This page provides a provisional description of what has been found in the excavations, but it is NOT a definitive statement. What follows will be subject to revision and re-analysis as the project progresses!
The earliest activity detected so far (our present Phase 1) is associated with food processing. In 2023 a small gully was located, containing some metalworking waste and a moderate quantity of charred wheat. This wheat was radiocarbon dated to cal. AD 596 – 664. In 2024, in the same area of the site burnt deposits were containing cereal grains were truncated by later graves. The wheat from this deposit gave an almost identical 14C date of cal. AD 591-660.
These date are excitingly early – although significantly later than the time of Illtud (usually interpreted to have lived very approximately AD460 – 525) and Samson (very approximately AD 490-565), they probably predate the visit of Samson’s biographer to Llantwit (probably AD 680×700).
Phase 2 covers the period of the later 7th century and into the 8th century. In the Globe Field excavations this phase is represented by metalworking activity. The features of this phase have not yet been excavated, but over half a tonne of iron slag has been recovered from the overlying deposits. To the west of the stream, the badger sett area shows contemporary burial, with at least six individuals now represented by the skeletal remains from the sett and from 2023 Trench 2.
Phase 3 shows the extension of burial activity into the area of the Globe Field excavations. The earliest burials appear to be a cluster of young children and infants of late 8th to early 9th century date. They were closely followed by adult burials (mid-9th century), with one adult buried N-S cutting through the child burials. The late 8th to 9th century is also the period of the inscribed stones now in the Galilee Chapel, suggesting that high status burials were focused on the modern church site.
After the 9th century (our Phases 4 and 5), the site in The Globe Field appears to have been used for livestock, perhaps pigs, and significant erosion occurred during the 10th and 11th centuries (including of earlier graves).
A complete change of land-organisation and land-use was marked by the creation of a network of drystone field walls (Phase 6; the features that had attracted us to the site in the first place). These walls, each 70-80cm thick, bounded a series of small fields and currently appear to date from around the time of the Norman invasion (c. AD 1100). These fields show the development of lynchets (Phase 7) – in which soil moves downslope (usually because of tillage), eroding at the upper edge of the field and accumulating at the bottom of the field, that developed rapidly during the 12th century.
The network of small arable fields does not appear to have survived long. The build up of the lynchets probably caused the stone walls to collapse (Phase 8) by the end of the 13th or early in the 14th century.
The later history of The Globe Field appears to have been mainly as a pasture, except for the eventual subdivision of the field to provide a vegetable garden in its southern half.