Tor enclosures, are a class of monument unique to South-West England. Their distribution is concentrated in Cornwall, where eleven examples have been identified including Stowe's Pound, Carn Brea and Carn Galver. In Devon, on western Dartmoor there are two, White Tor and Dewerstone which key sites for our project.
Tor enclosures form are thought to be Neolithic in date and are part of a broader trend in landscape enclosure and monumentalisation seen across Britain during the fifth-fourth millennia BC along with shifts in landscape use, subsistence strategies, lifeways and material culture. So far only two Cornish sites, Carn Brea and Helman Tor have been radiocarbon dated to the fourth millennium cal BC. These enigmatic sites are sometimes compared to causewayed enclosures, but much remains to be learned about who used them and how.
​Tor enclosures use rocky outcrops as part of the building blocks for large walls. Sometimes it's easier to see the structures from the air (see the image to the left). They can include cairns, and hut circles. Even if their origins were in the Neolithic, it's very likely they were used during more recent periods too, and the landscapes around both Dewerstone and White Tor have lots of evidence for later human activity in the Bronze Age right through to the Medieval Period.
More material and links to our results will come soon!