Oxford J Archaeol 24 (1)

The coaxial field systems on Dartmoor are widely interpreted as the result of a relatively rapid period of planned land division during the middle centuries of the second millennium BC. The article seeks to challenge this notion of a `planned landscape'. Using examples from southern (Shaugh Moor) and north-eastern (Kestor and Shovel Down) Dartmoor, it is demonstrated that the boundaries materialized existing structures in the landscape which had emerged through patterns of dwelling and long histories of tenure. In seeking to present a new narrative for the enclosure of the Dartmoor landscape, it is argued that tenure was articulated at a local level through the relationship between occupancy and ancestral ties to the land, and that land division was only possible because the forms of tenure and perceptions of landscape were already in place. The author argues that coaxial pattern emerged in a reflexive tradition of boundary construction rather than as part of a transformative plan or a conscious strategy to reorganize and enclose the moor.

Salient details of two major urban sites, Carlisle and Corbridge, both of which may shed further light on processes of settlement growth and decline, and which may ultimately contribute to a greater understanding of how the frontier worked, are summarized. At Carlisle, and probably also at Corbridge, settlement growth associated with forts was rapid and multi-tracked, but from the later-second century AD changes took place associated, perhaps, with enhanced status and a growing sense of community.