Friends of the Quantocks have been treated to two wonderful walks (which were also blessed with good weather), discovering the incredible ritualistic Bronze Age landscape of the Quantocks. The walks were very well attended with lots of interest and fantastic questions too for Dan Broadbent, Historic Heritage Officer for the Quantock Landscape Partnership.
We learnt about the incredible number of Bronze Age barrows and cairns across the hills and how more are still being discovered as LiDAR data is being assessed, many in plain sight but might have just been hidden by the bracken and gorse. Interestingly none of the sites on the Quantocks have ever been subjected to a professional archaeological dig so much of what we think we know comes from other information from other sites of a similar period. Sadly what there is a lof of evidence for is unofficial digs where people in the past might have searched for artifacts.
The locations, structures themselves and patterns of their distribution, all gave an incredible insight into the lives of the people using this landscape 4000 years ago. It is thought that many of these sites can be grouped into clusters which may have had territorial or potentially family significance in the past, and when you look at the distribution across every prominence on the hill it gives a whole new appreciation of the landscape and the heritage across it.
Thank you so much to Dan for being a fantastic expert guide. We hope in the future that we might be able to make avialble printable self guided versions of these walks for all to enjoy.