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Farmed Landscapes

Bronze to Iron Age
2000 BC – 70s AD
133-66 generations ago

Finding Clues

Arbor Low from the air with the Gib Hill barrow in the background

People's lifestyles probably became more sedentary during the later Neolithic as traditional claims on land became fixed. In the Peak District there are two henges, at Arbor Low near Monyash and the Bull Ring, Dove Holes, which were probably built in the third millennium BC as large communal ceremonial places.

Nine Ladies stone circle was an important ceremonial centre

There are at least 26 small stone circles that may have been family monuments and over 500 burial barrows containing either inhumations, cremations or both. On the eastern gritstone moors where survival of prehistoric landscapes is good, many circles and barrows are closely associated with settlements, field systems and cairnfields dating from the earlier Bronze Age onwards.

Remains of later prehistoric settlements are extensive on the Eastern Moors

Numerous settlements and field systems survive within the region, dating from between the earlier Bronze Age and the Iron Age (approximately 700 BC to 70s AD), almost all on the East Moors and mostly on shelves between 250 metres and 350 metres above sea level. The settlements comprise round houses which were scattered among irregular fields where crops were cultivated and livestock raised. Stone cleared from the ground was piled into cairns or cast against the field boundaries. Groups of fields, and individual communities, were separated from each other by open ground left uncleared of stones where livestock could be grazed, plant materials collected for food, fuel and many other uses, and wild animals hunted.

Ramparts enclose the top of Fin Cop to create a hill-top enclosure or hillfort

During the later Bronze Age and Iron Age, large hilltop enclosures, often known as hillforts, were constructed. These include Mam Tor at Castleton, Fin Cop, near Taddington, Ball Cross overlooking the Derwent Valley, Castle Ring on Harthill Moor, Burr Tor, Hathersage and Castle Naze near Buxton. They are usually situated on prominent hill tops or ridge ends overlooking large valleys but vary hugely in size. They would have had different uses and the traditional interpretation of `fort’ is now seen to be over-simplistic. Some are located on naturally-defensive sites while others are not and some contain evidence for settlement while others do not. Some of these enclosures may have been communal gathering places not unlike Neolithic monuments.

Archaeologists excavate a building platform above the ramparts on Mam Tor

The Carl Wark enclosure, Stanage, is also often interpreted as a hillfort however its boulder-strewn interior and boundary construction could also place it in the Neolithic, Bronze Age or early Medieval periods. The density of large boulders in it certainly precludes its use as a settlement.

Apart from settlements on the East Moors and the hill-top enclosures, other evidence for Iron Age occupation in the region is rare. A clay-lined pit alignment was built adjacent to field systems on Gardom’s Edge between approximately 300 BC and 10 AD, two burials found at Winster date to between 200 BC and 100 AD and another in a cave in Carsington to between 770 BC and 400 BC

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