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Celtic fields and farms on Dartmoor, in the light of recent excavations at Kestor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Aileen Fox
Aileen Fox
Affiliation:
University College of the South West, Exeter
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Extract

The granite upland of Dartmoor has attracted settlers coming into the south-west of Britain from the early Bronze Age (Beaker phase) onwards. The long outline of the moor is visible from the South Devon coast, which with its series of good harbours invites intrusion. The navigable lower reaches of the south-flowing rivers—the Plym, Yealm, Erme, Avon, Dart and Teign—and the ridgeways along their watersheds provide convenient thoroughfares across the intervening coastal belt, the South Hams and the hinterland of Torbay, as far as the foot of the main escarpment. Above this steep ascent, where the granite overlies the Devonian rock formations, and where the rivers run in deep wooded gorges, the moorland mass forms a rolling tableland (1000-1400 feet high), broken only by the profile of the numerous upland valleys or by the fantastic eroded outlines of the tors. It is in this zone (light shading, fig. 1) that the evidence for most of the prehistoric settlement and early cultivation is to be found. Between 1400 and 1500 feet, the ground rises markedly again to the uninhabited northern heights (Yestor 2039 feet) and the southern heights (Ryder's Hill 1692 feet), in which the rivers have their sources and which are now blanketed in peat bog (dark shading, fig. 1). The heights apart, Dartmoor contains a broad tract of elevated open country, well-watered grass and heather moor, ideally suited to sustain a primitive pastoral economy. In many places on the marginal slopes and in the upland valleys a sufficient depth of sandy soil has accumulated on top of the rock to make arable cultivation possible; at present, cultivation ceases at about 1000 feet, which is the normal tres line.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , July 1955 , pp. 87 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1955

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References

page 87 note 1 Antiquity 1 (1927), 283Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr Curwen for the use of his original plans, one of which is reproduced as fig. 4.

page 87 note 2 P.P.S. 1952, 55Google Scholar.

page 87 note 3 Report in Trans. Devon. Ass. vol. 86 (1954)Google Scholar, hereafter quoted as T.D.A.

page 89 note 1 Compare the rainfall at Princetown (1359 ft.) with that at Thornworthy, near Chagford (1150 ft.) in the Climate reports of the Devonshire Association. There was a 22-inch difference in 1951 (T.D.A. vol. 84, 284).

page 90 note 1 Curwen, , Antiquity 1927Google Scholar, figs. 19 and 23, T.D.A. vol. 28, 183.

page 90 note 2 Curwen, 's type 15, Antiquity 1927, 275Google Scholar.

page 90 note 3 T.D.A. vol. 86, 46.

page 90 note 4 P.P.S. 1952, 71Google Scholar, fig. 8 and pl. VI.

page 90 note 5 Holleyman, , Antiquity 1935, 443Google Scholar. Rhodes, , Oxoniensia XV, p. 1Google Scholar.

page 91 note 1 Intermediate sizes do occur as the list on p. 100 shows.

page 93 note 1 T.D.A. vol. 29, 156, and P.P.S. 1952, 73Google Scholar and pl. VIII.

page 93 note 2 The Saddle Bridge, Holne, settlement, No. 33, is another intact example.

page 93 note 3 P.P.S. 1940, 104Google Scholar.

page 93 note 4 P.P.S. 1952, 207Google Scholar.

page 93 note 5 Information from the Statistics Department, Devon Agricultural Executive Committee.

page 93 note 6 T.D.A., vol. 86, 34, the Paddock, but excavation showed it had been cultivated, a garden rather than a farmyard or paddock.

page 93 note 7 Similar ‘concentric’ constructions occur on Dartmoor that are not definitely associated with field systems, as at Rocks, Tunhill (T.D.A., vol. 29, 148Google Scholar and P.P.S. 1952, 63Google Scholar) and Routrundle (ibid p. 76). The latter closely resembles Round Pound, Kestor, in its massive construction and partial levelling of the site, and both have much in common with the concentrics of Wales, N. (Hemp and Gresham, Antiquity, 1944, 183Google Scholar and Bersu, , Arch.Camb. 1949, 173)Google Scholar, as Mr Radford has pointed out. I cannot agree to a Dark Age date for the Dartmoor examples in the face of the new evidence from Kestor.

page 93 note 8 Shorter, A. H., Devon and Cornwall N. & Q, XXIV, 14Google Scholar.

page 95 note 1 The fields measure 84 by 94 feet and 164 by 100 feet: there are also smaller irregular enclosures: see 6-inch O.S. map, 119 NW.

page 95 note 2 Huts at Little Mistor vary from 11 feet to one of 30 feet; most of them are over 18 feet in diameter.

page 95 note 3 A full report in T.D.A. vol. 86 (1954)Google Scholar.

page 96 note 1 Institute of Arch., 8th Report, 29.

page 96 note 2 Quoted by Eileen Power, Medieval People, from a 9th century source.

page 96 note 3 Inf. Miss D. Dudley: unpublished.

page 96 note 4 Wheeler, , Maiden Castle, Hut D.B. 2, 94Google Scholar.

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page 97 note 1 P.P.S. 1941, 117Google Scholar, fig. 1.

page 97 note 2 See T.D.A. vol. 86, 43, where the problems are fully discussed.

page 97 note 3 Bersu, , Arch. Camb. 1949, 184, 198Google Scholar, where the type is illustrated and discussed.

page 98 note 1 Clark, J. G. D. and Fell, C. I., P.P.S., 1953. Site 11, 2, p. 9Google Scholar.

page 98 note 2 Most of it fell inside the hut, with the collapsed roof.

page 99 note 1 Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. vol. 233, 233 and P.P.S. 1946, 1Google Scholar.

page 99 note 2 Hawthorn is not represented in the charcoals, but exists at present on the site. There has been some recent planting of conifers in the valley below Batworthy house.

page 99 note 3 P.P.S. 1952, 77Google Scholar.

page 99 note 4 P.P.S. 1952, 84Google Scholar, fig. 13, 1–2.

page 99 note 5 P.P.S. 1952, 84Google Scholar, fig. 13, 4.

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page 99 note 7 P.P.S. 1952, fig. 13, 6; and T.D.A. vol. 29, 153, pl. IV.

page 99 note 8 P.P.S. 1948, 9, fig. 5, 10.

page 99 note 9 The Halshanger pottery is described as two or three fragments of ‘very red pottery, one being portion of a rim of a small vessel’; it sounds suspiciously like haematite ware.

page 99 note 10 P.D.A.E.S. IV, 79.

page 100 note 1 Worth, R. H., Trans. Plymouth Institution 1931Google Scholar, pl. XIII, XIV, XV.

page 100 note 2 Comparison may be made with the Votadini of the Scottish border, where pottery of Late Bronze Age fabric remained in use until late Roman times; Hogg, A. H. A., Aspects of Archaeology, 214Google Scholar.