July 13, 1905J 



NA TURE 



247 



those which now appear to be far removed from 

 circles may once liave been used for sacred pro- 

 cessions at shrines wliicli have disappeared. 



Ag'ain, the rows of stones we are now considering 

 must not be confounded witli the " trade lines " or 

 " boundary banks " which are so numerous on Dart- 

 moor and are represented in Wiltshire according to 

 Sir R. C. Hoare ; these serve for bounds and path- 

 ways, 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. ■^2))- ' 

 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 vary- 

 ing 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 Staldon Moor row 

 we have the mixture of religious and practical inten- 

 tion at which I have before hinted. Both Mr. Lukis 

 and Mr. Hansford Worth have studied this monu- 

 ment, 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 .Ai-cturus 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 com- 

 pared all my numerous notes), in Cornwall the chief 

 alignments from the circles there are with azimuths 

 \. io°-2o° E. watching the rise of Arcturus, 

 N. 24°-28° E. watching the rise of the May sun, 

 N. 75°-82° E. watching the rise of the Pleiades. The 



NO. 1863, VOL. 72] 



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 align- 

 ments, depending upon circles and menhirs in Corn- 

 wall, 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 con- 

 nected 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 Corn- 

 wall, 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 goingon, and is 

 still going on, on Dartmoor. We have circles with- 

 out 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 sun 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 or 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 dis- 

 crimination has been considered possible between 

 different uses of avenues, and because the statements 

 made by archasologists 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 monu- 

 ments 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 survev. 



The Merrivale' avenues (lat. 50° 33' 15") are_ com- 

 posed 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 mostlv 2 or 3 feet high, and in each row 

 they are about 3 feet apart ; the distance between the 

 rows is about 80 feet. 



