The Whitehorse Hill Cist, Dartmoor
An ordinary or extraordinary Bronze Age burial?
The excavation of the Whitehorse Hill cist took place in the late summer of 2011. It had been assumed that the most significant aspect of the project would be the environmental recording and that the cist itself would be empty. In the final event, the cist was found to contain one of the most significant Early Bronze Age burials to have been found in southern Britain.
At over 600m above sea level, the Whitehorse Hill cist is located on one of the highest and most remote hills on Dartmoor. There are extensive views over the surrounding landscape and the overall feeling when standing on the mound is of being far removed from the everyday world. But was this perception one which would have been shared by the communities who built the cist in the Early Bronze Age?
Modelled radiocarbon dates indicate that the burial took place in the period circa 1690–1620 cal BC, although some of the objects are likely to be older and the cremated bone may well have been curated prior to its deposition in the cairn.
More at
https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/research/Whitehorse-Cist-Dartmoor/
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