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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 farming practices of early settlers. From about 5500BC to 4300BC small clearances were made in the woodland cover. Clearances were usually made by burning, followed by heavy grazing by animals on cleared land. This combination of burning and grazing encouraged 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 tombs in the form of a sunken chamber, the earliest visible structures, survive. Spinster's Rock off the A382 near Sandy Park village is a good example. Ritualistic stone walls were built encircling exposed rocky outcrops, known as tors. Examples include White Tor close to the village of Cudliptown in western Dartmoor.

 

 

 

 

From late Neolithic to 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 all these structures is not clear, but stone circles seem to mimic a protective castle in stylised form, and perhaps had something to do with rituals seeking security. Sometimes earthbanks and ditches accompany stone circles of this age, and once again these structures mimic castle design of the time. Stone rows could have served as a stylised border, a symbolic wall, between territories. There are also many isolated stone monuments on Dartmoor called menhirs. Once again their function is not clear, but it could be pointed out that in Genesis, which might date to around 4000BC, piles of stones are used to mark borders, and to symbolise permanent agreements (see Genesis Chapter 31). 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 this area.

There are over five thousand remains of round houses on Dartmoor. Near Rippon Tor there are the remains of a single hut and three square fields. Even more impressive are the remnants of a 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 remains of houses visible within. Good views of this site can be had from Hookney Tor. Click here for an interactive map centred on Grimspound. Once again the satellite view is revealing. From around 1500 BC land ownership became important. There are over 125 miles of surviving low stone boundary known as reaves, dating to this time. 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 a bleakly beautiful empty landscape. This is a landscape lost partly to over intensive land use, and partly to climate change, in this case from warm to cooler conditions.