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10,000 years ago it is unlikely that man had ever set foot on Dartmoor. During the Palaeolithic Age a few men may have used it but if they did they left no trace. The moor at this time would have been a bleak, cold place and wouldn't have been worth the walk from the south coast where people were living.
In about 8000 BC man began to utilise the moor. This was the Mesolithic Age and the most common tools and weapons were called microliths. These were very small blades, some no bigger than a thumbnail, and made of flint fastened to a wooden shaft. As flint is not found naturally on Dartmoor it would have had to be imported, probably from Cornwall. These Metholithic people were nomads, setting up camps near springs as they hunted with their dogs.
In the 6th century BC the climate improved and the warmer, wetter conditions caused Britain to become an island and Dartmoor to rise to 1400ft above sea level. Woodlands filled the valleys with oak and alder flourishing, and open heath was confined to higher levels.
As the Neolithic Age approached Dartmoor was colonised by farmers from the Continent, and they set up villages mainly in East Devon. The lower moorlands would have been used mainly for grazing domesticated cattle and sowing crops.
Later waves of Neolithic people brought the art of megalithic building to Devon. Using constructions of chambered tombs covered by barrows, they buried their dead in mass graves. The chamber was formed by upright stones, sometimes with dry stone walling, and covered by a large stone known as a capstone.
Spinster's Rock is an example of this.
Metal implements reached Dartmoor in the 2nd century 4 BC, brought by the Beaker people who had originally spread from Spain. Their name is derived from the characteristic pottery, small drinking cups with an elongated S outline and decorated with patterns of incised lines. Being taller and stronger than the Neolithic men they soon dominated them and the first settlements established on the moor.
These people buried their dead in single graves in small round mounds, often with a row of stones marking the approach. These burial mounds are known as barrows and mainly made with earth and turf or stone. They often had substantial stones forming a closeset or open circle around the burial site. They are usually referred to as cairns. Although some cairns have yielded no trace of human burial they were generally built to protect and mark both pits and shallow depressions in the soil or the small stone boxes known as kists. The pits were small and sometimes covered by stones. They were for cremated ashes and burnt bone has been found in some of them. The kists were large enough to hold a body in a crouched or trussed position, which was the original Beaker custom but some were used for cremations. The stone rows appear to mark ceremonial or symbolic approaches to the important tombs, usually going uphill to the cairn with the largest stones closest to the grave.
Two significant shapes have been noted among the stones in rows: pillars and slabs with flat or triangular tops. Similar shapes can be found in stones encircling burial mounds. As these stones weren't artificially shaped this indicates careful selection and also has connections with West Kennet Avenue in Wiltshire which was another Beaker monument. The shapes are thought to represent the male and female, being fertility symbols and arranged in facing pairs.
The dead were very important in their beliefs and the cairns would probably have been visited on anniversaries with special processions and rituals along the ceremonial rows to renew contact with the dead.
Stone circles formed important ceremonial sites and were not connected to the rituals of the dead. They vary in size between 60 and 120ft and rarely do the stones stand above 4ft high. Their use on Dartmoor probably continued long after the Beaker people had blended in with the 'natives', but gradually respect for the rituals declined and the sites ignored. Rather like some churches and churchyards that are neglected today.
Similarly, the single standing stone, also called a menhir, was an important object over a long period of time. Large upright stones are present in many stone rows and in at least one of the circles, but there are a few isolated stones, chosen and erected with great care, which do not appear to be connected with other remains.
The Beaker people also introduced Bronze Age culture to Britain with their copper blades, or bronze blades comprised of copper with a 15 per cent tin alloy. The discovery of rich metallic sources in Ireland and the south west of England led to trade routes opening up between Dartmoor and the Continent that were followed by many other traders and settlers.
There are three main types of settlements that have been distinguished on the moor.
Enclosed settlements were groups of huts surrounded by substantial walls, mainly curved and with rounded angles. Locally these are called pounds but shouldn't be confused with animal enclosures of the same name. Most of them were small, less than 6 dwellings but a few were larger, e.g. at Grimspound there were 24 and at Riders Rings 30, although not all of these were homes. Herdsmen would have lived in these types of settlements.
Villages are the second group and would have been occupied by stock raising families. The huts were often connected by low walls to form irregular enclosures, and the people lived in larger groups.
In both of these settlements the huts were circular and rarely bigger than 25 ft in diameter. The floor of the hut would be below ground level, having often been dug away to level it on a hillside, and the sides shored up with stones onto which a roof of thatch would be placed. The entrances were never facing the north because of the icy winter winds.
The third type was the Farm, huts associated with fields and arable crop farmers. They occupied areas in which soil and temperature made arable farming a viable option. Their huts were usually larger and often made with bigger stones.
