Coaxial field systems: some questions of time and space

Curwen, writing in A NTIQUITY 60 years ago about prehistoric agriculture in Britain (Curwen 1927), found his best evidence for the fields of earliest times came from the hut-circles and enclosures of Dartmoor. Andrew Fleming has done the same in studying the large-scale land divisions made by the Dartmoor reaves. Until his work these prehistoric boundaries were thought to be of medieval date – understandably as they demonstrate not the piecemeal and local enclosing of little fields but planned land division on a medieval scale. In this paper Fleming extends his view out from Dartmoor to the wider pattern of land division on the grand scale at early dates, and to its social implications.