Prehistoric Dartmoor
| Twelve thousand years ago, after the end of the last Ice Age, Dartmoor rapidly became almost totally tree covered. It was an area where people came first to gather its natural resources and to hunt the wild animals which roamed there. They created clearings within the forest to attract animals to graze by burning and with the use of stone tools. Archaeological evidence for their activities is found by analysis of ancient pollens and charcoal and from the early styles of flint tools still found today. It was the combination of clearing and burning which began the slow spread of the peat blanket bog which now covers much of the higher parts of Dartmoor. |
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Burial and Ceremonial
More tangible evidence of the human presence on Dartmoor comes in the different types of cairns/barrows (burial places). The earliest of these is the chambered tomb, a burial chamber built of granite and originally covered by a long earth mound. Only a few examples are known; they contained collective burials and may well be up to six thousand years old. Much more widespread are the cairns, numbering over 1500 and which are four and a half to three thousand years old. Almost without exception these are circular but with many variations in style. Massive stone cairns, placed for dramatic effect, crown many of the highest ridges; smaller cairns formed by low mounds are more randomly distributed. Some burials were in stone cists, slabs of granite forming a stone chest with another slab as the coverstone. Dartmoor contains the largest number of ceremonial sites in north west Europe which are thought to be of a similar date to the cairns, or possibly a little earlier. |
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Stone rows are one of the most enigmatic and prolific of these; there are over seventy five on the moor (60% of all the stone rows in England are found on Dartmoor). These run in a linear fashion for varying lengths and are formed by single, double, triple and multiple rows of stones which frequently terminate in a burial cairn. Their original purpose is unclear; they have been the subject of little formal investigation. It seems most likely that they were connected with forms of worship and burial and, given their size, that their construction was very much a community effort. |
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Settlement and farming
It is difficult to know whether the extensive number of prehistoric settlement sites on Dartmoor are contemporary with the ceremonial sites. Limited excavation has shown that occupation of some of these was approximately three and a half thousand years ago. Over 5,000 stone-built round houses can be seen, some of which were permanent homes, others were probably seasonal, or used for storage or animal housing. Excavation has revealed that some of the stone round houses had both timber predecessors and contemporary timber buildings. Round houses are found on their own, or in small groups (open settlements), within walled enclosures or within their own rectangular field systems. It is the survival of these field systems with their low stony earth covered boundaries (reaves) which has earned Dartmoor’s archaeology international recognition. Reaves were built to create rectilinear fields and to divide the enclosed areas from the higher open moor; this division was marked by a terminal reave running along the contours. The lower areas were further subdivided by parallel reaves, and sometimes subdivided again by cross reaves. The total extent of reaves on Dartmoor covers an area of over a 10,000 hectares. The construction of the reaves suggests a need for closer control of land to cope with the ever increasing demands on its use coupled with a deteriorating climate. By
3,000 years ago Dartmoor’s climate had turned wetter and cooler with its once fertile soil becoming depleted and replaced by a build up
of peat. This led to the slow abandonment of settlement on the higher slopes with evidence of continued occupation limited to a small number of sites. END OF THE PREHISTORIC Evidence of late prehistoric occupation around the moorland fringe is seen by a number of hillforts with substantial earth or stone ramparts and deep ditches. They belong to the period traditionally termed the Iron Age and their construction implies a growing anxiety with perhaps a fear of attack and a consequent need for protective walls and defensive iron weapons. It appears however, that they were not permanent settlement sites and also served as central places where produce and livestock could be gathered and exchanged. The Roman period on Dartmoor remains elusive, except for the odd find of coin hoards. Back to Archaeological Heritage homepage. |
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