Background:
Skomer Island (a Scandinavian word which describes the cloven shape of the island) ranks among the finest archaeological landscapes in Britain (see record NPRN 24369 for its settlements and field systems). Its comparative isolation from the mainland, and the limited impact of recent agriculture, has meant that considerable tracts of Skomer have not been ploughed or built on since prehistoric times. It is now famed for its wildlife and ecosystems, but on the unploughed parts of the island small huts, animal pounds, farmsteads and elaborate systems of fields survive from the Bronze and Iron Ages to show us the ways in which our prehistoric ancestors lived and worked the land. A detailed survey by John Evans, published in 1990, together with earlier survey work by W F Grimes, have been added to and partly superceded by new aerial and ground survey by the Royal Commission and Sheffield University which has been ongoing since 2011 (see Barker et. al. 2012).
Toulson and Forbes (In: 1992 'The Drovers' Roads of Wales II. Pembrokeshire and the South. Whittet Books, London) record that Skomer, Skokholm and Middleholm were used as a 'pasturage for sheep, kyne and oxen as well as horses' (p. 56) and that animals were brought back to the mainland hobbled in straw-filled craft to land at Martin's Haven below Wooltack Point, or were swum across to and from the island. A built ramp on the north-eastern side of The Neck allowed access for livestock up from a beach landing. See NPRN 411557.
Modern research into Skomer's archaeology, 2008 - date
Skomer is a protected landscape managed largely for the benefit of its internationally-renowned birdlife. It is owned by Natural Resources Wales and managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales as a National Nature Reserve, with large parts of the island designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument (PE181) and the sea a Marine Nature Reserve. In addition to the current research project, two other archaeological studies have been undertaken on the island, both in the twentieth century: the first by Professor W. F. Grimes in the 1940s (Grimes 1950) and the second by Professor John G. Evans in the 1980s (Evans 1990).
The Skomer Island Project was initiated following targeted aerial reconnaissance over Skomer on 4th March 2008 by the Royal Commission, which provided a set of aerial photographs of the island’s field systems under low light from an optimum direction. The images revealed evidence for greater complexity across the island’s field systems than had previously been considered, including relative phasing between fields and settlements, hinting at a longevity of human settlement on the island beyond the established Iron Age/Romano-British model.
This led to the commissioning of a new 0.5m LiDAR survey of the island by the Royal Commission, using the Environment Agency (completed in February 2011), with follow-up ground reconnaissance and survey completed during the first season of fieldwork in April 2011. The results of this work revealed new information about the island’s settlements, field systems and ritual monuments demonstrating a much deeper chronology for the island than had previously been considered (Evans 1990, 255; Barker et al. 2012b).
In April 2012, the second season of work saw geophysical survey (gradiometer and resistance) undertaken in two areas of the island, one inside and one outside the scheduled area (Barker et al. 2013). The third season in 2014 saw the first modern archaeological excavation (Barker, L., Davis, O., Driver, T., and Johnston, B. 2014; 2015) through a mound of burnt stone outside Hut Group 8 in the North Stream settlement. Radiocarbon dates confirmed a Late Iron Age date for the ‘cooking mound’ of burnt stone, covering an Early Iron Age land surface.
The fourth field season in 2016 built on this work and methodology to identify more absolute chronological markers for key phases in the development of the Island. The 2016 excavation opened a small trench measuring 0.5m x 4.3m across a large prehistoric field lynchet located west of Hut Group 6 in the North Stream settlement. Despite a high number of stones within the soil matrix, no built revetment was identified and the lynchet was disturbed by deeply penetrating bracken roots. It was felt that a more intact and less disturbed lynchet should be located for a follow-up excavation in 2017.
During the fifth field season, the 2017 trench (Driver et al., 2020a) was opened on a deep field lynchet near the South Stream Settlement in a bid to recover undisturbed deposits and buried soils suitable for Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating. The trench was aligned north-south and measured 6.1m x 0.6m with lower levels waterlogged. The results of the 2017 OSL dating by Professors Geoff Duller and Helen Roberts brought new precision to our understanding of the development of agriculture and settlement on the island. It revealed three main dated phases of cultivation and provided the first scientifically dated evidence on Skomer for Middle Bronze Age, Middle Iron Age and Medieval settlement and farming. In particular a twelfth century AD date radically altered our understanding of the history of farming on Skomer, which had previously been thought to have been largely abandoned save for seasonal grazing and rabbit farming from the fourteenth century onwards (see Howells 1961, 42). The sixth season of fieldwork in 2018 saw new surveys of the northern cairn cemetery (Driver 2020), and an excavation in Well Meadow west of the Island Farm.
In 2025 the Royal Commission team made the first 3D drone photogrammetry surveys of the twelve best archaeological and historic monuments on the island, resulting in a new online resource of browsable models on the Sketchfab website: Sketchfab Skomer Collection
Sources:
Grimes in Archaeologia Cambrensis 101 (1950), 1-20
Evans in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 56 (1990), 247-67
Driver, T, 2007. Pembrokeshire: Historic Landscapes from the Air. RCAHMW, pp.77-83
Barker, L., Davis, O., Driver, T. and Johnston, R. 2012a. Skomer Island and Skokholm Island, Archaeology in Wales 51, 160-163.
Barker, L., Davis, O., Driver, T. and Johnston, R. 2012. Puffins amidst prehistory: re-interpreting the complex landscape of Skomer Island, In: Britnell, W.J. and Silvester, R. J. (eds.), Reflections on the Past, Essays in Honour of Frances Lynch. Cambrian Archaeological Association. Pp. 280-302.
Barker, L., Davis, O., Driver, T. and Johnston, R. 2013. Skomer Island, Marloes & St Brides, Pembrokeshire [geophysics], Archaeology in Wales 52, 158-9.
Barker, L., Davis, O., Driver, T., and Johnston, B. 2015. Skomer Island: North Stream Settlement, Hut Group 8. Report of the trial excavation of a Late Iron Age Mound of Burnt Stone. Archaeology in Wales 54, 152-158.
Barker, L., Davis, O., Driver, T. and Johnston, B. 2018. Skomer Island: The excavation of a prehistoric field lynchet associated with the North Stream settlement. Unpublished Report. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, NPRN 421796.
Driver, T. 2020. Skomer Island: Survey and recording of a cairn cemetery, Cairn Group 1, on north Skomer. RCAHMW. Unpublished report.
Driver, T., Duller, G.T., Roberts, H.M., Barker, L., Davis, O. and Johnston, B. 2020a. Skomer Island: The excavation and luminescence dating of a Bronze Age, Iron Age and Medieval field lynchet associated with the South Stream settlement. RCAHMW. Unpublished report.
Howells, R. 1961. Cliffs of Freedom. Llandysul, Gomerian Press.
Other features on Skomer include:
The settlements and field systems (NPRN 24369)
'The Churchyard' (NPRN 305370)
South Castle (NPRN 305371)
Harold's Stone (NPRN 305372)
Skomer Island hut group 8, site of 2014 excavation (NPRN 420196)
T. Driver & L. Barker, RCAHMW 2025