A new plaque has been fixed to a stone by the National Park asking visitors not to disturb the Bronze Age burial mound on Live Moor near Whorlton. Not to remove or add stones to the cairn. The custom has developed amongst walkers and ramblers to add a stone or two to piles of stones as they pass or rest. New cairns are started with stones were being taken from the prehistoric round barrows destroying any archaeology that could still be there. The path across Live Moor is very popular and includes sections of the Cleveland Way and Coast to Coast long distance trails. The National Park has had to deconstruct one walkers’ cairn nearby on Live Moor and has carried out remedial work on this barrow. The ridges and skylines of the North York Moors are scattered with Round Barrows, often called howes. 4,000 years old, some may well be territorial boundary markers but out of 200 that have been excavated, many by Victorian antiquarians using unsophisticated techniques, 80% contained Bronze Age pottery and 60% cremated human bone fragments. Occasionally bronze artefacts have also been found.
Leave a Reply