Steinkiste am Crow Tor
DatedEst. 3470–2760 BCE
Photo Guy Wareham · CC BY-SA 2.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Steinkiste am Crow Tor is a cairn containing a stone cist, lying 160 metres south-west of the outcrop known as Crow Tor, north of Two Bridges, near Princetown in Dartmoor National Park, Devon, England. It is a protected monument.
The cairn and cist are dated between the early Neolithic and the late Bronze Age (4000 BCE to 700 BCE).
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Steinkiste am Crow Tor
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste am Crow TorCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste am Crow TorCC BY-SA 4.0
The cairn is a turf-covered mound 4.5 m in diameter and 0.45 m high. Traces of a kerb of granite slabs survive on the north-east and south sides. The cist lies slightly north of the centre of the cairn.
The cist is trapezoidal, 0.95 m long, between 0.8 and 0.65 m wide, and 0.5 m deep. The displaced capstone lies to the south-east of the cist and measures 0.9 m in length, 0.5 m in width and 0.2 m in thickness.
The Heritage Gateway for Devon and Dartmoor dates the cist and round cairn to a broad span from the early Neolithic to the late Bronze Age, 4000 BCE to 700 BCE.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste am Crow TorCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste am Crow TorCC BY-SA 4.0
The Heritage Gateway for Devon and Dartmoor dates the cist and round cairn to a broad span from the early Neolithic to the late Bronze Age, 4000 BCE to 700 BCE. The Atlas catalogue gives a narrower typological estimate of 3470 to 2760 BCE.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste am Crow TorCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste am Crow TorCC BY-SA 4.0
The Beardown Cairn, also called the Lydford Cairn, which likewise contains a cist, lies nearby.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Megalith (type not specified)
A megalith is a large stone used to build a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified in Europe, from Sweden in the north to the Mediterranean in the south, and megaliths are found worldwide. The word was first used in 1849 by the British antiquarian Algernon Herbert for Stonehenge, and comes from the Greek for "great stone". Most extant megaliths were erected between the Neolithic, with some earlier Mesolithic examples, and the Bronze Age. The oldest known ceremonial structures in the world, Göbekli Tepe and Nevalı Çori in Turkey, are dated to about 9000 BCE.
The most widely known megaliths are not tombs. The main kinds are single stones, such as menhirs and monoliths; multiple stones, such as stone circles (cromlechs) and alignments; dolmens; cists; and megalithic walls, also called cyclopean walls. Megalithic art, painted or carved on kerbstones, orthostats or capstones, is found in many parts of Western Europe, with the main concentrations in England, Malta, Ireland, Brittany and Iberia, and it is highly abstract.
Megaliths were used for a variety of purposes, from boundary markers of territory to reminders of past events, to being part of the religion of a society. Contemporary megalith-building cultures exist in Indonesia, among the Toraja and in the Marapu tradition. In the Atlas, a record marked only "megalith" lacks a more specific type, usually because the source did not say, and it receives a broad date range.
Dating relies on associated finds when a monument is excavated; otherwise it depends on shape and comparison.
When visiting, look first at the setting, and at whether the stone looks worked or natural.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Megalith, Wikipedia: Menhir, Wikipedia: Dolmen, Wikipedia: Megalithic art · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 4000 BCE
Das Heritage Gateway für Devon & Dartmoor datiert die Kiste und den Rundcairn zwischen dem frühen Neolithikum und der späten Bronzezeit (4000 v. Chr.–700 v. Chr.).
Source
Photographs
2 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3470–2760 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megaliths in Kingdom of the Netherlands; this site has not been dated itself. Dutch hunebedden were built between 3470 and 3250 BC and were used until about 2760 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Kingdom of the Netherlands
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 50°35′28″ N, 3°58′18″ WFor a GPS or map app: 50.59114, -3.97173
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Round cairn and cist on the south west side of Crow Tor4000–800 BCE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Cairn and cist 400m east of Lydford Tor4000–800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Round cairn 480m south west of Higher White Tor4000–800 BCE
Beardown Man standing stone2800–1800 BCE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Round cairn 590m south-west of Beardown Man lying on the eastern slope of Conies Down Tor4000–800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Round cairn 400m south east of Higher White Tor4000–800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Round cairn 220m north of Conies Down Tor4000–800 BCE
Cairn and cist 875m north west of Arch Tor4000–800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q51076134wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Round cairn and cist on the south west side of Crow Tor<0.1 km S
- Cairn and cist 400m east of Lydford Tor0.6 km S
- Round cairn 480m south west of Higher White Tor1.2 km E
- Beardown Man standing stone1.3 km NW
- Round cairn 590m south-west of Beardown Man lying on the eastern slope of Conies Down Tor1.5 km W
- Round cairn 400m south east of Higher White Tor1.8 km E
- Round cairn 220m north of Conies Down Tor1.8 km W
- Cairn and cist 875m north west of Arch Tor2.2 km E
- Cairnfield and field 1030m north west of Archerton2.6 km NE
- Cairn 190m west of Archerton3.0 km E
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Steinkiste am Crow Tor" (German), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste am Crow TorCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q51076134CC0