Andrew Fleming - The Dartmoor Reaves: Investigating Prehistoric Land Divisions

Investigating Prehistoric Land Divisions

Andrew Fleming

Windgather Press is an imprint of Oxbow Books

First published by Batsford, 1988

This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2008 and reprinted in 2019 by

OXBOW BOOKS

The Old Music Hall, 106108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE

and in the United States by

OXBOW BOOKS

1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083

First edition Andrew Fleming, 1988

Second edition Andrew Fleming, 2008

Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-1-905119-15-8

Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-911188-72-8

Kindle Edition: ISBN 978-1-911188-73-5

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing.

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By the same author:

Swaledale: Valley of the Wild River

St Kilda and the Wider World: Tales of an Iconic Island

A homestead near Rippon Tor

Foxs 1964 map of Dartmoor, showing settlement contrasts

Aerial view of the Cholwichtown Main enclosure, Lee Moor

The first reave to be followed

Map of the reaves in the Plym/Yealm area

Rook Reave on Shell Top

Rev. James Holman Mason

A.C. Shillabeers plan of Grimspound, 1829

A reave buried in peat

Walkhampton Common Reave

Nineteenth-century trackway routes in the Upper Dart basin

Perceptions of the 1950s: Foales Arrishes

Perceptions of the 1950s: Kestor

Reaves near Hangmans Pit, Holne Moor

Rippon Tor parallel reave system on Horridge Common

Reave system axis preserved by modern field pattern

Robbed reave above Hexworthy

Fossilised reaves near Yar Tor

Three Barrows Reave

Plan of the Stannon block system

Venford Reave, on Holne Moor

Venford Reave

Pattern of reaves on southern Dartmoor

Great Western Reave at Roos Tor

Map of the Great Western Reave

King Wall a former reave?

Sketch map of Rippon Tor parallel reave system

Reaves of eastern Dartmoor

Reaves of north-east Dartmoor

Dartmoor reaves: the overall pattern

Fossilised field system, Poundsgate

Bronze Age settlement near Saddle Bridge, Holne Moor

Plan of reaves on Holne Moor

Dartmeet system reaves seen from Combestone Tor

The Dartmeet system changes direction

Plan of reaves on northern side of Corndon Down

Relationship between houses and land division, Holne Moor

Variability of Holne Moor farmsteads

Gateway on Whitchurch Common

Excavation sites on Holne Moor

Plough-marks as discovered by excavation

Reave, site F

Early bank, site F

Site F house soon after start of excavation

Site F house at a later stage

The ring-groove house, 1977

Packing-stones of ring-groove house, 1978

Site F house: the excavation nearing completion

Site F: house interior

Site G: a well-built reave

Site G: reave and clearance stones

Excavated plough-marks

Venford Reave after excavation

Site B during excavation, 1979

Site B: plan showing timber building, 1980

Mole tunnels

Site B: stake-holes of a fence

Site B 1986: traces of timber house

Site B 1986: plan of timber house

Stone row, Cosdon Hill

Ceremonial centres on Dartmoor

Map of stone rows

Cist near Willings Walls Reave

Stone circle, Grey Wethers

Map of large burial cairns

Irregular field system, Riddon Ridge

Group of shielings on Holne Moor

Excavated enclosures Shaugh Moor 15 and Dean Moor

Pollen diagrams, Lee Moor and Wotter Common

Coaxial field orientation in the modern landscape

Modern hedge-bank, north Wales

A coaxial field system in Dorset

Coaxial fields on East Moor, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall

A reave in Swaledale, North Yorkshire

The Cide fields, Ireland

The ScoleDickleburgh field system

Map of coaxial field systems in the British Isles

Storeys Bar Road, Fengate: possible drafting race

Newark Road, Fengate: possible community stockyards

Bronze Age coaxial field systems in the Fenland area

Castle Hill, Fenny Bridges, Devon: ditched coaxial field system

Castle Hill, Fenny Bridges, Devon: complex entrances

Dunch Hill, Tidworth: coaxial fields slighted by linear earthwork

Chysauster, Cornwall: a much-modified field system

Coaxial system at St Davids Head, Pembrokeshire

St Davids Head system from the air

St Davids Head system: the terminal boundary

Orsett, Essex: a system indicated by cropmarks and existing boundaries

A coaxial landscape to the west of Cambridge

Coaxial landscape near Cheshunt Park, Hertfordshire

Cursus monuments at Rudston, East Yorkshire

Sacred axes at Fengate, Peterborough

The Hurston Ridge stone row

A three-phase coaxial system at South Hornchurch

Stone rows at Carnac

Skyline-sited burial cairns, Corndon Down

for Nicholas and Matthew

The Dartmoor Reaves won the British Archaeological Awards best book related to British archaeology award in 1990. Some readers have been kind enough to say that the book is something of a classic, regrettably out of print for a long time now. So it has seemed best to leave the original text largely intact, adding two new chapters to get to grips with the exciting discoveries of coaxial field systems in other parts of Britain, and new thinking about prehistoric landscapes. In the first edition, Reaves and the Wider World was almost the shortest chapter. I couldnt get away with that today! Its now impossible to consider the Dartmoor reaves in isolation. Coaxial land division is an interesting topic not simply for the later Bronze Age of southern and eastern England. It also seems to have been significant in the later Iron Age too, in some parts of Britain, whilst in some areas the influence of ancient coaxial land division can be seen in landscapes of the present day. So the second edition is about 25 per cent longer than the first. I have made a few minor textual changes to the original eight chapters, mostly in the interests of clarity, and have added a few asides and afterthoughts, some in response to more recent work carried out in the region. These are in a sans serif font. For this edition I have created a consolidated bibliography, adding a selection of useful books and articles which have appeared since 1988. Those directly relevant to the text are cited in the endnotes. To avoid confusion, I have refrained from referring to people who have died since 1988 as the late. This book is primarily about the reaves and their implications, so I have not attempted to bring together all the work done on the prehistory of Dartmoor since 1988. My objective is to preserve the freshness of the original narrative of discovery in a book which is still essential reading for those who are interested in the Dartmoor reaves and their wider meanings, and those who like to read about debates too interesting to be confined to the pages of archaeological journals.