This is a book for the walker and lover of Dartmoor, rather than for the academic. It will make a colourful addition to your collection.
Mr Lethbridge is a keen explorer of Dartmoor and has discovered a number of previously unrecorded sites. Here he has painstakingly documented almost three hundred ancient monuments. Six hundred photographs and maps explode across the pages, sometimes tending to overwhelm the text: the layout in my opinion is a little confusing with rather unclear captions and titles.
The sites are treated according to the river valleys in which they are situated. The author gives preference to the stone rows, burial cists and stone circles. Only a few of the prehistoric pounds and hut circles are dealt with. The sheer number of the often overlooked cists is evident here. The book is up to date, and includes photographs of the recently discovered neolithic stone row on Cut Hill, as well as some fascinating pictures of the previously undisturbed Whitehorse Hill burial cairn during its excavation. It would have been helpful to have more detailed information on these unique sites and some of the other more significant sites, but the format does not allow for much expansion beyond a functional description. The recently reported (2014) large stone circle on Sittaford Tor is not covered in the main body of the book but is mentioned in the Introduction. Otherwise the treatment is comprehensive: for example, often neglected, but important, sites to the East of the Moor (such as Mardon Down) are included.
Mr Lethbridge has an unconventional approach: he uses imperial, not metric units; gives detailed compass alignments for the stones; and uses charming little coloured sketch maps to help locate the sites. For me, eight figure grid references would be preferable for some of the smaller, remoter sites: only a couple of the sites are granted (six figure) references. The maps are helpful and to the point, the author assuming that the reader has sufficient knowledge of the Moor to get to the general locality of the sites. Mr Lethbridge might be a bit of a maverick: “None of us knows what life was like in prehistoric times” he says on page 9, “even the experts in their field....like the layman....can only presume”. Perhaps read experts like Burl, Butler, Fleming and Newman and form your own view!
The book provides a comprehensive pictorial overview of sites, but the reader must not expect analysis of context of the remains described. Other books fortunately provide this: a bibliography of them would have been helpful. The photographs are clear enough, functional and are certainly exhaustive, in some cases obsessively so, as for example the Sherberton double stone row in which seven stones, protruding only “an inch above the turf”, are each afforded their own photograph. However there is no doubt that a photographic record of this type, apart from being useful for posterity, will assist the keen walker to locate sites with certainty. This is the work of a dedicated enthusiast: forgive its editorial idiosyncrasies and the book will be useful for anyone interested in exploring the prehistory of Dartmoor. But it might not fit your backpack.
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Dr Jonkers
An Enthusiastic Guide
2015年5月10日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Diana
Good introduction
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Ms. P. Cann
Not 'A Walker's Guide'
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tonyeldershaw
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Roger Brooking
Five Stars
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