dartmoor archaelolgy

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End o f i ce age

Prehistoric Archaeology of Dartmoor

Prehistoric Archaeology

Dartmoor Factsheet

Dartmoor National Park covers an area of 368square miles (954 sq km) and contains thelargest concentration of Bronze Age remainsin the country. The reason for the survivalof so many archaeological remains withinthe National Park is due to the fact that manyof the structures were built of granite, a verydurable stone, and also because humanactivity on the moor in later centuries was

not intense. Dartmoor's high soil aciditymeans that virtually no pottery, bone ormetal from the prehistoric past survives here.Many of the monuments are protected by lawmaking it an offence to damage or interferewith them in any way. They are infinitelyvaluable and fascinating relics ofa long gone age.

Although few visible remains can be datedto before 2300 BC, there has been humanact ivity on Dartmoor for much longer. Atone t ime almost the whole Moor was coveredwith trees, but from about 10,000 BC, if notearlier, the first clearings in the forest beganto be made by small groups of wandering,hunt ing and gathering people. Animals,encouraged to graze in the clearings, could

then be hunted more easily. The remainsof f lint tools used by these groups of theMESOLITHIC period, or M iddle Stone Age(circa 10,000 4,500 BC) have occasionallybeen found on the fringes of Dartmoor.

Dartmoor Nat ional Park Authorit y Prehistoric Archaeology Factsheet September 2004 Page 1 of 4

Spinsters' Rock, Drewsteignt on an example of a neolit hic burial chamber.

Flin ts arranged to f orm a spearhead.

In the NEOLITHIC or New Stone Age (circa4,500 2,300 BC), a more sett led way of lif eemerged; in the lowlands farms were createdand animals and crops domest icated. OnDartmoor furt her clearance of t rees tookplace. Today, the only remains of this period,apart f rom the flint tools, are a handful ofearth bur ial mounds (long mounds) and morerarely, the stone chambers where the bones

were laid to rest .

10000 BC 4500 BC 2300BC 1000 BC 700 BC AD 508000 BC

Stone and flint tools

found on the moor

Stone and flin t

tools from the

moor

irregular field systems

regular and extensive field systems (reaves)

chambered tombsstone circles

stone rows & standing stones

round cairns and cistshut circles

enclosures

hill fort

Based on i nformat ion p repared by Dr. Alex Gibson (1988)

Mesolithic Early Neolithic Late Early Bronze Age Late Iron Age Roman


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Dartmoor Nat ional Park Authorit y Prehistor ic Archaeology Factsheet September 2004 Page 2 of 4

Cairns (which are the same as 'barrows' or't umuli' but made of stone rather than earth)could also be built over a simple burial in ahole in the ground. Somet imes burials wereplaced wit hin t he mound it self. In other casesthe grave was just marked by a ring of stonesknown as ring cairns. On Dartmoor there areabout 1,310 round cairns and over 210 ringcairns.

By the middle of t he Bronze Age, most of thetrees had been cleared from high Dartmoorand the land had become farmland. Somet ime around 1700 BC people began to createwhat w e would t oday call f ields; these werelong strips of land bounded by low, stoneybanks know n as reaves. Inside these banksanimals were grazed and crops possiblygrown. The crops would have been viabledue to a warmer and drier climate than t oday.

Dott ed around in the fields are the remainsof hut circles (round dwelling houses) of theprehistor ic farmers. Beyond the f ield systems,hut circles can sometimes be found enclosedby a stone wall (these are often calledpounds) or in an unenclosed group like amodern village, where they are scatteredabout in ones and twos.

In the later part of t he NEOLITHIC periodand early part of the BRONZE AGE (2,300 700 BC) people built a variety of ceremonialmonument s on t he moor, such as stone rowsand circles, and buried their dead under stonemounds or cairns.

Upright stones of various shapes and sizesarranged in rows (single, double or even

tr iple) or circles were fairly common onDartmoor, but we have very litt le idea whatuse they were put to. Some are associatedwit h burials and it is thought that they mighthave been used for relig ious or ceremonialpurposes. There are about 75 stone row sand 18 stone circles to be found on Dartmoor.It has been suggested that some stone rowswere used for astronomical sitings, but wecannot be sure of this.

Bronze Age huts,or round houses.

Stone row and menhir on Long Ash Hill,

near Merrivale.

Cist and cairn circle.

Single stones standing by themselves (or nearstone rows or circles) are known as menhirs;their purpose is also unclear.

Prehistoric people buried their dead in anumber of ways. Somet imes the body or, ifcremation was practised, ashes, were placedin cists (stone chests) sunk int o t he ground.These might be covered with a mound of

stones and earth called a cairn.

Some of the houses may not have beenlived in permanently. Excavat ion of a smallenclosed group prior to being destroyed bythe clay quarries on Shaugh Moor, suggested

that they were occupied only occasionally,perhaps by farmers and shepherds f rom thelow lands bring ing their cat t le and sheepup on the moorland for the summermonths only.


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Cooking was done on an open f ire in t hecentre of t he dwelling. Round houses

continued t o be built and lived in duringthe Iron Age.

Bronze Age people divided t heir landwi th low walls that w e now call reaves.Reaves can best be seen from a distance,looking from one hillside to another.

Generally, the lowbanks runin parallellines down

valley slopes,dividing theland intonarrowstrips.


On Dartmoor there are remains of over 5,000Bronze Age houses or huts; only granite wallssurvive and we refer to these as round houses,sometimes hut circles. They are generallycircular and can be anything f rom 1.8m (6f t )to 9m (30f t ) in diameter. Somet imes the largeupright stone which formed the doorway canstill be seen, and some round houses hadporches to protect the entrance from wind

and rain. The roof t imbers would have beensupported on a ring of posts inside the wallgiving the roof a conical shape. The overallcovering might have been of turf , heather,gorse or thatch whatever was most readilyavailable.

Remains of round house and pound wall.

At the higher end of these strips can usuallybe seen a reave running at right angles tothem, dividing the enclosed land from theopen moor above. The strips themselves aresomet imes divided int o smaller unit s by shor tbanks running across them. It is thought thatblocks or areas of reaves might have formeda territory or estate used by a single group ort ribe of people, a bit like a modern parish.

Towards the end of the Bronze Age theweather began to get colder and wetter andthe soils became acid, causing grass and cropsto grow less easily, and Dartmoor became aless pleasant place to live.

Gradually the houses and fields on the highmoor were deserted as their inhabit antsmoved to the lower ground, the burialplaces of their ancestors were abandoned.

The IRON AGE is the name generally givento the period f rom 700 BC unt il t he arrival ofthe Romans in Britain in the first century AD.However, in remoter parts of the count ry,the impact of the Roman invasion was hardlyfelt and lif e cont inued litt le changed. It wasduring t his period that iron working skillsbegan to be developed. On Dartmoor therewas a general movement of people awayf rom t he exposed high moor to the shelteredareas at it s edge, and some people cont inued

to live in and build round houses on t he lowerslopes of the Moor.

Basic st ructure of a Dartmoor reave wi thround house.

Also during this period defended sett lements,called hillforts, were built to protect housesand animals against raiding by neighbours.These are to be found, as their name suggests,on hill tops. Groups of houses, out buildingsand animal pens were defended from possibleattack by digging deep dit ches and buildinghigh banks all around them. There are about

a dozen hillforts within the National Park.Hembury Fort with its deep ditches and highrampart s is a f ine example. Other notableforts can be seen along the Teign Valley atPrestonbury, Cranbrook and Wooston.

Iron Age hillfort .


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For f urt her inf ormati on, and a list o f o ther Fact Sheetsavailable, contact the:Education Service,Dartmoor National Park Authority,Parke, Bovey Tracey, Newton Abbot,Devon TQ13 9JQTel: (01626) 832093E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk

This publication may be phot ocopied f or educational

purposes under t heCopyright Act 1988.

Printed on environment ally

friendly paper

Useful web links for further information:

Other factsheets: Dartmoors Past Tin Industry

http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/dnp/factfile/homepage.html

Other publications (not available on-line): A Guide to the Archaeology of Dartmoor

Dartmoor National Park Author ity

Houndtor: Deserted Medieval SettlementDartmoor National Park Author ity

Merrivale: An Archaeological LandscapeDartmoor National Park Author ity

DartmoorNationalParkAuthority2004

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Useful Reference Books

Butler, J. Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, five volumes

(Devon Books, 199197) (T)

Dartmoor National Park Aut horit y, A Guide to t he

Archaeology of Dartmoor(Devon Books, 2003) (ST)

Devon Archaeological Society Devon Archaeology No 3:

Dartmoor issue(Devon Archaeological Society, 1991) (T)

Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings of t heDartmoor Conf erence 1994

(Devon Archaeological Society, 199596) (T)

Fleming , A. The Dartmoor Reaves(Batsford, 1988) (T)

Gerrard, S. Dartmoor

(Batsford & English Heritage, 1997) (ST)

Gill , Crispin (edito r) Dartmoor: A New Study

(David & Charles, 1983) (ST)

Hemery, Eric High Dartmoor(Robert Hale, 1983) (ST)

Todd, Malcolm The South West to AD 1000,

(Longman, 1987) (T)

Sale, R. Dartmoor t he Off icial National Park Guide

(Pevensey Press, 2000) (ST)

Woods, S. Dartmoor Stone(Devon Books, 1988) (ST)

Worth, R.H. Worth' s Dartmoor(David & Charles,

1971; Peninsula Press, 1994) (ST)

S - recommended for students

T - recommended for teachers

Please Remember

Dartmoor is one of t he most import ant

archaeolog ical landscapes in Brit ain. Each

individual f eature may hold a vital clue to the past.

Many archaeological sit es are prot ected by law

(The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas

Act, 1979). You may be breaking the law if you

disturb them. Many archaeological f eatures are smaller t han you

migh t expect . Some are only a few cent imet res high .

If you are not sure whether something is an

archaeological f eatu re or not , give it the benefit of

the doub t and leave well alone.

Never disturb an archaeological sit e or ru ined

structure by moving stones around.

Never dig in or around an archaeological site.

Information buried below ground is as import ant

to the archaeologist as that which can be seen

above ground.

Do not camp or light fi res in or around

archaeological sites.

Do not use archaeological sit es to store equipment

or as hiding places or as bivouac sites.

Mineshafts and old mine workings can be dangerous.

A pi le of stones is not just a pile of stones.

A moment 's carelessness can dest roy thousands

of years of history.
mailto:[email protected]://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/learningabout/lab-factsheetshome.htmhttp://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/mailto:[email protected]://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/learningabout/lab-factsheetshome.htm

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