It is easy to assume that the seas surrounding Britain meant that communities were isolated from Ireland and mainland Europe during the Bronze Age. This was not the case, indeed the movement of ideas, objects and people back and forth is crucial to understanding and explaining the entire period.

Finds of Bronze Age boats are rare because wood survives only in certain conditions. Those that have been recovered can offer exceptional insights into the maritime capabilities of Bronze Age sailors. These capabilities should not be underestimated – to navigate in open water and negotiate treacherous coastlines would have required knowledge and experience that could only have been gained with regular crossings.

At times this led to similarities in metal and ceramic objects, burial practices, house designs, monuments and organisation of the landscape in regions separated by sea. The intensity, nature and influence of these connections across the sea varied through time and place though it would always have been of special importance to the communities of the sea-bound south-western peninsula.