University expert helps reveal hidden stories behind Early Bronze Age burial discovery

Professor Ralph Fyfe has been liaising with the Dartmoor National Park Authority and others across the UK on the excavation at Cut Hill
A week-long excavation at Cut Hill on Dartmoor revealed an exceptional cist, a stone-built box used to bury the dead in prehistoric times
Alec Collyer
An expert in prehistoric land use from the University of Plymouth is part of a team working to analyse a discovery that has the potential to shift understanding of Early Bronze Age life on Dartmoor.
Ralph Fyfe, Professor in Geospatial Information, has been liaising with the Dartmoor National Park Authority, archaeologists and teams from across the UK following the discovery of a Bronze Age burial cist at Cut Hill.
A week-long excavation revealed an exceptional cist – a stone-built box used to bury the dead in prehistoric times – containing well-preserved wood and a host of other material yet to be identified.
The team says the discovery has parallels to a cist unearthed at Whitehorse Hill in 2011, with further analysis now taking place at sites across the region.
Professor Fyfe, who was part of the Whitehorse Hill study, has worked for many years to develop means of quantifying past land cover, and identifying how that might be used to impact decisions around present-day conservation and climate change.
As part of the Cut Hill project, he and former postdoctoral researcher Dr Francis Rowney carried out a palaeoecological analysis which helped to reconstruct the environment the cist would have been built in.
He also provided evidence for other types of land use, such as animal grazing, with data showing intense bursts of human activity in specific periods of prehistory that weren’t known about previously.

The data confirmed the cist was placed in a relatively small area of bog heath with cotton-grass and heather, almost like an island, within a broader wooded landscape. These weren’t people who were suddenly building burial monuments and reorganising the landscape around them. They were living in a place they were intimately familiar with and knew a lot about.

Ralph FyfeRalph Fyfe
Professor in Geospatial Information

Cut Hill is one of five Dartmoor peaks rising over 600m above sea level, and lies within the military firing ranges.
The excavations were prompted when moorland walking guide Paul Rendell reported to the National Park Authority that the feature was eroding out of the peat.
Site surveys and analysis, including radiocarbon dating of charcoal from inside the cist, gave a date of around 1,800BC – or 3,800 years old.
In May, Dartmoor National Park Authority unanimously supported a full archaeological intervention, with the dig taking place in early August.
The excavations revealed a prehistoric cist of around one-metre square – over twice the size of the Whitehorse Hill cist – and topped with three granite capstones.

It’s a stunning discovery with the potential to be every bit as fascinating as the finds at Whitehorse Hill. We were all pretty speechless when we lifted the capstone and looked inside. Not only is the cist bigger than we expected, but it contained multiple pieces of wood that appear to have been deliberately shaped and cut. This prompts more questions: could the wood have been an object that was dismantled and deliberately placed inside the grave? If so, what was it and who did it belong to? The next stage is for micro-excavations to determine what's in there.

Dr Lee Bray
Archaeologist and Excavation Director, Dartmoor National Park Authority
The team – which also includes representatives from Historic England, the Cornwall Archaeological Unit (CAU), the University of Leicester, Duchy of Cornwall, and Quantock and Exmoor Ltd – worked respectfully to wrap and seal the cist to conserve its contents.
It is now in the care of the Wiltshire Conservation and Museums Advisory Service, part of Wiltshire Council, where it will undergo meticulous micro-excavations in controlled laboratory conditions.
The cist – a stone-built box used to bury the dead in prehistoric times – found at Cut Hill on Dartmoor Alec Collyer

Dartmoor dig uncovers 'stunning' Early Bronze Age burial cist 

Read more about ongoing work to analyse the Cut Hill cist, and efforts to raise funds that will support its conservation, on the Dartmoor National Park Authority's website.
Ralph Fyfe

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