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The date and context of a stone row: Cut Hill, Dartmoor, south-west England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Ralph M. Fyfe  and
Tom Greeves
Ralph M. Fyfe
Affiliation:
1School of Geography, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK (Email: [email protected])
Tom Greeves
Affiliation:
239 Bannawell Street, Tavistock, Devon, PL19 0DN, UK
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Abstract

The beginning of monolithic monumentality in Europe is of outstanding significance and its accurate dating a consummation devoutly to be wished. In this case study from England, the researchers had the good fortune to find monoliths stratified above and below by peat and so were able to give them a bracketed radiocarbon date and an environmental context. The results show that the stones, belonging to a linear alignment of eight others, were erected in a clearing of heathland in the fourth millennium BC. The date raises the possibility of a Neolithic appearance for this type of stone row in south-west Britain and Britanny.

Keywords

EnglandDevonBritannyNeolithicfourth millennium BCmegalithsstone rowspeatdatingenvironmental sequence
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 323 , March 2010 , pp. 55 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

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