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Trevisker Ware (also Trevisker series) is a distinctive regional variant of the British Food Vessel pottery type. It was probably in use throughout the second millennium BCE. It was named by Arthur ApSimon for the pottery style identified at the type site excavated by Ernest Greenfield at Trevisker round in 1955 and 1956.

It was mainly produced in Cornwall and parts of Devon, but was traded in Brittany, northern France, and other parts of England. It is thought to have originated in Cornwall, where it was the most common type of ceramic during the early Bronze age. During the Middle Bronze Age, Trevisker Ware became the only pottery style found in settlements in Cornwall and west Devon, and was exported into Somerset, west Dorset, and south Wales. In the Late Bronze Age it was replaced with Plain Ware, although a late phase of Trevisker ceramic may have developed in Cornwall, coexisting with Plain Ware to some extent.

The boundary between Trevisker styles and Deverel-Rimbury styles, was apparently Dartmoor. This boundary was perhaps a frontier zone, with a semi-permeable border, where no Deverel-Rimbury styles or wares passed further west than Dartmoor, but Trevisker ware was exported in the other direction, indicating a "strongly regionalised ethnicity" in the south west.

The long continuity of the unique pottery styles of the South West Peninsula during this period are paralled by the characteristic use of barrows and deposition of bones, and suggest that this region had a distinct identity and the capacity to interact with and influence its neighbours.

Parker Pearson speculates that disputes over land demarcation, or the development of metal extraction on a large scale from the early second millennium BCE which may have led to the arrival of large numbers of metal prospectors and traders, may have contributed to the development of a strong regional identity, although the Trevisker style probably emerged before either of these phenomena.

Chronology

ApSimon proposed a chronological division of Trevisker Ware into four periods. This system has been criticised, as there is no certain evidence that these styles can be ordered into chronological periods, and more recent schemes classify Trevisker series according to size, shape, and decoration, corresponding to different functions.

Classification

Parker Pearson distinguishes five types;

(1) large storage vessels, cord-decorated from rim to shoulder, biconical or bucket shape, generally taller than 35cm, corresponding to Patchett's group B and ApSimon style 1 and 1a. These vessels are associated with high-status funerals as well as settlements at Ash Hole, Tredarvah, and Trevisker.

(2) Smaller, tall, bucket-shaped storage or cooking vessels, with cord decoration just below the rim. Usually four small lugs below the rim. These include Patchett's C3 and G4 and ApSimon's styles 1 and 2.

(3 & 4) Small storage or cooking vessels and eating and drinking wares. Decoration is made with incisions or stamps. Vessels are bucket-shaped and slightly concave, mainly 13-31cm tall and 11-28cm wide at the rim. ApSimon styles 3 and 4.

(5) Eating and drinking vessels, decorated with cord impressions on upper part of vessel. Small handles, pierced or unpierced lugs, or dimples. 9-17cm tall. Some are reduced-size versions of type 1.

(6) Undecorated eating and drinking vessels, sometimes with small handles or lugs. Mostly 9-17 cm tall and 8-16 cm rim width.

Petrology

The geology of the south west and the restriction of the gabbroic outcrop and serpentine to the Lizard peninsula allows pottery to be traced to its source in many cases. In Cornwall, 24 out of thirty Trevisker vessels, excluding Kynance Gate, Gwithian and Trevisker, were found to be made of gabbroic clay. Of these vessels, half contained mixed inclusions from other rocks. In Devon, only one Trevisker style sherd is gabbroic.

Pottery style

Trevisker sherd

Trevisker Ware originated from the preceding local gabbroic Collared Urns, Cordoned Urns, and Food Vessels. It was predominantly made of gabbroic clay from the Lizard. Trevisker Ware of Devon is stylistically similar, but used different sources of clay.

Trevisker Ware vessels are either biconical or have curved sides. The rims are shaped for strength. Ceramics are variously decorated or sometimes plain, with simple parallel lines or complex zig-zag or chevron patterns, with impressions made with cord or less commonly combs or the fingers. Handles or lugs occur in pairs or sometimes fours.

The distinctiveness of this ceramic style may be attributed to the development of specific social and economic networks around the limited number of sources of clay suitable for pottery in the South West Peninsula.

Petrology, gabbroic clays, Lizard, etc.

Sites

Trethellan

At Trethellan Farm, near Newquay, 5,795 Trevisker Ware pottery sherds weighing nearly 80kg was excavated. The ceramic finds at the site all date from a single chronological phase radiocarbon dated to 15th-13th centuries BCE.

Petrological analysis indicated that the pottery was extremely homogeneous, consisting of two main groups, both of which contained partially decomposed feldspar. The first group is typical Cornish gabbroic ware, and the second a 'Gabro admixture' also found at other Trevisker sites, which contained dark fragments of greenstone. These types of clay are not found at Trethellan, and completed pots were probably imported from elsewhere.

The majority of vessels were decorated with geometric shapes, either by using a cord, a comb, the fingertips, or a linear tool.

Chysauster

Six Trevisker urns, ranging in date from 2510-1900 calBCE to 1780-1442 calBCE, were found at the site.

Carnon Gate, Feock

The site, radiocarbon dated to the Middle Bronze Age ca. 1500–1000 BCE calibrated, yielded 91 Trevisker ware sherds weighing around 1.3kg.

Sources

• Smith, George (1996). "Archaeology and Environment of a Bronze Age Cairn and Prehistoric and Romano-British Field System at Chysauster, Gulval, near Penzance, Cornwall". Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 62: 167–219. doi:10.1017/S0079497X00002784. ISSN 0079-497X.

• Gibson, Alex (1997). "A Cornish vessel from farthest Kent". Antiquity. 71 (272): 438–441. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00085045. ISSN 0003-598X.

• Jones, Andy M. (2010). "Bosiliack and a Reconsideration of Entrance Graves". Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 76: 271–296. doi:10.1017/S0079497X00000529. ISSN 0079-497X.

• Harrad, Lucy (2004). "Gabbroic clay sources in Cornwall: a petrographic study of prehistoric pottery and clay samples". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 23 (3): 271–286. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0092.2004.00212.x. ISSN 0262-5253.
• ApSimon, A. M. (1972). "The Excavation of Bronze Age and Iron Age Settlements at Trevisker, St. Eval, Cornwall". Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 38: 302–381. doi:10.1017/S0079497X00012160. ISSN 0079-497X.

• Quinnell, Henrietta (2012). "Trevisker Pottery: some recent studies". doi:10.5284/1091075. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

• Patterson, Nick (2022). "Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age". Nature. 601 (7894): 588–594. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04287-4. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 8889665. PMID 34937049.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link)

• Jones, Andy M. (2011). "The Neolithic and Bronze Age in Cornwall, c 4000 cal BC to c 1000 cal BC: an overview of recent developments" (PDF). Cornish Archaeology. 50: 197–229.

• Nowakowski, Jacqueline A. (1991). "Trethellan Farm, Newquay: the excavation of a lowland Bronze Age settlement and Iron Age cemetery". Cornish Archaeology. 30: 5–243.

• Gossip, James (2008). "A Bronze Age roundhouse at Carnon Gate, Feock". Cornish Archaeology. 47: 101–115.

• Pearson, M. Parker (1990). "The Production and Distribution of Bronze Age Pottery in South-Western Britain". CORNISH ARCHAEOLOGY. 29: 5–32.