ABSTRACT
THE situation o f Exmoor, on the north coast o f Devon and Somerset, explains its cultural setting in prehistoric times. Contact, most likely coastal, with Cornwall is suggested by the finding o f an urn with typical rolled handles of Cornish type from one o f the barrows on Berry Dowm SE. o f Ilfracombe. Contact with South Wales is shown by the presence o f short stone rows, and the probable occasional presence of stones set in triangles, squares, and other geometrical arrangements, in both areas, and their absence or extreme scarcity elsewhere except for the stone rows o f Dartmoor which tend to be much longer.1 Other indications o f contact between South Wales and Exmoor have been pointed out by Sir Cyril Fox. He has drawn attention2 to the resemblance between a cinerary urn from Six Wells 271' barrow, Llantwit Major (Glam.), and one from a barrow near Elworthy on the eastern slope of the Brendon Hills. He has also pointed out a parallel between a ritual-pit in the approximate centre o f a circle of post-holes at the same Six Wells 271' barrow, and the ritual-pit in or near the centre o f a circle of stones in another barrow on the Brendon Hills. The presence o f an empty ritual-pit in the centre of the barrow Six Wells 267' has its parallel at a barrow on Combe Beacon (Somerset).3 The central turf-structure at Pond Cairn (Glam.) surrounded by a stone ring is similar to the structure o f one of the Chapman Barrows near Parracombe.4 Although individually some o f these resemblances would be too general to infer culture contact, taken together they appear to justify such an inference. At least occasional contact with Wessex is indicated by the presence o f a fine bell-barrow among the Five Barrows south-east o f Challacombe.
