Sigwells

Sigwells is a hamlet located in an area rich in archaeology remains, overlooking Cadbury Castle in Somerset, England.

It was the target of research by the South Cadbury Environs Project, which produced significant Early Bronze Age and Middle and Late Iron Age archaeology. Of national importance was the identification of the earliest known metalworking building in Britain, dated to Middle Bronze Age (12th century BC). It has been designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument (No:199838).

Sigwells, a rural plateau overlooking the Somerset hill fort, Cadbury Castle, was the site of early excavations by one of the fathers of modern archaeology, General Augustus Pitt Rivers (then Lane Fox), in 1877. A geophysical survey that was part of a pilot study by the South Cadbury Environs Project revealed that the three Early Bronze Age barrows he explored were at the centre of a complex, multi-period landscape, which has since been the subject of test pitting and excavation. The most important discovery was the earliest known bronze casting building and associated enclosure in Britain. It has also made an important contribution to Late Iron Age ceramic studies through providing clear evidence that Dorset Black-burnished ware was distributed well beyond its area of production before the 1st century AD.

The outstanding geophysical survey results provide the main data set for an important archaeological application of computerised network analysis.

Pitt Rivers excavated two over lapping Early Bronze Age round barrows and a single round barrow. The latter was explored again in 1995 and 2005, the second of these excavations revealing that its ring ditch cut through an earlier ditch, one of at least four parallel long linear boundaries identified by the geophysical survey. This places the origins of the linear boundary system as Early Bronze Age or, possibly, Neolithic, hence one of the earliest such systems in mainland Britain.

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