Par Beach on St Martin's, Isles of Scilly, preserves a multi-period coastal site where intertidal erosion has exposed traces of prehistoric to Romano-British activity, including settlement remains, a cist cemetery, and possible ritual deposition. Occupation appears to span the later Iron Age through the Romano-British period (roughly 1st century BC to 4th century AD), with the settlement likely consisting of small stone-walled roundhouses typical of Scillonian sites of this date.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site forms part of the well-attested Romano-British presence in Scilly, where small farming and fishing communities engaged in limited contact with the wider Roman economy, evidenced across the archipelago by finds of pottery, brooches, and coins. Par Beach is one of several Scillonian coastal sites (alongside Nornour, Halangy Down, and English Island Carn) demonstrating that these remote islands were neither isolated nor abandoned in the Roman period.
Erosion of the dune and beach face has periodically exposed structural remains, midden material, and human burials in stone cists, with Romano-British pottery (including South-Western Brown Stoneware and limited imported wares) recovered from the surface and shoreline. No major modern open-area excavation has been published; knowledge derives largely from rescue recording, watching briefs, and surface collection in response to ongoing coastal erosion.
Par Beach on St Martin's, Isles of Scilly, preserves a multi-period coastal site where intertidal erosion has exposed traces of prehistoric to Romano-British activity, including settlement remains, a cist cemetery, and possible ritual deposition. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Prehistoric to Romano-British ritual, funerary and settlement remains on Par Beach, St Martin's is classified as a Roman settlement — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Prehistoric settlement and Romano-British shrine on Nornour (1.2 km), Prehistoric cairn group, cists and prehistoric to Roman field system and settlement on Little Arthur, St Martin's (1.6 km), Prehistoric settlement, Romano-British cist cemetery and Civil War battery in northern Toll's Porth, St Mary's (3.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Prehistoric to Romano-British ritual, funerary and settlement remains on Par Beach, St Martin's