THE DARTMOOR AVENUES
In Chapter XI. I referred to the very numerous alignments of stones in
Brittany, and I was allowed by Lieutenant Devoir, of the French Navy, to
give some of his theodolite observations of the directions along which
the stones had been set up.
The conclusion was that we were really dealing with monuments connected
with the worship of the sun of the May year, a year which the recent
evidence has shown to have been the first used after the length of the
year had been determined; thus replacing the lunar unit of time which
was in vogue previously, and the use of which is brought home to us by
the reputed ages of Methuselah and other biblical personages, who knew
no other measurer of time than the moon.
There was also evidence to the effect that in later times solstitial
alignments had been added, so that the idea that we were dealing with
astronomically oriented rows of stones was greatly strengthened, not to
say established.
So long as the Brittany alignments were things of mystery, their origin,
as well as that of the more or less similar monuments in Britain, was
variously explained; they were models in stone of armies in battle
array, or they represented funeral processions, to mention only two
suggestions. I should add that Mr. H. Worth, who has devoted much time
to their study, considers that some sepulchral interest attaches to
them, though he thinks it may be argued that that was secondary, even as
are interments in cathedrals and churches. About burials associated with
them, of course, there is no question, for the kistvaens and cairns are
there; but my observations suggest that they were added long after the
avenues were built, because some cairns _block_ avenues. Perhaps a
careful study of the modes of burial adopted may throw light on this
point.
The equivalents of the Brittany alignments are not common in Britain;
they exist in the greatest number on Dartmoor, whither I went recently
to study them. The conditions on high Dartmoor are peculiar; dense
blinding mists are common, and, moreover, sometimes come on almost
without warning. From its conformation the land is full of streams.
There are stones everywhere. What I found, therefore, as had others
before me, was that as a consequence of the conditions to which I have
referred, directions had been indicated by rows of stones for quite
other than ceremonial purposes. Here, then, was another possible origin.
It was a matter of great importance to discriminate most carefully
between these alignments, and to endeavour to sort them out. My special
inquiry, of course, was to see if they, like their apparent equivalents
in Brittany, could have had an astronomical origin. The first thing to
do, then, was to see which might have been erected for worship or which
for practical purposes.
In doing this there is no difficulty in dealing with extremes. Thus one
notable line of large flat stones has been claimed by Messrs. R. N.
Worth and R. Burnard as a portion of the Great Fosseway (Rowe’s
_Perambulation_, third edition, p. 63); it has been traced for eighteen
miles from beyond Hameldon nearly to Tavistock, the stones being about 2
feet thick and the road 10 feet wide.
[Illustration: _Photo. by Lady Lockyer._
FIG. 42.--The Southern Avenue at Merrivale, looking East.]
There are two notable avenues of upright stones at Merrivale; they are
in close connection with a circle, and could have had no practical use.
These stones, then, we may claim as representing the opposite extreme of
the Fosseway and as suggesting an astronomical, as opposed to a
practical, use; the adjacent circle, of course greatly strengthens this
view.
It is between these extremes that difficulties may arise, but the
verdict can, in a great many cases at all events, be settled without any
very great hesitation, especially where practical or astronomical
uselessness can be established. But even here care is necessary, as I
shall show.
The stones now in question, originally upright, are variously called
avenues, rows, alignments or parallelithons. Their study dates from
1827, when Rowe and Colonel Hamilton Smith examined those at Merrivale
(Rowe, _op. cit._, p. 31). Their number has increased with every careful
study of any part of the moor, and doubtless many are still
unmapped.[22] The late Mr. R. N. Worth, of Plymouth, and his son, Mr. H.
Worth, have given great attention to these monuments, and the former
communicated a paper on them to the Devonshire Association for the
Advancement of Science in 1892 (_Trans._, xxv. pp. 387-417).
A word of caution must be said before I proceed. We must not take for
granted that the stone-rows are now as they left the hands of the
builders. The disastrous carelessness of the Government in the matter of
our national antiquities is, I am locally informed, admirably imitated
by the Devonshire County and other lesser councils, and, indeed, by
anybody who has a road to mend or a wall to build. On this account, any
of the rows may once have been much longer and with an obvious practical
use; and those which now appear to be far removed from circles may once
have been used for sacred processions at shrines which have disappeared.
Again, the rows of stones we are now considering must not be confounded
with the “track lines” or “boundary banks” which are so numerous on
Dartmoor, and are represented in Wiltshire according to Sir R. C. Hoare;
these serve for bounds and pathways, and for connecting and enclosing
fields or houses.
Dealing, then, with stone rows or avenues, which may be single, double,
or multiple; any which are very long and crooked, following several
directions, are certainly not astronomical; and it is easy to see in
some cases that they might have been useful guides at night or in mist
in difficult country with streams to cross. This possible utility must
not be judged wholly by the present conformation of the ground or the
present beds of streams.
For multiple avenues it is hard to find practical uses such as the
above, and we know how such avenues were used in Brittany for sun
worship. Mr. Baring Gould considers there were eight rows in an avenue
on Challacombe Down 528 feet long; of these only three rows remain, the
others being represented by single stones here and there (Rowe, p. 33).
I shall have something to say about this avenue further on.
Although, as I have said, long rows bending in various directions are
not likely to have had an astronomical origin, it must not be assumed
that all astronomical avenues must be _exactly_ straight. This, of
course, would be true for level ground, but if the avenue has to pass
over ridges and furrows, the varying height of the horizon must be
reckoned with, and therefore the azimuth of the avenue at any point
along it.
I think it possible that in the Stalldon Moor row we have the mixture of
religious and practical intention at which I have before hinted. Both
Mr. Lukis and Mr. Hansford Worth have studied this monument, which is
two miles and a quarter long. There is a circle at the south end about
60 feet in diameter, while at its northern end there is a cairn.
Where the line starts from the circle the direction of the row is
parallel to many sight-lines in Cornwall, and Arcturus would rise in the
azimuth indicated. But this direction is afterwards given up for one
which leads towards an important collection of hut circles, and it
crosses the Erme, no doubt at the most convenient spot. More to the
north it crosses another stream and the bog of Red Lake. All this is
surely practical enough, although the way indicated might have been
followed by the priests of the hut circles to the stone circle to
prepare the morning sacrifice and go through the ritual.
But there is still another method of discrimination. If any of these
avenues were used at all for purposes of worship, their azimuths should
agree with those already found in connection with circles in other parts
of Britain, for we need not postulate a special race with a special cult
limited to Dartmoor; and in my inquiries what I have to do is to
consider the general question of orientation wherever traces of it can
be found. The more the evidences coincide the better it is for the
argument, while variations afford valuable tests.
Now, speaking very generally (I have not yet compared all my numerous
notes), in Cornwall the chief alignments from the circles there are with
azimuths N. 10°-20° E. watching the rise of the clock-star, N. 64°-68°
E. watching the rise of the May sun, N. 75°-82° E. watching the rise of
the Pleiades. The variation in the azimuths is largely due to the
different heights of the horizon towards which the sight-lines are
directed.
The conclusion I have come to is that these alignments, depending upon
circles and menhirs in Cornwall, are all well represented on Dartmoor
associated with the avenues; and further, so far as I have learned at
present, in the case of the avenues connected with circles, there are
not many alignments I have not met with in connection with circles in
Cornwall and elsewhere.
This is not only a _prima facie_ argument in favour of the astronomical
use underlying the structures, but it is against the burial theory, for
certainly there must have been burials in Cornwall.
In order, therefore, to proceed with the utmost caution, I limit myself
in the first instance to the above azimuths, and will begin by applying
a test which should be a rigid one.
If the avenues on Dartmoor had to deal with the same practices and cults
as did the circles in Cornwall, they ought to prove themselves to have
been in use at _about_ the same time, and from this point of view the
investigation of the avenues becomes of very great importance, because
of the destruction of circles and menhirs which has been going on, and
is still going on, on Dartmoor. We have circles without menhirs and
menhirs without circles, so that the azimuths of the avenues alone
remain to give us any chance of dating the monuments if they were used
in connection with star worship. The case is far different in Cornwall,
where both circles and menhirs have in many cases been spared.
On Dartmoor, where in some cases the menhirs still remain, they have
been annexed as crosses and perhaps as boundary stones, and squared and
initialed; hence the Ordnance surveyors have been misled, and they are
not shown as ancient stones on the map. In some cases the azimuth of the
stones suggests that this has been the sequence of events.
It will be seen from the above that I have not tackled a question full
of pitfalls without due caution, and this care was all the more
necessary as the avenues have for long been the meeting ground of the
friends and foes of what Rowe calls “Druidical speculations”; even yet
the war rages, and my writing and Lieut. Devoir’s observing touching the
similar but grander avenues of Brittany have so far been all in vain;
chiefly, I think, because no discrimination has been considered possible
between different uses of avenues, and because the statements made by
archæologists as to their direction have been quite useless to anybody
in consequence of their vagueness, and last of all because the recent
work on the Brittany remains is little known.
I began my acquaintance with the Dartmoor monuments by visiting
Merrivale, and the result of my inquiries there left absolutely no doubt
whatever on my mind. I was armed, thanks to the kindness of Colonel
Johnston, the Director of the Ordnance Survey, with the 25-inch map,
while Mr. Hansford Worth had been so good as to send me one showing his
special survey.
The Merrivale avenues (lat. 50° 33′ 15″) are composed of two double
rows, roughly with the azimuth N. 82° E.; the northern row is shorter
than the other. Rowe, in his original description (1830), makes the
northern 1143 feet long; they are not quite parallel, and the southern
row has a distinct “kink” or change of direction in it at about the
centre. The stones are mostly 2 or 3 feet high, and in each row they are
about 3 feet apart; the distance between the rows is about 80 feet.
I have before pointed out (p. 149) that an avenue directed to the rising
place of a star, if it is erected over undulating ground, cannot be
straight. I may now mention another apparent paradox. If two avenues are
directed to the rising place of the same star _at different times_, they
cannot be parallel. It is not a little curious that absence of
parallelism has been used against avenues having had an astronomical
use!
Both the Ordnance surveyors and Mr. Worth have shown the want of
parallelism of the two avenues, and Mr. Worth has noted the kink in the
southern one. The height of the horizon, as determined from my measures,
is 3° 18′. The results of these inquiries, assuming the Pleiades to have
been observed warning May morning, are as follows:--
Azimuth. Authority. N. Declination. Date B.C.
° ° ′ ″
N. 83·15 E. Worth 6 47 47 1710
82·30 Worth 7 16 20 1630
82·10 Ordnance 7 32 0 1580
80·40 Worth 8 26 0 1420
80·30 Ordnance 8 30 0 1400
To simplify matters we may deal with the Ordnance values and neglect the
small change of direction in the southern avenue. We have, then, the two
dates 1580 B.C. and 1420 B.C. for the two avenues. The argument for the
Pleiades is strengthened by the fact that at Athens the Hecatompedon was
oriented to these stars in 1495 B.C. according to Mr. Penrose’s
determination of the azimuth.
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Plan, from the Ordnance Map, showing the
avenues, circle and stones at Merrivale, with their azimuths.]
Now this is not the first time I have referred to avenues in these
notes. The azimuth of one at Stonehenge was used to fix the date at
which sun worship went on there. That avenue, unlike the Dartmoor ones,
was built of earth, and it is not alone. There is another nearly two
miles long called the Cursus. So far, I have found no solstitial worship
on Dartmoor, so there are no avenues parallel to the one at Stonehenge
leading N.E. from the temple. But how about the other? _It is roughly
parallel to the avenues at Merrivale, and I think, therefore, was, like
them, used as a processional road, a via sacra, to watch the rising of
the Pleiades._
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Reprint of Ordnance Map showing that the Cursus
at Stonehenge is nearly parallel to the Merrivale Avenue. The azimuth is
82° and not 84° as shown in the figure.]
I said roughly parallel; its azimuth is about the same (N. 82° E.
roughly); but the horizon is only about 1° high; it was therefore in use
before those at Merrivale; the exact date of use must wait for
theodolite values of the height of the horizon, but in the meantime we
can see from the above estimates that the declination of the Pleiades
was about N. 5° 28′ 30″ and the date of use 1950 B.C., that is some 300
years before the solstitial restoration.
Mr. Worth’s survey gives another line of stones. It is undoubtedly, I
think, an ancient line, although it is not shown in the Ordnance map, a
clear indication of the difficulty of discriminating these avenues on
land cumbered with stones in all directions. Its azimuth is N. 24° 25′
E., and the height of the horizon 5° 10′. This gives us Arcturus at the
date 1860 B.C., showing that, as at the Hurlers, Arcturus was used as a
clock-star. Hence a possible _astronomical_ use is evident, while this
row, like the others, could have been of no _practical_ use to anybody.
It is interesting to note that this single row of stones is older than
the double ones; this seems natural.
It is worth while to say a word as to the different treatment of the
ends of the south avenue now that it seems probable that it was used to
watch the rising of the Pleiades. At the east end there is what
archæologists term a “blocking stone”; these observations suggest that
it was really a _sighting_ stone. At the west end such a stone is
absent, but the final stones in the avenue are longer than the rest.
This may help us in the true direction of the sight-lines in other
avenues; and, indeed, I shall show in the sequel that this consideration
affords a criterion which, in the cases I have come across, is entirely
in harmony with others.
[22] On June 15, 1905, that excellent guide of the Chagford part of the
moor, Mr. S. Perrott, showed me an avenue (Azimuth N. 20° E. true) near
Hurston Ridge which is not given in the 1-inch map.