The excitement generated by the recent discovery of a prehistoric burial cist at Cut Hill underlines Dartmoor’s significance as a complex archaeological landscape that is not fully discovered or understood. The Dartmoor Society is concerned about ground disturbance from peat restoration, which feels inappropriate in such a culturally rich landscape.
The ‘sense of place’ that Dartmoor engenders amongst many people is vitally important. Dr Laura Basell, one of the team working on the Cut Hill cist, wondered ‘whether Bronze Age people saw this place as a liminal zone between earth, water and sky and perhaps life and death’, a feeling shared by many people. We value the painstaking work carried out by the archaeological team led by Dartmoor National Park Authority.
A cultural heritage stretching back millennia is very real for many people as they walk on undisturbed ground. It is less quantifiable than physical features, but it is still valid. The spiritual context is diminished when machines are used to disturb the surface of the land during peatland restoration .
The presence of archaeological deposits such as those at Cut Hill near to peat restoration work is one of the reasons that The Dartmoor Society argued for the need for more archaeological input into the peat restoration work from the start, and we are pleased that significantly more archaeological investigation is now carried out. We appreciate that time has been taken by many of those involved to explain this work in detail.
The Dartmoor Society is ever mindful of the threats posed by climate change, but we are not alone in our belief that this extraordinary archaeological palimpsest and the ‘spirit of place’ that Dartmoor engenders requires very special handling when set against the competing impulse to restore peat. We believe that management decisions on Dartmoor should give equal weight to both the natural and the cultural context. This has not yet been achieved.
Further reading:
www.dartmoorsociety.com
Dr Tom Greeves http://www.tomgreeves.
Alan Endacott https://www.facebook.com/
https://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/wildlife-and-heritage/heritage/bronze-age/cut-hill-burial-cist