguing opportunities for speculation: was the burial that of a visiting foreign female dignitary, or was she ‘married’ locally to cement some sort of alliance concerned with the trade in metal? Is the presence of so many waterworn pebbles connected with the streaming of tin?  Do the unburnt bones and saddle quern imply offerings of meat and grain?  Does the red of the hematite symbolise rebirth for the deceased? And was the “soft dark soil” a fertility offering of the earth itself – too sacred even to be interred with the cremation?

GULVAL 3

Dr.Borlase wrote in his parochial notes*  that “this (the Nine Maidens Stone Circle) has one single longstone erected near it about 43 paces to the north-west”, but made no mention of it in his later published work on antiquities.* A more elaborate description was given by Dr.Richard Pococke when he travelled across the moors in 1750:

Today only a sorry-looking stump remains of this previous menhir. When Rev.Cotton*  made his etching of the circle during 1825 no mention was made of the standing stone and Copeland Borlase wrote in 1863*  that, although the stone was “still to be seen”, the top had been broken off. When this was done is not known, but the early 19th century was a period of intense mining activity in the immediate area with many new buildings being constructed at the nearby Ding Dong complex; stones may have been plundered from the ancient monument for use as good luck charms – there seems little need to have used these stones for mundane building purposes when there was an abundance of moor stone all around.

The former longstone has a relationship with the setting midsummer sun whereby the tallest remaining stone of the circle and the broken menhir align with the sun as it sinks below the sloping hillside to the northwest; this alignment does not extend through the centre of the circle but with a spot on the eastern arc.*