Exciting prehistoric discovery on Dartmoor

Two new prehistoric stone circles have been found on Dartmoor by an archaeologist. Alan Endacott was previously the first person in a century to find a ‘new’ stone circle on the moor back in 2007 near Sittaford Tor.

Now Alan, from Throwleigh near Okehampton, has discovered two more. The location this time is around Taw Marsh near Belstone.

It’s thought they were created by people in the late Neolithic period, around 5,000 years ago and adapted by their Bronze Age successors. A team of volunteers has been helping excavate them after years of fieldwork by Alan as part of his PhD research with the University of Exeter ’s Department of Archaeology.

The dig – which took place in September and October 2024 - also investigated a long cairn and a dolmen in the same area. The research bears out Alan’s theory that multi-period monuments once formed part of a ritual landscape in the valley surrounding Taw Marsh, to the south of Belstone.

The results of the excavations will eventually be published as part of Alan’s Doctoral dissertation on the Prehistoric Ritual Landscapes of North-eastern Dartmoor. In 2007, during earlier fieldwork, Alan, who is self-funding his research, rediscovered and recorded the collapsed Sittaford stone circle, approximately 8km to the south.

This was while he was working on the theory that the so-called ‘Sacred Arc’ of stone circles on the north-eastern side of Dartmoor may have continued around the highest ground as a complete ring of stone circles with a central focus in the secluded valley of Watern Combe.

In a release, the University of Exeter said: "One of the newly discovered stone circles, under Metheral Hill, was first recorded by [Alan], following the same supposition, in 2011 and the other, near Irishman’s Wall, six years later. His extensive fieldwork has also brought to light several other prehistoric ceremonial monuments in the same valley, and many others, including further stone circle contenders, on the Moor to the south and west.

"In a fascinating journey of personal exploration and study of his native Moor, among many other prehistoric sites, Alan, who was the founder Curator of the Museum of Dartmoor Life in Okehampton, has also uncovered unique prehistoric rock art and surveyed a series of boulder formed geoglyphs, or hill figures on Whitehorse Hill. He intends to publish a book on his discoveries at some point in the future. "

Alan said: “The excavations have exceeded my expectations, and brought new evidence to light that will help with our understanding of such monuments but, inevitably, they have also raised more questions about why they were built in the first place and then subsequently adapted by incoming populations."

The dig has been supported by the landowner, the Duchy of Cornwall, the local commoners and the Dartmoor National Park Authority, who have given valuable advice and logistical support, and has received funding from the Dartmoor Society, the Dartmoor Preservation Association and a personal crowd-funding campaign. This has helped towards the costs and enabled a professional archaeologist, Simon Sworn of ISCA Archaeology, to be employed to supervise the digs under Alan’s direction.