Round cairn near Challacombe Cross

This round cairn sits on the open moor south east of Challacombe Cross, a surviving monument from the Bronze Age when Dartmoor's high ground was more densely settled and used. Round cairns like this one were built as burial monuments, often over a long period, and their stones have weathered the centuries of moorland weather and grazing.

Today the cairn appears as a low stony mound in the landscape, part of the scattered archaeological record that marks Bronze Age settlement patterns across Dartmoor. It lies within the wider archaeological context of the moor, where Bronze Age ritual and burial monuments are found at intervals across the high ground and lower slopes alike.