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Prehistoric Dartmoor

Dartmoor is Britain's most complete prehistoric landscape. Dartmoor National Park literature puts the number of individual ancient monuments at about eleven thousand. In some ways it is difficult to point out individual sites, when the landscape as a whole is a memorial to prehistoric Britain.The very fact that Dartmoor is moorland is largely explained by the farming practices of early settlers. From about 5500BC to 4300BC small clearances were made in the woodland cover, which blanketed the entire area, apart from the very highest lying land. As clearances were made, usually by burning, heavy grazing by animals took place. This combination of burning and grazing encouraged the formation of peat which covers most of the moor today, and has turned Dartmoor into an open landscape.

The Neolithic period, 4000BC - 2500BC, followed this early clearance of forest. It is from this period that chamber tombs, the earliest visible structures, survive. Spinster's Rock off the A 382 near the village of Sandy Park is a good example. The chambers were originally surrounded by long earth mounds, but at Spinsters Rock only the chamber survives. It seems that this time also saw the formation of larger settlements, which some have been claimed as regional centres for the south west. Stone walls were built encircling some of the tors, the high, exposed rocky outcrops of Dartmoor. White Tor close to the village of Cudliptown in western Dartmoor is a good example.

From the late Neolithic to the early Bronze Age, monuments change. Round cairns, mounds of soil and stone date to this time, as do stone circles and stone rows. Stone rows are more common on Dartmoor than anywhere else in Britain. The function of these structures is not clear. They may have had some kind of astrological significance. Looking at them it is hard to ignore possible symbolism. Stone circles seem to mimic a protective structure in stylised form, and perhaps had something to do with rituals seeking security. Sometimes earthbanks and ditches accompany stone circles of this age, and these structures mimic the castles that would be built so frequently in the Iron Age. Security came from the weather and the seasons which influenced the production of food. So an astrological use may have been combined with a protective circular symbolism. Stone rows could have served as a stylised border between territory, serving as a symbolic wall. There are also many isolated stone monuments on Dartmoor called menhirs. Once again their function is not clear.

A stone circle and stone rows can be seen just off the B3357 near the village of Merrivale in western Dartmoor. Click here for an interactive map centred over the Merrivale area. Use the satellite view and zoom in. The images will illustrate graphically the great concentration of remains in the area.

 

There are over five thousand remains of round houses on Dartmoor. The B3387 from Bovey Tracey is a popular tourist route, running past Hay Tor. Drive on beyond Hay Tor to Rippon Tor . Near Rippon Tor there are the remains of a single hut and three square fields. Even more impressive are the remnants of the bronze age settlement at Grimspound between Hookney Tor and Hameldown Tor, close to the B3212. Here the village's circular wall can still be seen, with the remains of houses visible within. Good views of the site can be had from Hookney Tor. Click here for an interactive map centred on Grimspound. Once again the satellite view is revealing.

From the middle of the second millennium BC land ownership became important. There are over 125 miles of surviving low stone boundary known as reaves, dating to about 1500BC. Dartmoor is covered with these structures, once again confirming Dartmoor as one vast prehistoric site. Some modern field boundaries continue to follow the lines of three and a half thousand year old reaves.

During the Bronze Age, from about 1000BC the climate began to cool. It is thought that before this time temperatures in southern England were warmer by one degree in summer and two degrees in winter. With farmers facing the combined problems of widespread peat bog, and cooling temperatures, Dartmoor was largely abandoned, leaving the bleakly beautiful empty landscape we see today. This is a landscape lost partly to over intensive land use, and partly to climate change. In this respect it is sobering to walk through its desolate and lovely isolation. Dartmoor is a lost world.