The Shaugh Moor Project: Fourth Report — Environment, Context and Conclusion

Abstract

For five years from 1976 to 1980 the archaeology and environment of a block of landscape centred around Shaugh Moor on south-west Dartmoor were analysed prior to the destruction of some of the evidence by china clay working. The investigations began in 1976 with a survey of the field monuments and the initiation of soil, vegetation, small mammal and phosphate studies in addition to the search for peat deposits of sufficient antiquity. From 1977 the programme was determined by the encroachment of the quarries and other works, so that early in that year a group of cairns were excavated (site 10) and subsequently the first of two seasons work on a walled enclosure (site 15) was initiated. The excavation of the enclosure was completed in 1978 and in that year it was also necessary to undertake a small investigation near the northern edge of the project area on the Trowlesworthy cross-dyke (site 202) and near its southern edge on Wotter Playground (site 201). Settlements and field systems were surveyed and excavated on Wotter Common in 1979 and these investigations were completed in 1980 when the Saddlesborough Reave, which crosses the centre of the project area from east to west was also surveyed in detail and sampled by excavation.More field work could have been undertaken on threatened areas and indeed a limited operation was undertaken in 1981 on the Saddlesborough Reave to confirm some points of detail. Instead, it was thought best to conclude the project after five years, to complete the publication of the results and to allow mature consideration of these so as to generate a new set of questions.At an early stage the decision was taken to publish the work as a series of annual reports in theseProceedingsrather than as a single monograph. The first report (Wainwrightet al.1979) set out the simple research design for the project and contained accounts of the 1976 survey and of the excavation of the cairn group.

Mass migration through soil exhaustion: Transformation of habitation patterns in the southern Netherlands (1000 BC–500AD)

“…It appears that soil degeneration, corroborated by pollen data, from acid brown earths to podzols and gleysols had already started during the Bronze Age occupation. Degradation continued so that by 2600 years BP (650 BC) both soils and vegetation were similar and indistinguishable from those of today (Balaam et al, 1982).…”

Historical context and chronology of Bronze Age land enclosure on Dartmoor, UK

“…Pioneering work on the vegetation history of Dartmoor was undertaken by Simmons (1964), but the current models of the context and environment within which enclosure took place are based on research undertaken as part of the Shaugh Moor project, which integrated on-and off-site palaeoenvironment work with excavation (Smith et al, 1981;Balaam et al, 1982). The lower (<400 m) zones, subsequently dominated by enclosure, were predominantly open early in the second millennium BC but retained sufficient local woodland stands to provide timber for wooden structures, as evidenced from excavation.…”

“…The soils around the upland fringe generally did not show evidence of peat formation or impoverishment and Dartmoor appeared to be a landscape not under significant landscape pressure (Caseldine and Hatton, 1994). The majority of published pollen diagrams show that vegetation remained predominantly open after the later Bronze Age, generally taken to imply seasonal use of the upland for summer grazing as part of a transhumance system through later prehistoric periods (Simmons, 1964;Smith et al, 1981;Balaam et al, 1982).…”

“…The immediate pre-enclosure context on Dartmoor is reasonably well understood as a result of research at Shaugh Moor and Holne Moor (Smith et al, 1981;Balaam et al, 1982;Maguire et al, 1983). The data presented here offer the first opportunity to examine the longer-term development of the landscape around the Dartmoor reaves, including the Neolithic and early Bronze Age during which much of the character of the later prehistoric landscape is thought to have developed (Fleming, 1988;Caseldine, 1999).…”

“…By the late Bronze Age, he argued, the field systems were abandoned, with climatic deterioration generally cited as a prime causal factor. Fleming's work was based upon a large scale survey and relied upon excavation evidence from Shaugh Moor (Wainwright et al, 1979;Wainwright and Smith, 1980;Smith et al, 1981;Balaam et al, 1982), and Holne Moor (Maguire et al, 1983;Fleming, 1988). Key assumptions of Fleming's model have been the subject of recent critique, for example the extent to which the boundaries represented a single, planned phase of enclosure (Johnston, 2005) and the relationship between patterns of land use and environment (e.g.…”