1. This field system is focused around an area of higher ground and outcrops, which shelter a number of buildings, including Evans's conjoined huts 6, 7 and 8 (NPRN 415687). Fields radiate across the gently sloping ground, those to the south running towards the fresh water supply of the North Stream, though apparently stopping before it and thus encircling what may have been an area of open ground. To the north the fields radiate towards and in many case run right up to the cliff edge. The general appearance is of a rather haphazard, somewhat organic development to the southern fields, and a more regular planned system in the north. Aerial photographs and the LiDAR data indicate phasing within these field systems, particularly in the fields to the south of the outcrop.

O Davis, RCAHMW, 10 Jan 2012

2. A typological study of the field boundaries on and to the north of the outcrop was undertaken as part of the Skomer Island Project in 2011. Here the variety of boundary type is noticeable including banks of stone and earth, lines of stones, earth and stone faced lynchets, both negative and positive. What appears from the air to be a single coherent boundary on the ground is often comprised of one of varying build and type. Substantial lynchets, up to 2m high and in most cases stone-faced, are located circling the higher ground and close to hut groups 6, 7 and 8. Here aerial photographs reveal evidence of cultivation. This seems likely to represent the primary phase in the development of settlement, the cultivation of higher, less wooded and easily cleared ground near to habitation sites. Further fields and enclosures then developed from this central core, the boundaries radiating over the gently sloping ground, their different typologies representing different phases of expansion and materials available, but perhaps also the nature of the fields they defined.

In general, the stratigraphic relationships between boundaries were unclear on the ground and there were only one or two instances where it was possible to say that one boundary overlay another.

Louise Barker, RCAHMW, Jan 2016

Source:
Barker, L., Davis, O., Driver, T. and Johnston, R. 2012. Puffins amidst prehistory: reinterpreting the complex landscape of Skomer Island, in: Britnell, W. J. and Silvester, R. J. Reflections on the Past, Essays in Honour of Frances Lynch. Cambrian Archaeological Association. Welshpool. 280-302.