A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon

by S. Baring-Gould

The foundations of the circular dwellings are formed of blocks of granite, sometimes set vertically and sometimes placed in horizontal layers, enclosing a space from eight to thirty feet in diameter. The roof rested on the circular wall, which was never over four feet high, and was doubtless of wood covered with rushes, heather, or skins; a low doorway facing south or south-west gave access to the interior; and a hole in the apex of the roof served as chimney. The thorough exploration of the floors of these huts has resulted in the discovery of fireplaces, cooking-holes, and raised platforms of stones forming seats by day and beds at night, not so uncomfortable as it sounds, when covered with rushes and dry fragrant heather.

That the inmates played games is probable, from the number of small rounded quartz pebbles found that may have served for a game. Cooking-pots rudely made by hand of coarse earthenware, imperfectly baked, have been found, standing in the cooking-holes made in the floor, with the "cooking-stones" in and around them. These are river pebbles of dense, hard granite, which were placed in a fire and heated to such a pitch that dropped into the pot containing water they brought it to the boiling-point, and maintained it, by fresh additions, until the cooking operation was complete. These pots were fragile, and like modern crockery ware got broken; in one prehistoric cooking-vessel it took the form of a fracture in the bottom—perhaps due to the careless dropping in of the cooking-stones by some inexperienced or impatient cook—but somebody was equal to the occasion, for the bottom was neatly mended with china clay. These vessels, or as much as stood in view above the floor of the hut, were usually ornamented with patterns of the herring-bone type, or merely with dots and lines conveying no idea of consecutive pattern. Their interiors are much blackened with cooking, and imprisoned in the shreds there may yet be found, by the expert analyst, oily globules, remains of prehistoric fat from beef and mutton. Cooking was performed in holes in the ground as well as in pots, just as modern savages cook at the present time. Hot stones in a pit, green grass, meat, more hot stones, and the whole turfed in, and you have a result which an epicure would relish. Some patience is necessary, perhaps twenty hours for a whole pig.

There is a curious passage in the life of S. Lugid, of Clonfert, who died at the beginning of the seventh century. When a youth he served in the monastery, and as his biographer says, at that time it was customary to warm water by dropping into the vessel a ball of iron that had previously been heated in the fire. Lugid had to put such a ball into the drinking-vessel of the abbot, S. Coemgall, and he took it out of the fire with a pair of tongs, but Coemgall for some reason drew his hand back, and the ball fell on the table instead of into his cup, and it was so hot that it burnt a hole through the board.

Most of the cooking-pots found in the Dartmoor hut circles have rounded bottoms, and are of too poor a paste to resist the direct action of the fire. An example of one such, removed from the hole in which it was, is preserved in the Plymouth Municipal Museum.

One cooking-pot was found with a cross at the bottom of thicker clay, the object being to strengthen it, as experience showed that these pots always yielded first at the bottom. Some of the largest hut circles, those presumedly used in summer, had their kitchens separate from them, smaller huts, where the floors have been found thick with charcoal and fragments of this wretched fragile pottery.

The larger huts had their roofs supported by a central pole, and the socket-hole in which it stood has been found in some of them. In many huts also a flat, smooth stone bedded in the floor has been noticed, presumedly employed as a block on which to chop wood or fashion bone implements.

It is remarkable that one specimen only of a spindle-whorl has been discovered. No metal objects have so far been found in the Dartmoor hut circles. Implements of flint, sandstone, and granite abound; they are mostly scrapers, borers, knives, and rubbing or smoothing tools; a few arrow-heads have turned up, but these are mostly outside the huts, probably shot away in hunting.

The examination of the graves discloses the same kind of pottery, but with better finish and more elaborate ornamentation. Implements of stone and some bronze objects were yielded by the graves, and the evidence of the exploration of the Dartmoor remains has thus far connected them with the period of culture known as the late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, which means that the folk were still using stone for their tools and weapons, but were just beginning to employ bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. It is not surprising that bronze has not hitherto been found in the dwellings; it was far too valuable to be left about in such a manner as to be lost, and no surprise need be expressed that it has been discovered in sepulchral monuments appertaining to the same people, for nothing was too good as an offering for the use of the dead in the happy hunting-grounds above.