The excavation of a coastal promontory fort at Porth y Rhaw, Solva, Pembrokeshire, 2019-22

Port y Rhaw, a large Iron Age promontory fort on the Pembrokeshire coast, is suffering from severe coastal erosion. Most of the interior has been lost to the sea. Dyfed Archaeological Trust (now Heneb) excavated the site between 1995-98 and more recently between 2019-22. The recent excavations concentrated on the entrance to the fort and parts of the fort's interior. Radiocarbon dates complemented those from the 1990s, indicating construction between the eighth and fifth centuries BC. The fort seems to have declined, and may even have been abandoned, towards the end of the first millennium BC. Occupation, or reoccupation, during the second-fourth centuries AD was very different from that of the Iron Age, and was characterised by the construction of a substantial stone-built circular structure. This had the appearance of a roundhouse, but ten internal hearths, the result of high temperature working, were non-domestic. The hearths were not associated with metalworking; no other practical function could be assigned to them.