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Archaeologist Alan Endacott has devoted the last two decades to searching for new stone circles in Dartmoor, a vast stretch of relatively desolate moorland in the uplands of Devon in southern England. For the second time, Endacott’s efforts have produced exciting results, as he and a team of volunteers just recently unearthed the ruins of two 5,000-year-old stone circles in Taw Marsh near Belstone, a small village in northern Devon.
The most prominent of these monumental stone circles is near Metheral Hill, and accordingly Endacott is calling this one the Metheral stone circle. This monumental circle includes 20 stones, most of which have fallen, and it measures 130 feet by 110 feet (40 meters by 33 meters) in size. Intriguingly, the newly unearthed formation appears to bear some resemblance to Stonehenge with respect to its design and layout.
Endacott’s ongoing efforts to discover new stone circles in Dartmoor is part of a larger research project that is the focus of his doctoral dissertation. There is an impressive concentration of stone circles to be found all across Dartmoor, and Endacott’s theory is that many of them are part of an interconnected “sacred arc” of formations that represent a sacred landscape structure of huge dimensions, dating back to the Neolithic period.
Metheral Hill, very near the location where the Metheral stone circle was discovered by Alan Endacott. (Derek Harper/CC BY-SA 2.0).
“Dartmoor would have been very different then, there would have been a lot more forest cover,” the archaeologist said in an interview with the Guardian. “So possibly they were markers in the landscape, they recognised the higher ground and wanted to kind of enclose it for some reason.”
Sacred Secrets of Dartmoor Revealed
So far, Alan Endicott’s research has focused on the northeastern part of Dartmoor in particular, where he believes the outline of this sacred arc is most evident. The newly discovered circle at Metheral Hill fits nicely into the map he has been making of the surrounding landscape, while the second circle he and his team found is located just outside the boundaries of the present outline. Given its interesting location, Endacott is operating under the assumption that this circle might have functioned as an entrance or gateway to the larger sacred arc.
Like many other stone circles on Dartmoor, the newly discovered circles likely would have been constructed in approximately 3,000 BC. They then could have been modified during the Bronze Age, by inhabitants of the region who wanted to leave behind their own sacred and artistic legacy for future generations to behold.
“It [the Metheral circle] is suggestive of a Neolithic henge monument of a similar form to the Stipple Stones on Bodmin Moor, the Ring of Brodgar on Orkney, or even the earliest phase of Stonehenge,” Endacott explained, demonstrating his immense knowledge of the UK’s ancient monument builders. “People moved long distances in that period, so the people who built the stone circle at Metheral might also have been to Stonehenge and even possibly to Orkney. They traveled quite widely; there were lots of contacts between them with trading and so on.”
The Metheral circle and its companion are only the second and third new circles to be discovered on Dartmoor in the last century. Fittingly, it was Alan Endacott who also found the first, back in 2007 when he uncovered the ruins of an undocumented circle near Sittaford Tor, about five miles (eight kilometers) to the south of Metheral Hill.
It was his discovery of the Sittaford circle, which sits at a higher altitude than any other monumental formation in southern England (1,720 feet, or 525 meters), that motivated Endacott to expand his quest to prove the validity of his sacred arc theory. The new circles do seem to add new evidence in support of his hypothesis, which certainly does make sense given the fascination of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples with the construction of enduring stone monuments with spiritual and astronomical connections.
One Man’s Mission: To Find All the Stone Circles of Dartmoor
Alan Endicott is the founder and curator of the Museum of Dartmoor Life, which is located in Okehampton. He is dedicated to doing everything he can to promote the wonders of his home region, which seems largely deserted now but was a hub of activity during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods.
His relentless search for more stone circles, and efforts to interpret their true meaning, is a part of his commitment to discovering all the secrets Dartmoor is still hiding.
“Since Sittaford I’ve been doing lots of systematic searches,” he said. “You’ve got to get off the beaten track to find anything new on Dartmoor.”
Alan Endacott and team in the field near Metheral Hill. (Alan Endacott: Sittaford Stone Circle and Dartmoor Ritual Landscape Project/Facebook).
But find something new he did, and he is convinced that more undiscovered circles are waiting at strategic locations along the route of his sacred arc.
“These excavations exceeded my expectations and brought new evidence to light that will help with our understanding, but inevitably they have also raised more questions about why they were built. There are definitely other sites that I want to follow up on. We won’t be stopping any time soon.”
Top image: The kiss-in-the-ring stone circle near Hartford in Devon, one of the many stone circles found on Dartmoor. Source: Guy Wareham/CC BY-SA 2.0).
By Nathan Falde