Cist and cairn 590m SSE of Skir Ford

Reasons for Designation

Dartmoor is the largest expanse of open moorland in southern Britain and, because of exceptional conditions of preservation, it is also one of the most complete examples of an upland relict landscape in the whole country. The great wealth and diversity of archaeological remains provide direct evidence for human exploitation of the Moor from the early prehistoric period onwards. The well-preserved and often visible relationship between settlement sites, major land boundaries, trackways, ceremonial and funerary monuments as well as later industrial remains, gives significant insights into successive changes in the pattern of land use through time. Cists are small rectangular stone structures used for burial purposes and date to the Bronze Age. On Dartmoor they are made up of regular stone slabs forming a box-like structure sometimes topped by a larger coverstone. Short cists survive as free-standing monuments, with no enclosing stone and earth cairn. On Dartmoor cists are also associated with cairns, ring cairns and cairnfield groups, but these free-standing examples form a separate group in their own right. Their longevity, having been in use for a millennium or so, provides insight into the range of ceremonial and ritual practices of the contemporary farming communities. The Dartmoor examples provide one of the best preserved and most dense concentrations of this class of monument in south-western Britain and, as such, a high proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

Despite partial excavation, the cist and cairn 590m SSE of Skir Ford survive well and will contain environmental and archaeological information relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. Deep peat deposits in and around the monument represent a particularly good source of information for the contemporary environment.

Details

The monument includes a cairn containing a cist, situated on a gentle north east facing slope of Skir Hill overlooking the valley of the O Brook. The cairn survives as a 4.1m diameter ring of edge set slabs standing up to 0.5m high. The cist is situated slightly west of the cairn's centre and survives as a 0.82m long by 0.52m wide and 0.82m deep stone lined pit, having been revealed by past excavation.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

22397

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Butler, J, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities - The North in Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, Vol. 4, (1993), 203

End of official list entry

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