Bronze age relics found on Dartmoor
Woven bag filled with amber and shale beads among items unearthed in isolated Devon peat mound
The bronze age items found on Dartmoor, Devon, include two wooden stakes and human remains wrapped in animal fur. Photograph: David Lomax/Robert Harding
An "extraordinary" collection of early bronze age remains and artefacts including amber beads inside a stitched bag or basket has been discovered in one of England's most remote spots.
The find on Dartmoor in Devon, in a peat mound isolated from other archaeological sites, is being hailed as one of the most important for a century, and experts hope it will reveal more about life 4,000 years ago.
More work will be done on the burial cist – a stone-built chest –to try to establish its age and the age of its contents and also to determine why human remains were left in such a remote location.
The cist on Whitehorse Hill, northern Dartmoor, was excavated in the summer. Inside was cremated human bone and burnt textile placed within animal hide or fur. This was positioned on top of a thick leather and textile object, which in turn was placed on a mat of plant material.
Also inside the cist was a delicately woven bag or basket with fine stitching still visible. There were also almost 100 beads, some of them made of amber and others of shale.
Some 200 cists have been found on Dartmoor, sunk into the ground or positioned in barrows or mounds. What makes the Whitehorse cist unusual is that so much of its contents have been preserved and also the fact that it is so far away from other sites.
It is exciting because relatively little is known about early bronze age life in the south west of England. Jane Marchand, senior archaeologist for Dartmoor National Park, said: "It really is extraordinary that so much has survived. This couldn't be in a more remote area of Dartmoor."
Other discoveries include two wooden stakes that seem to have been used to define the position of the cist. Scientists hope to discover if they were sharpened with flint or a bronze tool. If, as suspected, the stakes are made of hazel, it may indicate this type of wood was being managed at the time.
Marchand said the spot, 600 metres above sea level, is close to the heads of two rivers, which was probably why the area was chosen as the burial site.
Studies of pollen, other plant remains and microscopic single-cell organisms captured within the peat will also provide more information about vegetation and climate at the time of the burial.
There are plans to rebuild the cist and replace it in the mound where it was found.
