Plan of Penn Beacon barrow

Barrows are prehistoric burial mounds. They are usually dated to the Bronze Age (1500 - 800 BC). Burnard reports that this barrow was "opened by Spence Bate". Victorian antiquarians regularly excavated barrows looking for artefacts interred as part of the burial ritual. Unfortunately these excavations destroyed much of the evidence about Bronze Age burial processes that could now be obtained using modern archaeological techniques.