Carn Brea
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Carn Brea (Cornish: Karnbre) is a hilltop site near Redruth in the county of Cornwall in the United Kingdom famous for its long history of human occupation.
The earliest Neolithic settlement at Carn Brea was a tor enclosure occupied between around 3700 and 3400 BC. A two acre (8,000 m²) inner enclosure was surrounded by a larger eleven acre (45,000 m²) one. The ramparts consisted of stone walls with an earth bank and ditch. Traces of fourteen platforms on which would have stood Neolithic long houses have been found by archaeologists within its ramparts along with pottery and flint artefacts.
These provided the first evidence in Britain of permanent Neollithic settlement when the site was excavated between 1970 and 1973 by Roger Mercer. A population of 100 to 150 people has been suggested. There is evidence that the occupants cleared the surroundings by burning away the undergrowth and removing stones to use the land for farming. The acid soils of the area precluded the preservation of any environmental evidence which would have provided more information on this aspect. Nearby outcrops of rock suitable for manufacture as axes would have contributed to the village's economy. Edge grinding stones, blanks and incomplete and finished axes found on the site indicate that the inhabitants were accomplished stoneworkers and traded their products to others. That the pottery found on the site appears to have come from a production centre almost 20 miles (30 km) to south in the present day parish of St. Keverne further supports a complex economic network in the area.
The seven hundred flint arrowheads found scattered at the site suggest that Carn Brea may have been attacked at least once. Every timber structure on the site had been burnt, the charcoal being the only organic matter that survived the acid soils. The earthworks themselves may also have been deliberately damaged by an invading power.
In the Iron Age the site was re-occupied and minerals were mined from the hillside. A hoard of Kentish gold staters found in the eighteenth century suggests trade links with the other side of the country at this time. A medieval castle also stands on the site along with a nineteenth century monument to a local mine owner.