Environment and Early Man on Dartmoor, Devon, England

A part from its successes in the Somerset Levels, environmental archaeology has made little headway in studies of the South-west of England. On the uplands this is partially due to the lack of preservation of bone and most other organic remains in the acid soils now present. Again, in the region generally there has been little deposition in basins of the muds, marls and peats accumulated during the Post-glacial that are so valuable for reconstructing the botanical environment and the effects of early man on soils and vegetation; this is largely a consequence of the peninsula's escape from Pleistocene glaciation. Further, the published material on archaeology has until lately been so scattered that it has been difficult to compile a coherent outline of the settlement and economy of the region in pre-Roman times, a situation only recently remedied by the publication of Lady Aileen Fox's book South West England, providing a personal synthesis of the prehistory of that area.