Hi, I spent an hour at the circle on sunday, took a few pics and vids. My thoughts are that the top of the standing stone has a very close resemblance of the pointed peak on Haytor, but its effect is only really visible when viewed from up close to the stone, viewing the stone from the centre of the circle it aligns, with the centre of the tor and not the peak it resembles, to align it with the peak on Haytor you have to stand on the north edge of the circle. I do think that the stone has been placed there and that it is in some way it is associated with the circle and Haytor, the top of the stone could easily be a bit of a fluke due to erosion over 5000 years, interestingly while I was there 3 hardened Dartmoor walkers came by and one of them walked off to look at the stone thinking I was some sort of crackpot, he came back unconvinced but then I showed him the stone looking from inside the circle and his opinion shifted to being more convinced of its association with the circle. The long stone which is quite close to the Haytor stone looks to me to be from later time as it is well shaped though very crudely and I don't think it is contemporary with the other stones in the circle etc, it could of formed part of the site as a later addition but I was not convinced about its alignment with any tor. If you compare Stonehenge to Avebury, Avebury is 500 years older and they were using stones in there natural shape, 500 years later at Sonehenge they were shaping the stones. I battled my way through the gorse in a similar radius to the Haytor stone and did find a couple more large stones laying flat but there is no way of really knowing if they are associated, there are a lot stones in the area and maybe not so many as other areas but enough to confuse the situation.
COOL!! Thanks for posting your thoughts!! It's reassuring to hear that you and a 'hardened Dartmoor walker' think there could be something to the haytor stone. And thanks for your point about the second stone, possible multiple phases. I sometimes forget that this site may have been in use for many hundreds of years, as you say. Lee said the first step at the site would be to clear the gorse and do a proper survey of all the rocks around, but the site is a scheduled monument, and the landowner would need to be talked to, so there would be several checks to pass before any work could be done. As with many things in England, there's a lot of red tape! But if that tape has contributed to protecting sites like these, I'm thankful for it. So you thought the upper surface of the haytor heelstone looked potentially eroded? It definitely looks chipped off.. by humans or a glacier! Thanks again for your message and writing back, it's REALLY wonderful to hear about your experience of the site!
@@AllotmentFox I have tried but to no avail but if you have some better lidar data then would love to see it. the stones are very small in comparison to other stone circles.
I've not finished watching yet but I thought I would mention the heavy and sudden fog you get on Dartmoor. It's possible that these stones where used for navigation in a similar way to cairns. It makes sense that you would want a reliable point from which to set your bearings if you lived on this landscape.
One thing about locations and irregular horizons, is that if you stand at that point over and over, and watch the sun rise or set, each year, the sun rises and sets in the same location on the horizon as viewed from that point on the same day each year. So, when you consider it, irregularities on the horizon can act as a solar calendar. It works in much the same way as a sun dial. More importantly, by marking which point the sun is rising or setting at, the observer can tell his or her fellows how many days later some important event will be. While excavation sounds like a good idea, I would ask for a high resolution LIDAR of the circle and surrounding area. That should reveal even invisible stones lying in the brush. I'm not sure what purpose the intermediate stones might serve, but one possibility is that the observer and an assistant go out there. It's misty and visibility may be limited. So the assistant takes a torch or fuel and a fire kit and walks out to the intermediate point and lights a fire to illuminate the marker stone. The observer then knows right where to be looking for the sun or moon. Perhaps, the specialness of a place is not related necessarily to the exact moment of the event of interest, but how many days off it might be. If you look at the evidence for major activity near Avebury(?) (I'm an American archaeologist and don't have the cool sites of Britain memorzied), those events or fairs or ??? had to be planned. People had to know how many days away midsummer or midwinter was, had to know when to pack up the kids, round up the herd animals you were taking, pack up provisions, and gather all the other necessities, and when start the trip.
So interesting. As a child I lived not far from Hound tor , I loved to walk there, also the remains of a medieval village close by. Wish I was still there.
Very cool. Your cookie crumb and candy demo at the beginning got me. So creative. Did you eat it at the end of filming? In addition to that very neat beginning, your experiential archaeology was top notch.
You nailed it, the art of the stones is fractal. They reflect / image / align with the immediate landscape and landscape features. Can't wait for you to look at cup marks, same applies.
Ref 7:40. I am from the north of the UK and the way we test up here is to probe with a tent peg for socket stones that originally held a stone upright. This is an easy way to tell if the stone was placed or is an erratic.
This popped up in my feed, so I watched it... then I stopped what I was doing for 40 mins while I watched everything else (evolutionary paths to intelligence was captivating and so up my street)... then I subscribed. Really great work, please keep it up. Looking forward to the next one.
The fallen standing stone puts me in mind of the menhir at the Merrivale stone circle which still stands. Or even the Pipers, twin stones at the Hurlers on Bodmin Moor. I'm not totally sold on the smaller stone, though it is a little too coincidental. If it is part of the same alignment could the triangular stone represent the female? Maybe giving birth to the sun? Not sure where the phallic standing stone would come into that scenario, but it could explain the lack of other stones. I've noticed something similar on some stone rows in the past. I hope you are right, I've spent the best part of 3 years now trying to link a menhir exactly 1km and very visible, to a circle on the west moor without much luck yet, though I am convinced they are connected...beware though, madness walks this path of trying to workout stone circles.
Check out the Fach Goch Stone on the Megalithic Portal. A photo take by one Philip Burton shows that an intriguing feature of the menhir rise that it seems to mirror a mountain peak in the background, which is looking into the east and hence sunrise. I’m going to have to go out there for the summer solstice!
I spent a lot of time as a youth, bashing around Dartmoor on the Ten Tors event. I was always fascinated by the archaeology lying all over the place. I have a thought about this circle. Especially if it was built when the area was forested, it would be easy to get lost. So, having a circle that points to landmarks would enable you to orientate yourself in the landscape. This could explain why the one rock you found was shaped like the tor. Its just a thought, no strong evidence. BTW, I LOVE your cake. Gonna bake one with the grandkids next time we look after them! Thank you so much. And will show them your video. We took them to Dartmoor for the first time last year and they loved it.
I thought the exact same thing, especially with the heavy and sudden fog that you get on Dartmoor. If you where a population settled here then it would be extremely useful to have navigation aids
Oh brilliant, I'll let my mum know someone liked the cake!! It's her idea really - she came into my school when I was young and had us kids make 'archaeology cakes'. It works even better if you add ditches to some of the layers (eg a moat around a castle). You get a nice dip in the strata when you slice, and you realize that ancient holes and earthworks can leave just as much evidence as pottery and bone! Thanks for checking out the vid James, I'm glad you liked it!
That was utterly brilliant and inspiring. I'm sat looking over Dartmoor and it is now urging me to visit as many stone circles every quarter at sunrise. This was my introduction to your channel so I'll look forward to new videos. Thank you
I have always been fascinated by these stones. I'm of the opinion many were used as markers for the seasons. Using the stars to tell the time of year. Basic agriculture had just got going so they needed some way of predicting when to plant, harvest.. I'm sure you couldn't buy a calendar in the local shop, nor whip your phone out to check online.
Question for you. If you make a reasonable allowance for how much of the horizontal stone would have been buried how high would it have stood. On the video, there seems to be a slight rise infant off the stone (we can only partially see you). Would it have been tall enough to have been seen ? Finding two others in the right position would be fantastic, but there absence isnt necessarily fatal. I dont know what the field boundary map (if there is one) would show, but its possible that not all of the Tors would be "special" to the community than lived and farmed in the location where the stone circle is. As the Dartmoor archaeologist says, it needs a quick excavation of both stones. Other thoughts/comments. You'd need to reset the sun rise to c 2000 BC as well. with orbital precession and the rotation axis angle change, a modern alignment would not necessarily be proof. I believe there are also many stone circles in Scotland where there are horizontal stones which act as an artificial horizon for lunar related events. Not suggesting this happened here, but the Tor alignment on the horizon could work that way as well (I'm not sure how proven these lunar alignments actually are. As you state, alignment will happen due to accident as well).
Hey great questions! Lee told me the rule of thumb is about 1/3 of a standing stone is expected to be underground. My guess is the stone is around 6ft?? I don't think 4ft would reach the Tor in the background (I'm 6ft). It would certainly be visible though, without the gorse. YES. Im right there with you, I don't think all Tors are equal to these Neolithic people. The Tor at Merrivale is the smallest on the horizon, yet they've constructed a massive monument associated with it. As far as I can tell, the only thing special about that Tor is its notch. Hay Tor also has a notch. Perhaps they like notches? 2000BC the solstice occurred about 1 degree from where it does today. I checked Stonehenge with the google Earth software and the alignment looks pretty much perfect, it's hard to notice the shift. Google Earth certainly isn't precise, but it might be useful as a rough check for this kind of thing. Thanks for the great comment!
I live in the Peak District and Bamford Moor South stone circle has stones that from the circle seem to match the shape of Stanage Edge on the near horizon.
thanks for the video. it was good content. the rays/tors reminded me of Portolan charts. your cake demo is beyond top notch. chef's kiss. definitely waiting for your next vid.
The Sun's path, the Ecliptic, moves relative to the horizon from Summer to Winter Solstice, with the Equinox in between. The moon's path wanders above and below the Ecliptic, and the other five Wanderers (Greek: Planetai) visible to the naked eye have their own peculiar traits (eg. Mercury and Venus, inside earth's orbit, never cross the heavens but rise and fall between heaven, earth and underworld). Tracking them requires fixed points of viewing akin to the Heel-stones of Stone Henge or Mach Picchu. Any such significance to Dartmoor's alignments should become apparent at night.
My grandfather taught me to use Cairns in scotland strathy to get home in the fog by using them as shelter from the wind and lining them up to get home it was a family to tradition to add a stone every time you passed one .
@@JacobFWildeHi sure no probs i will take a good look at it and to see if i can spot any other stones in the vincinity of the circle. will keep you posted.
@@JacobFWildeHi, I spent an hour at the circle, took a few pics and vids. My thoughts are that the top of the standing stone has a very close resemblance of the pointed peak on Haytor, but its effect is only really visible when viewed from up close to the stone, viewing the stone from the centre of the circle it aligns, with the centre of the tor and not the peak it resembles, to align it with the peak on Haytor you have to stand on the north edge of the circle. I do think that the stone has been placed there and that it is in some way it is associated with the circle and Haytor, the top of the stone could easily be a bit of a fluke due to erosion over 5000 years, interestingly while I was there 3 hardened Dartmoor walkers came by and one of them walked off to look at the stone thinking I was some sort of crackpot, he came back unconvinced but then I showed him the stone looking from inside the circle and his opinion shifted to being more convinced of its association with the circle. The long stone which is quite close to the Haytor stone looks to me to be from later time as it is well shaped though very crudely and I don't think it is contemporary with the other stones in the circle etc, it could of formed part of the site as a later addition but I was not convinced about its alignment with any tor. If you compare Stonehenge to Avebury, Avebury is 500 years older and they were using stones in there natural shape, 500 years later at Sonehenge they were shaping the stones. I battled my way through the gorse in a similar radius to the Haytor stone and did find a couple more large stones laying flat but there is no way of really knowing if they are associated, there are a lot stones in the area and maybe not so many as other areas but enough to confuse the situation.
@@JacobFWilde Hi, I spent an hour at the circle, took a few pics and vids. My thoughts are that the top of the standing stone has a very close resemblance of the pointed peak on Haytor, but its effect is only really visible when viewed from up close to the stone, viewing the stone from the centre of the circle it aligns, with the centre of the tor and not the peak it resembles, to align it with the peak on Haytor you have to stand on the north edge of the circle. I do think that the stone has been placed there and that it is in some way it is associated with the circle and Haytor, the top of the stone could easily be a bit of a fluke due to erosion over 5000 years, interestingly while I was there 3 hardened Dartmoor walkers came by and one of them walked off to look at the stone thinking I was some sort of crackpot, he came back unconvinced but then I showed him the stone looking from inside the circle and his opinion shifted to being more convinced of its association with the circle. The long stone which is quite close to the Haytor stone looks to me to be from later time as it is well shaped though very crudely and I don't think it is contemporary with the other stones in the circle etc, it could of formed part of the site as a later addition but I was not convinced about its alignment with any tor. If you compare Stonehenge to Avebury, Avebury is 500 years older and they were using stones in there natural shape, 500 years later at Sonehenge they were shaping the stones. I battled my way through the gorse in a similar radius to the Haytor stone and did find a couple more large stones laying flat but there is no way of really knowing if they are associated, there are a lot stones in the area and maybe not so many as other areas but enough to confuse the situation.
Great video. Thoughtful. Ive strolled around Dartmoor a bit. It is dense with neolithic sites and very easy to join dots to make a significance. For example, do you colour code your books on the bookshelf behind you, and is that significant?
My family lived on Dartmoor for 45 years so I am very familiar with these places I knew about the Merrivale alignment but not a hound tor one so interesting.
Nicely done. You remind me of another young man - North02. If you don't know him I'll bet some of those commenting here do. It is a seriously good comparison. As to the stones, I suspect they are meant to do more than one thing; inform, honor, direct and worship. A lot easier than building Stonehenge.
There seem to be a lot of solar alignments on Dartmoor. In my view, there are too many that involve Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age monuments to be the result of coincidence. I have recently uploaded a summary of my research, and the link can be found on my profile, if you are interested. The evidence is circumstantial, but maybe a Dartmoor version of the Nebra Sky Disk will turn up one day - who knows!
Agree with - stones & landscape mimicry, agree with - stones show you where to stand to witness something, agree with - strange things are visible on Dartmoor especially if you stand in the right place as indicated by the stones. One of the few places left in Europe with the same phenomena as the old people encountered. (Being able to see the full moon at midday!!!!!!)
I think line of site landmarks would be extremely important to neolithic people living in that landscape. I also think that all monuments were multi-purpose in the sense that they started of with pragmatic and utilitarian purposes and gained layers of cultural significance over time.
Not so innocent! Systematic Monument destruction in England didn't start in roman times. It is the "developmental" destruction and erasure of the English countryside in its entirety of the early modernity that is vastly responsible for their disappearance.
At Avebury the medieval Church started an annual rite to bury standing stones, this ended when an itinerant barber was crushed to death by a falling stone. In the 18th century farmers restarted destruction by fire and water and beating with hammers, they insanely destroyed much of the largest stone circle in Britain.
Grew up in Plympton, Devon and somewhat familiar with Dartmoor. As you say the ground is littered with granite rocks in various locations. The location of the circle to the South West of Hound Tor that you describe as the 'observation point' for the midwinter sunrise alignment over the distant Hay Tor is impressive and interesting but in reality the circle could have been built (and the marker stone placed) anywhere along the alignment line. It would be much more impressive feat if the location was at the single point where another line to one of the other Tors also had some astronomical significance, but looking at the locations of the other three tors I am guessing that this does not appear to be the case?? Any thoughts on this? Maybe the landscape is too uneven to allow for the appropriate 'horizons' to be visible?
Hi Peter, I think that's a great question! I agree - there are loads of sites in Dartmoor where neolithic people could have placed a circle along multiple solstice alignments (I've been playing around on google Earth and found several spots where I can get two, often three alignments!). So why would they settle for just one? One explanation is that solstice alignments are coincidental, but when you read papers that run the statistics (www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X16301808), this idea starts to feel weak. An alternative is that some Tor shapes were more significant/meaningful than others. My first impression is that both the Merrivale and HoundTor circles have the sun rising or setting through a Tor with a 'notch.' Perhaps notches are special? Hopefully we'll get more information soon :). Thanks for a great comment!!
Yeah, I think the notch idea as a 'special' alignment is very interesting. In fact the double peaks that cause the notch effect are kind of curious in a purely geological sense. What causes a double peak instead of a singular one?@@JacobFWilde
@@petermiles2875 Great question! And then the second question is what proportion of Tors on Dartmoor have a double peak? And then what proportion have a notch effect when viewed from a certain angle? Let me know if you find an answer to either of those Q's! I'll do the same :)
Will do. I live in the States now so my research will have to be via Google Earth. A quick look indicates that 'some' of the more prominent tors with significantly tall outcroppings of granite are indeed bisected by quite long gullies/crevices of variable width and depth potentially creating a 'notch' effect. Both Hay and Hound Tors and Bonehill Rocks have such features. If I get enough time I will create some kind of list and statistical analysis of orientation. The more minor tors simply look like a pile of rubble on the top a low rise. @@JacobFWilde
Living in the USA these days so I cannot do any work on site. A quick survey on Goggle Earth does suggest that a significant number of the more prominent tors do have elongated wide gullies or narrower crevices passing through the granite outcropping. Some are large enough for a clear pathway. Examples include Hay and Hound Tors and the nearby Bonehill Rocks. If I get time to do a more statistical survey I will forward the results. @@JacobFWilde
You called the tors 'stone nipples' and that is a very good description, and also pointed out that your brother compared them to fountains of stone which is also very interesting. I have also heard of mountain tops in some native dialects being paps or breasts/nipples. In Swahili I seem to recall the words for nipple and lake are the same. Anyway, this got me wondering. Could it be that there is only an alignment to two tors because these form part of a sort of female figure symbolically mapped on to the ground? In which case the stone circle might represent the navel of the same figure. Extending the same idea, a long barrow might be located as the womb. Not sure if there's evidence for such alignments but it was basically a passing thought that potentially makes sense of there only being two standing stones (two nipples) and not four.
I think this is a really, really strong idea James! I'm not saying it's bang on for this site of course, but I think you could totally be onto something with reproductive imagery... I never thought to consider that the neolithic people may have seen the Tors as 'paps' or breasts. Thanks for the native dialect examples... I'll have to share that with lee! Do you think the single Tor with the two peaks (Hay Tor) could be seen as special because it alone might resemble a pair of breasts? Perhaps the second stone is a natural coincidence, and the site is all about the tapered stone? Thanks for sharing this!
@@JacobFWilde Thx very much Jacob. Can't really offer a good answer to your interesting question about the two peaks (or twin peaks!) Tbh these were just a few vague thoughts that came to mind on my walk into work after watching your video. But like many people I have been fascinated by stone circles for most of my life really. An extremely speculative (and still more vague) theory I had years ago involved the relationship between the stones per se forming a circle. The stones being manifest, masculine, "set in stone" Ones (thus kind of yang-like) forming in combination the latent, feminine, almost Zero (and kind of yin-like) circle. The fact that they are O-shaped being curious in itself. And the fact that the numeral for Zero is also O-shaped seeming more than mere coincidence. Or not. But just maybe at some deep archetypal unconscious level there does exist a primal relationship between male-female, one-zero, manifest-latent, yang-yin that recurs across different ages and cultures. Anyway, that's as far as my extremely sketchy idea ever went and it doesn't fit especially well with your own observations, but I just thought I'd share it anyway.
The naval and womb concept reminds me of Avebury when the stone avenues were intact. Avebury was the womb and the avenues were fallopian tubes. You'll have to lookup the old maps by William Stukeley to see what I mean.
This video is amazing❤, love the cake at the beginning! If you want someone to go check the midwinter sunrise, I'm happy to do it, only live a few miles away.
Ummm I looked on google earth and it appears that the south end of your circle lines up with bonehill rocks? It might just be a coincidence but the more I looked…. Something to think about next time you visit.
algorythm good today - well discovered - you should also include the great Cairns of Cornwall, never been excavated or explored , as a nother point of observation as they are so so important in the landscape and for eons were used by seafaerers to find 'home; - could the structures inland also serve this purpose for landfarers ? also - so similar to Loughcrew and fourknocks in Ireland, and - eerily reminiscent of the, 'Hitching post of the sun', found at Macchu Picchu - (a link between these far away cultures?!?!) - and it seems a more global phenomena than most would think, associated with or independantly arrive at - it seems people needed to track sunrises with big old rocks and base their entirely about them - personally I am of the opinion that all these features in UK and around the world were part of a concerted effort by an anceint seafaring group to map the world , survey the Eath, measure the distances, understand the solar alterations at differing lattitudes and to understand the tides and currents - all in one grand enterprise, when, for how long, and terminated at what point, none can say - but there is a heavy correltion between this idea and the prescence, and similar abscence, of an active POLESTAR - that is the key epoch defining shift that allows global travel by sail, or ends it, I dont know if anyone has truly correlated this as a link but I say its a great place to start as many other avenues have dwindled to no furhter intel.... love the work by Michael Crichton (?) re: the 'Celtic-'cross' ', as a navigational tool - now accepted - and the sighting rods of of old egypt, also you might want to look at the squaring and triangulating mathematics of the Neolithics - its becoming apparrent that they enchanted the land indeed, by gaugeing the size and measure of it all, and how and where it all spins in relation to the other planets & cosmos beyond - sorry for my waffle, just inspired by your expl. and hope to fire you up and along!
Was today at white moor stone circle... here also a clear standing stone (menhir) is present. Comparing it with stone henge the angle appears to be the same to the south-east direction.
We all need a place to stand. Consider that the circle was placed at thete in order to celebrate the turning of the year and if that's the case check for other alignments. Fly a drone with lidar to see beneath the gorse and map the area, you never know what other features you will discover because if the marker stone is indeed that this is an important site and there will be more. Good find🥹
Hey Cob, i left a comment on this thread earlier and noted that near my hometown of Porthmadog there’s a menhir with the top seemingly shaped to a mountain in its background to the east. Your vid got me wondering and i camped out at the location last night and took photos. I’d really like to show you the results and I’m sure you’d love to see them as well! Is there any way i can share them with you, email perhaps?
Looking at a stone row and circle few months back nothing unusual, few weeks later going up a hill side forest area off track found entrance to a cave ... last week on top of a tor observation the stone row is pointing directly to the cave ! To be revisit....
Thoughts on Merrivale. A site where the Beaker people technologies and culture influenced the shift from actual body burial to cremation remains burial. The menhir there is a possible 'exit' point of the spirit on to further realms, not far from a potential circular cremation circle site? A ceremony that may happen at the alignment solstices should they coincide? Maybe, the small Hound tor set up was a similar concept, bit for actual burial. Like your point of view though. Will be visiting Hound Tor in more detail next time for sure.
Early excavations of Dartmoor stone circles turned up lots and lots of charcoal, so perhaps you're onto something :). But then, I wonder what would've happened for deaths in March? Or if the solstice rolled around and no one was dead, would the stone circle be left empty? Perhaps there's more to stone circles than cremation? Which might make sense with such prominent solstice connections?
@@JacobFWilde maybe those who died around the solstice were deemed worthy of alternative more ceremonial cremation as they may have been thought as "chosen" as subject sacrifices? the rabbit hole deepens!
Stones mimicking the surrounding features is not a new observation. Checkout, Castlerigg, Swinside and Long Meg. All have stones that are shaped like the landscape behind. You will find alignments to at many of the rows and circles.
Just finished watching archeologists in Arizona tracking on petroglyphs the solstices that have been altered to observe the mystical arrival of light on an area of the rock canvas. What was this great need for our ancestors to track and then give a pathway for light? All over the earth those were created. Where did the knowledge come from and how did it spread?
I'm willing to bet stonehenge was created as a human sacrifice temple. the horizontal stones on ontop of the vertical ones were likely built so the sacrificed humans could be laid there for the gods to consume
With Göbekli Tepe dated around the same time and sharing similar architectural features that suggests a sudden explosion in human sacrifice occured around 7000BCE across europe
Ancient humans must have ways of knowing which way to go. They must have had things they could tell travellers to look out for so that they could find the way. It seems so to me anyway. So surely it is not that far out to think that a group of people might move stones in order to have something in the right place to let travellers know which way to go They might sometimes need the stones to give themselves a hint which way to go in the fog. We must remember that Dartmoor was once covered with trees. We must think how that affects things.
Hi, I spent an hour at the circle on sunday, took a few pics and vids. My thoughts are that the top of the standing stone has a very close resemblance of the pointed peak on Haytor, but its effect is only really visible when viewed from up close to the stone, viewing the stone from the centre of the circle it aligns, with the centre of the tor and not the peak it resembles, to align it with the peak on Haytor you have to stand on the north edge of the circle. I do think that the stone has been placed there and that it is in some way it is associated with the circle and Haytor, the top of the stone could easily be a bit of a fluke due to erosion over 5000 years, interestingly while I was there 3 hardened Dartmoor walkers came by and one of them walked off to look at the stone thinking I was some sort of crackpot, he came back unconvinced but then I showed him the stone looking from inside the circle and his opinion shifted to being more convinced of its association with the circle. The long stone which is quite close to the Haytor stone looks to me to be from later time as it is well shaped though very crudely and I don't think it is contemporary with the other stones in the circle etc, it could of formed part of the site as a later addition but I was not convinced about its alignment with any tor. If you compare Stonehenge to Avebury, Avebury is 500 years older and they were using stones in there natural shape, 500 years later at Sonehenge they were shaping the stones. I battled my way through the gorse in a similar radius to the Haytor stone and did find a couple more large stones laying flat but there is no way of really knowing if they are associated, there are a lot stones in the area and maybe not so many as other areas but enough to confuse the situation.
COOL!! Thanks for posting your thoughts!! It's reassuring to hear that you and a 'hardened Dartmoor walker' think there could be something to the haytor stone. And thanks for your point about the second stone, possible multiple phases. I sometimes forget that this site may have been in use for many hundreds of years, as you say. Lee said the first step at the site would be to clear the gorse and do a proper survey of all the rocks around, but the site is a scheduled monument, and the landowner would need to be talked to, so there would be several checks to pass before any work could be done. As with many things in England, there's a lot of red tape! But if that tape has contributed to protecting sites like these, I'm thankful for it.
So you thought the upper surface of the haytor heelstone looked potentially eroded? It definitely looks chipped off.. by humans or a glacier!
Thanks again for your message and writing back, it's REALLY wonderful to hear about your experience of the site!
@@JacobFWilde Hi Jacob I had to post a fresh comment, RUclips would not allow me to post it as a reply.
Map the stones. What does Lidar show?
@@AllotmentFox I have tried but to no avail but if you have some better lidar data then would love to see it. the stones are very small in comparison to other stone circles.
So good! A blend of personal observation, science and history. Do another and another!
I've not finished watching yet but I thought I would mention the heavy and sudden fog you get on Dartmoor. It's possible that these stones where used for navigation in a similar way to cairns. It makes sense that you would want a reliable point from which to set your bearings if you lived on this landscape.
Exactly
One thing about locations and irregular horizons, is that if you stand at that point over and over, and watch the sun rise or set, each year, the sun rises and sets in the same location on the horizon as viewed from that point on the same day each year. So, when you consider it, irregularities on the horizon can act as a solar calendar. It works in much the same way as a sun dial. More importantly, by marking which point the sun is rising or setting at, the observer can tell his or her fellows how many days later some important event will be. While excavation sounds like a good idea, I would ask for a high resolution LIDAR of the circle and surrounding area. That should reveal even invisible stones lying in the brush.
I'm not sure what purpose the intermediate stones might serve, but one possibility is that the observer and an assistant go out there. It's misty and visibility may be limited. So the assistant takes a torch or fuel and a fire kit and walks out to the intermediate point and lights a fire to illuminate the marker stone. The observer then knows right where to be looking for the sun or moon. Perhaps, the specialness of a place is not related necessarily to the exact moment of the event of interest, but how many days off it might be. If you look at the evidence for major activity near Avebury(?) (I'm an American archaeologist and don't have the cool sites of Britain memorzied), those events or fairs or ??? had to be planned. People had to know how many days away midsummer or midwinter was, had to know when to pack up the kids, round up the herd animals you were taking, pack up provisions, and gather all the other necessities, and when start the trip.
keep making videos!! this is awesome!! you have a talent here - such a good vid 💃
Thanks scudder!! That means a lot!
Are there any Lidar images available for the area? They may show the other two 'hidden' stones.
So interesting. As a child I lived not far from Hound tor , I loved to walk there, also the remains of a medieval village close by. Wish I was still there.
Hound Tor is a 45 minute drive from home for me, so this is fascinating!!!
If you get out there, lemme know what you think!
How is this channel so underrated? 👀
because its normal? not flashy zing zing and i hear common sense haha, a ton of people want weird theories etc.
Very cool. Your cookie crumb and candy demo at the beginning got me. So creative. Did you eat it at the end of filming?
In addition to that very neat beginning, your experiential archaeology was top notch.
Lol no we didn't - that cake was SOAKED in vegetable oil to hold the layers together!! Thanks for letting me know you liked the vid, means a lot!
Have you looked at Castlerigg? Many of those stones seem to echo the shapes of the surrounding hills.
You nailed it, the art of the stones is fractal. They reflect / image / align with the immediate landscape and landscape features. Can't wait for you to look at cup marks, same applies.
Very good analysis, and well presented. Thank you.
Ref 7:40.
I am from the north of the UK and the way we test up here is to probe with a tent peg for socket stones that originally held a stone upright. This is an easy way to tell if the stone was placed or is an erratic.
Now and then the algorithm pops up something really good, so thanks algorithm. Liked and subscribed.
This popped up in my feed, so I watched it... then I stopped what I was doing for 40 mins while I watched everything else (evolutionary paths to intelligence was captivating and so up my street)... then I subscribed. Really great work, please keep it up. Looking forward to the next one.
The fallen standing stone puts me in mind of the menhir at the Merrivale stone circle which still stands. Or even the Pipers, twin stones at the Hurlers on Bodmin Moor.
I'm not totally sold on the smaller stone, though it is a little too coincidental. If it is part of the same alignment could the triangular stone represent the female? Maybe giving birth to the sun? Not sure where the phallic standing stone would come into that scenario, but it could explain the lack of other stones. I've noticed something similar on some stone rows in the past.
I hope you are right, I've spent the best part of 3 years now trying to link a menhir exactly 1km and very visible, to a circle on the west moor without much luck yet, though I am convinced they are connected...beware though, madness walks this path of trying to workout stone circles.
interesting video.
Oh God, I’m so jealous of this video. Top notch.
Check out the Fach Goch Stone on the Megalithic Portal. A photo take by one Philip Burton shows that an intriguing feature of the menhir rise that it seems to mirror a mountain peak in the background, which is looking into the east and hence sunrise. I’m going to have to go out there for the summer solstice!
Wow. This is brilliant. Thanks. Also, why have you only got like.... 90 subscribers!!??
I spent a lot of time as a youth, bashing around Dartmoor on the Ten Tors event. I was always fascinated by the archaeology lying all over the place. I have a thought about this circle. Especially if it was built when the area was forested, it would be easy to get lost. So, having a circle that points to landmarks would enable you to orientate yourself in the landscape. This could explain why the one rock you found was shaped like the tor. Its just a thought, no strong evidence.
BTW, I LOVE your cake. Gonna bake one with the grandkids next time we look after them! Thank you so much. And will show them your video. We took them to Dartmoor for the first time last year and they loved it.
I thought the exact same thing, especially with the heavy and sudden fog that you get on Dartmoor. If you where a population settled here then it would be extremely useful to have navigation aids
Oh brilliant, I'll let my mum know someone liked the cake!! It's her idea really - she came into my school when I was young and had us kids make 'archaeology cakes'. It works even better if you add ditches to some of the layers (eg a moat around a castle). You get a nice dip in the strata when you slice, and you realize that ancient holes and earthworks can leave just as much evidence as pottery and bone! Thanks for checking out the vid James, I'm glad you liked it!
That was utterly brilliant and inspiring. I'm sat looking over Dartmoor and it is now urging me to visit as many stone circles every quarter at sunrise. This was my introduction to your channel so I'll look forward to new videos. Thank you
I have always been fascinated by these stones. I'm of the opinion many were used as markers for the seasons. Using the stars to tell the time of year. Basic agriculture had just got going so they needed some way of predicting when to plant, harvest.. I'm sure you couldn't buy a calendar in the local shop, nor whip your phone out to check online.
Question for you. If you make a reasonable allowance for how much of the horizontal stone would have been buried how high would it have stood. On the video, there seems to be a slight rise infant off the stone (we can only partially see you). Would it have been tall enough to have been seen ?
Finding two others in the right position would be fantastic, but there absence isnt necessarily fatal. I dont know what the field boundary map (if there is one) would show, but its possible that not all of the Tors would be "special" to the community than lived and farmed in the location where the stone circle is. As the Dartmoor archaeologist says, it needs a quick excavation of both stones.
Other thoughts/comments. You'd need to reset the sun rise to c 2000 BC as well. with orbital precession and the rotation axis angle change, a modern alignment would not necessarily be proof. I believe there are also many stone circles in Scotland where there are horizontal stones which act as an artificial horizon for lunar related events. Not suggesting this happened here, but the Tor alignment on the horizon could work that way as well (I'm not sure how proven these lunar alignments actually are. As you state, alignment will happen due to accident as well).
Hey great questions! Lee told me the rule of thumb is about 1/3 of a standing stone is expected to be underground. My guess is the stone is around 6ft?? I don't think 4ft would reach the Tor in the background (I'm 6ft). It would certainly be visible though, without the gorse.
YES. Im right there with you, I don't think all Tors are equal to these Neolithic people. The Tor at Merrivale is the smallest on the horizon, yet they've constructed a massive monument associated with it. As far as I can tell, the only thing special about that Tor is its notch. Hay Tor also has a notch. Perhaps they like notches?
2000BC the solstice occurred about 1 degree from where it does today. I checked Stonehenge with the google Earth software and the alignment looks pretty much perfect, it's hard to notice the shift. Google Earth certainly isn't precise, but it might be useful as a rough check for this kind of thing. Thanks for the great comment!
I live in the Peak District and Bamford Moor South stone circle has stones that from the circle seem to match the shape of Stanage Edge on the near horizon.
Are you going to do a part 2? This was very good 👍
thanks for the video. it was good content. the rays/tors reminded me of Portolan charts. your cake demo is beyond top notch. chef's kiss. definitely waiting for your next vid.
Well done! A simple observation at the right moment by the right person is all it takes.
The Sun's path, the Ecliptic, moves relative to the horizon from Summer to Winter Solstice, with the Equinox in between. The moon's path wanders above and below the Ecliptic, and the other five Wanderers (Greek: Planetai) visible to the naked eye have their own peculiar traits (eg. Mercury and Venus, inside earth's orbit, never cross the heavens but rise and fall between heaven, earth and underworld). Tracking them requires fixed points of viewing akin to the Heel-stones of Stone Henge or Mach Picchu. Any such significance to Dartmoor's alignments should become apparent at night.
My grandfather taught me to use Cairns in scotland strathy to get home in the fog by using them as shelter from the wind and lining them up to get home it was a family to tradition to add a stone every time you passed one .
I am there on Sunday , so will take a look.
Let us know if you think the top of the tapered stone has been chipped!
@@JacobFWildeHi sure no probs i will take a good look at it and to see if i can spot any other stones in the vincinity of the circle. will keep you posted.
@@JacobFWildeHi, I spent an hour at the circle, took a few pics and vids. My thoughts are that the top of the standing stone has a very close resemblance of the pointed peak on Haytor, but its effect is only really visible when viewed from up close to the stone, viewing the stone from the centre of the circle it aligns, with the centre of the tor and not the peak it resembles, to align it with the peak on Haytor you have to stand on the north edge of the circle. I do think that the stone has been placed there and that it is in some way it is associated with the circle and Haytor, the top of the stone could easily be a bit of a fluke due to erosion over 5000 years, interestingly while I was there 3 hardened Dartmoor walkers came by and one of them walked off to look at the stone thinking I was some sort of crackpot, he came back unconvinced but then I showed him the stone looking from inside the circle and his opinion shifted to being more convinced of its association with the circle. The long stone which is quite close to the Haytor stone looks to me to be from later time as it is well shaped though very crudely and I don't think it is contemporary with the other stones in the circle etc, it could of formed part of the site as a later addition but I was not convinced about its alignment with any tor. If you compare Stonehenge to Avebury, Avebury is 500 years older and they were using stones in there natural shape, 500 years later at Sonehenge they were shaping the stones. I battled my way through the gorse in a similar radius to the Haytor stone and did find a couple more large stones laying flat but there is no way of really knowing if they are associated, there are a lot stones in the area and maybe not so many as other areas but enough to confuse the situation.
@@JacobFWilde Hi, I spent an hour at the circle, took a few pics and vids. My thoughts are that the top of the standing stone has a very close resemblance of the pointed peak on Haytor, but its effect is only really visible when viewed from up close to the stone, viewing the stone from the centre of the circle it aligns, with the centre of the tor and not the peak it resembles, to align it with the peak on Haytor you have to stand on the north edge of the circle. I do think that the stone has been placed there and that it is in some way it is associated with the circle and Haytor, the top of the stone could easily be a bit of a fluke due to erosion over 5000 years, interestingly while I was there 3 hardened Dartmoor walkers came by and one of them walked off to look at the stone thinking I was some sort of crackpot, he came back unconvinced but then I showed him the stone looking from inside the circle and his opinion shifted to being more convinced of its association with the circle. The long stone which is quite close to the Haytor stone looks to me to be from later time as it is well shaped though very crudely and I don't think it is contemporary with the other stones in the circle etc, it could of formed part of the site as a later addition but I was not convinced about its alignment with any tor. If you compare Stonehenge to Avebury, Avebury is 500 years older and they were using stones in there natural shape, 500 years later at Sonehenge they were shaping the stones. I battled my way through the gorse in a similar radius to the Haytor stone and did find a couple more large stones laying flat but there is no way of really knowing if they are associated, there are a lot stones in the area and maybe not so many as other areas but enough to confuse the situation.
@@JacobFWilde youtube kept deleting my reply, so had to post it as a new comment.
What a fabulous video. Thank you
Very enjoyable, and interesting video! Also, it was very well presented. Regards from Canada 🇨🇦
Great video. Thoughtful. Ive strolled around Dartmoor a bit. It is dense with neolithic sites and very easy to join dots to make a significance. For example, do you colour code your books on the bookshelf behind you, and is that significant?
My family lived on Dartmoor for 45 years so I am very familiar with these places I knew about the Merrivale alignment but not a hound tor one so interesting.
A video about rocks? I'm following this channel for sure!
Glad to have you! I may disappoint you in the future with the odd video that isn't about rocks 🙂
@@JacobFWilde The content was great still, can't wait to see what other curious thoughts you want to share with us.
Nicely done. You remind me of another young man - North02. If you don't know him I'll bet some of those commenting here do. It is a seriously good comparison. As to the stones, I suspect they are meant to do more than one thing; inform, honor, direct and worship. A lot easier than building Stonehenge.
Great vid. I often wander over Dartmoor so will have a look for those stones.
Very interesting
There seem to be a lot of solar alignments on Dartmoor. In my view, there are too many that involve Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age monuments to be the result of coincidence. I have recently uploaded a summary of my research, and the link can be found on my profile, if you are interested. The evidence is circumstantial, but maybe a Dartmoor version of the Nebra Sky Disk will turn up one day - who knows!
Agree with - stones & landscape mimicry, agree with - stones show you where to stand to witness something, agree with - strange things are visible on Dartmoor especially if you stand in the right place as indicated by the stones. One of the few places left in Europe with the same phenomena as the old people encountered. (Being able to see the full moon at midday!!!!!!)
I think line of site landmarks would be extremely important to neolithic people living in that landscape. I also think that all monuments were multi-purpose in the sense that they started of with pragmatic and utilitarian purposes and gained layers of cultural significance over time.
Those tors could be easily visible landmarks to navigate your way across a desolate landscape.
They said I was mad to build a castle in a swamp.
Not so innocent! Systematic Monument destruction in England didn't start in roman times. It is the "developmental" destruction and erasure of the English countryside in its entirety of the early modernity that is vastly responsible for their disappearance.
At Avebury the medieval Church started an annual rite to bury standing stones, this ended when an itinerant barber was crushed to death by a falling stone. In the 18th century farmers restarted destruction by fire and water and beating with hammers, they insanely destroyed much of the largest stone circle in Britain.
Grew up in Plympton, Devon and somewhat familiar with Dartmoor. As you say the ground is littered with granite rocks in various locations. The location of the circle to the South West of Hound Tor that you describe as the 'observation point' for the midwinter sunrise alignment over the distant Hay Tor is impressive and interesting but in reality the circle could have been built (and the marker stone placed) anywhere along the alignment line. It would be much more impressive feat if the location was at the single point where another line to one of the other Tors also had some astronomical significance, but looking at the locations of the other three tors I am guessing that this does not appear to be the case?? Any thoughts on this? Maybe the landscape is too uneven to allow for the appropriate 'horizons' to be visible?
Hi Peter, I think that's a great question! I agree - there are loads of sites in Dartmoor where neolithic people could have placed a circle along multiple solstice alignments (I've been playing around on google Earth and found several spots where I can get two, often three alignments!). So why would they settle for just one? One explanation is that solstice alignments are coincidental, but when you read papers that run the statistics (www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X16301808), this idea starts to feel weak. An alternative is that some Tor shapes were more significant/meaningful than others. My first impression is that both the Merrivale and HoundTor circles have the sun rising or setting through a Tor with a 'notch.' Perhaps notches are special? Hopefully we'll get more information soon :). Thanks for a great comment!!
Yeah, I think the notch idea as a 'special' alignment is very interesting. In fact the double peaks that cause the notch effect are kind of curious in a purely geological sense. What causes a double peak instead of a singular one?@@JacobFWilde
@@petermiles2875 Great question! And then the second question is what proportion of Tors on Dartmoor have a double peak? And then what proportion have a notch effect when viewed from a certain angle?
Let me know if you find an answer to either of those Q's! I'll do the same :)
Will do. I live in the States now so my research will have to be via Google Earth. A quick look indicates that 'some' of the more prominent tors with significantly tall outcroppings of granite are indeed bisected by quite long gullies/crevices of variable width and depth potentially creating a 'notch' effect. Both Hay and Hound Tors and Bonehill Rocks have such features. If I get enough time I will create some kind of list and statistical analysis of orientation. The more minor tors simply look like a pile of rubble on the top a low rise. @@JacobFWilde
Living in the USA these days so I cannot do any work on site. A quick survey on Goggle Earth does suggest that a significant number of the more prominent tors do have elongated wide gullies or narrower crevices passing through the granite outcropping. Some are large enough for a clear pathway. Examples include Hay and Hound Tors and the nearby Bonehill Rocks. If I get time to do a more statistical survey I will forward the results. @@JacobFWilde
You called the tors 'stone nipples' and that is a very good description, and also pointed out that your brother compared them to fountains of stone which is also very interesting. I have also heard of mountain tops in some native dialects being paps or breasts/nipples. In Swahili I seem to recall the words for nipple and lake are the same. Anyway, this got me wondering. Could it be that there is only an alignment to two tors because these form part of a sort of female figure symbolically mapped on to the ground? In which case the stone circle might represent the navel of the same figure. Extending the same idea, a long barrow might be located as the womb. Not sure if there's evidence for such alignments but it was basically a passing thought that potentially makes sense of there only being two standing stones (two nipples) and not four.
I think this is a really, really strong idea James! I'm not saying it's bang on for this site of course, but I think you could totally be onto something with reproductive imagery... I never thought to consider that the neolithic people may have seen the Tors as 'paps' or breasts. Thanks for the native dialect examples... I'll have to share that with lee! Do you think the single Tor with the two peaks (Hay Tor) could be seen as special because it alone might resemble a pair of breasts? Perhaps the second stone is a natural coincidence, and the site is all about the tapered stone? Thanks for sharing this!
@@JacobFWilde Thx very much Jacob. Can't really offer a good answer to your interesting question about the two peaks (or twin peaks!) Tbh these were just a few vague thoughts that came to mind on my walk into work after watching your video. But like many people I have been fascinated by stone circles for most of my life really.
An extremely speculative (and still more vague) theory I had years ago involved the relationship between the stones per se forming a circle. The stones being manifest, masculine, "set in stone" Ones (thus kind of yang-like) forming in combination the latent, feminine, almost Zero (and kind of yin-like) circle. The fact that they are O-shaped being curious in itself. And the fact that the numeral for Zero is also O-shaped seeming more than mere coincidence. Or not. But just maybe at some deep archetypal unconscious level there does exist a primal relationship between male-female, one-zero, manifest-latent, yang-yin that recurs across different ages and cultures. Anyway, that's as far as my extremely sketchy idea ever went and it doesn't fit especially well with your own observations, but I just thought I'd share it anyway.
The naval and womb concept reminds me of Avebury when the stone avenues were intact. Avebury was the womb and the avenues were fallopian tubes. You'll have to lookup the old maps by William Stukeley to see what I mean.
Paps of Jura, in Scotland.
@@keithmacdonald6957 You believe Neolithic man knew the function of fallopian tubes?!
This video is amazing❤, love the cake at the beginning! If you want someone to go check the midwinter sunrise, I'm happy to do it, only live a few miles away.
Nice!
Ummm
I looked on google earth and it appears that the south end of your circle lines up with bonehill rocks? It might just be a coincidence but the more I looked….
Something to think about next time you visit.
A Canadian spotted this? That’s not a coincidence…😮
algorythm good today - well discovered - you should also include the great Cairns of Cornwall, never been excavated or explored , as a nother point of observation as they are so so important in the landscape and for eons were used by seafaerers to find 'home; - could the structures inland also serve this purpose for landfarers ? also - so similar to Loughcrew and fourknocks in Ireland, and - eerily reminiscent of the, 'Hitching post of the sun', found at Macchu Picchu - (a link between these far away cultures?!?!) - and it seems a more global phenomena than most would think, associated with or independantly arrive at - it seems people needed to track sunrises with big old rocks and base their entirely about them - personally I am of the opinion that all these features in UK and around the world were part of a concerted effort by an anceint seafaring group to map the world , survey the Eath, measure the distances, understand the solar alterations at differing lattitudes and to understand the tides and currents - all in one grand enterprise, when, for how long, and terminated at what point, none can say - but there is a heavy correltion between this idea and the prescence, and similar abscence, of an active POLESTAR - that is the key epoch defining shift that allows global travel by sail, or ends it, I dont know if anyone has truly correlated this as a link but I say its a great place to start as many other avenues have dwindled to no furhter intel.... love the work by Michael Crichton (?) re: the 'Celtic-'cross' ', as a navigational tool - now accepted - and the sighting rods of of old egypt, also you might want to look at the squaring and triangulating mathematics of the Neolithics - its becoming apparrent that they enchanted the land indeed, by gaugeing the size and measure of it all, and how and where it all spins in relation to the other planets & cosmos beyond - sorry for my waffle, just inspired by your expl. and hope to fire you up and along!
Was today at white moor stone circle... here also a clear standing stone (menhir) is present. Comparing it with stone henge the angle appears to be the same to the south-east direction.
We all need a place to stand.
Consider that the circle was placed at thete in order to celebrate the turning of the year and if that's the case check for other alignments. Fly a drone with lidar to see beneath the gorse and map the area, you never know what other features you will discover because if the marker stone is indeed that this is an important site and there will be more. Good find🥹
Callanish
Could you use LIDAR to look through the gorse for the other two marker stones?
Hey Cob, i left a comment on this thread earlier and noted that near my hometown of Porthmadog there’s a menhir with the top seemingly shaped to a mountain in its background to the east. Your vid got me wondering and i camped out at the location last night and took photos. I’d really like to show you the results and I’m sure you’d love to see them as well! Is there any way i can share them with you, email perhaps?
YESSS PLEASE!!! You can email me at jacob.wilde@biology.ox.ac.uk.
Looking at a stone row and circle few months back nothing unusual, few weeks later going up a hill side forest area off track found entrance to a cave ... last week on top of a tor observation the stone row is pointing directly to the cave ! To be revisit....
Thoughts on Merrivale. A site where the Beaker people technologies and culture influenced the shift from actual body burial to cremation remains burial. The menhir there is a possible 'exit' point of the spirit on to further realms, not far from a potential circular cremation circle site? A ceremony that may happen at the alignment solstices should they coincide?
Maybe, the small Hound tor set up was a similar concept, bit for actual burial.
Like your point of view though. Will be visiting Hound Tor in more detail next time for sure.
Early excavations of Dartmoor stone circles turned up lots and lots of charcoal, so perhaps you're onto something :). But then, I wonder what would've happened for deaths in March? Or if the solstice rolled around and no one was dead, would the stone circle be left empty? Perhaps there's more to stone circles than cremation? Which might make sense with such prominent solstice connections?
@@JacobFWilde maybe those who died around the solstice were deemed worthy of alternative more ceremonial cremation as they may have been thought as "chosen" as subject sacrifices? the rabbit hole deepens!
Stones mimicking the surrounding features is not a new observation. Checkout, Castlerigg, Swinside and Long Meg. All have stones that are shaped like the landscape behind. You will find alignments to at many of the rows and circles.
Just finished watching archeologists in Arizona tracking on petroglyphs the solstices that have been altered to observe the mystical arrival of light on an area of the rock canvas. What was this great need for our ancestors to track and then give a pathway for light? All over the earth those were created. Where did the knowledge come from and how did it spread?
Piers and boats. Tsunami.
can you try this method in alberta?
I'm willing to bet stonehenge was created as a human sacrifice temple. the horizontal stones on ontop of the vertical ones were likely built so the sacrificed humans could be laid there for the gods to consume
With Göbekli Tepe dated around the same time and sharing similar architectural features that suggests a sudden explosion in human sacrifice occured around 7000BCE across europe
Ancient humans must have ways of knowing which way to go. They must have had things they could tell travellers to look out for so that they could find the way. It seems so to me anyway. So surely it is not that far out to think that a group of people might move stones in order to have something in the right place to let travellers know which way to go
They might sometimes need the stones to give themselves a hint which way to go in the fog.
We must remember that Dartmoor was once covered with trees. We must think how that affects things.
Intriguing theory. Scientific method requires proof (or at least endorsement by a reputable archeologist). Time Team?
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