Dolebury Warren Earthcache EarthCache
Dolebury Warren Earthcache
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An earthcache placed upon the Iron age hill fort / Medieval rabbit warren of Dolebury Warren.
NOTE: if your GPS does not have a compass on or cannot take bearings then you will need to bring a conventional compass to complete the earthcache. (In special circumstances just the third task could be completed and an explanation could be emailed to me through my profile.)
To log this earthcache you will need to:
1) (OPTIONAL) Take a photograph of you and your GPS at the listed co-ordinates which could be posted with your log.
2) When standing at the listed co-ordinates look up toward the highest point of the hill fort (straight ahead if you have come up the path not the steps.) This is when you will need your compass, as you need to find out the direction that the top of the hill fort is from your current position and therefore work out whether the sun would rise or set over the highest point.
3) If you look to your right or left you will see a bank that was created by the builders of the hill fort. In many areas on this bank (especially to the left) the rock that Dolebury warren is formed from is exposed, you need to work out what sort of rock this is, and email me a geological feature that often occurs within this rock.
Answers to be emailed to me through my profile, not posted in logs please.
In an area where the Blackdown Pericline has been eroded away lie Shipham and the neighbouring hamlet of Rowberrow which were once the centre of the zinc mining industry on Mendip. Both villages are underlain by the Triassic Dolomitic Conglomerate, which overlies the Devonian sandstones of the Portishead Formation. ‘British Geological Survey’ This set of rather confusing scientific terms refers to the rock strata (layers) that lie under Dolebury warren and the nearby villages of Shipham and Rowberrow.
At the bottom of this cache page one of the images is a diagram showing the different rock types present around Dolebury warren and where they occur. Also the British Geological survey report on the area can be found here: (visit link)
There is also a diagram which shows veins of minerals that are present around Shipham, and although this diagram was created to show the mining history of the area it shows, very simply, the large vein of rock that formed Dolebury warren. This is the blue vein on the far left, which is carboniferous limestone, and this allowed Dolebury warren to form as it is a very hard rock compared to the Mercia mudstone that forms the surrounding area, and as a result Dolebury warren, along with other features in the area such as Burrington Combe were left protruding out from the landscape when most of the other land was eroded away by glacial melt water from the end of the last ice age.
When it was a hill fort Dolebury warren served as a centre for the trade routes involved in the production of bronze, as it is placed equidistant from Wales, where the copper was mined, and Cornwall, where the tin was mined. This links interestingly with the mining history of the area, as even in the Bronze age there where minerals being mined from the deposits around and below Dolebury warren, primarily ochre (more evidence of this being mined in Banwell), and this may have been used as a trade material for bronze with the people working the bronze trading routes.
Also this site is particularly interesting as from the hill fort you can see a large amount of the surrounding area, and this will allow you to see many interesting geological features.
For example, the discordant structure of the area. This is where there are bands of hard rock and softer rock running parallel to each other and at right angles to the sea. In this structure the softer rock is eroded faster and forms bays, leaving the hard rock sticking out into the sea as headlands. (Sand point, Brean Down). The softer rock also gets eroded downwards by river ect faster than the hard rock and this leaves lines of hills at right angles to the sea (like the one you are on) and valleys between them where the softer rock has been eroded. This shown in the diagram, which i have uploaded to this cache page and can be found below.
Hill forts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC. The reason for their emergence in Britain, and their purpose, has been a subject of debate. It has been argued that they could have been military sites constructed in response to invasion from continental Europe, sites built by invaders, or a military reaction to social tensions caused by an increasing population and consequent pressure on agriculture. The dominant view since the 1960s has been that the increasing use of iron led to social changes in Britain. Deposits of iron ore were located in different places to the tin and copper ore necessary to make bronze, and as a result trading patterns shifted and the old elites lost their economic and social status. Power passed into the hands of a new group of people. Archaeologist Barry Cunliffe believes that population increase still played a role and has stated "[the forts] provided defensive possibilities for the community at those times when the stress [of an increasing population] burst out into open warfare. But I wouldn't see them as having been built because there was a state of war. They would be functional as defensive strongholds when there were tensions and undoubtedly some of them were attacked and destroyed, but this was not the only, or even the most significant, factor in their construction.
For more information on the hill fort you can visit: (visit link)
I hope you have enjoyed learning the history and geology of the area and i hope you have an enjoyable walk in a lovely area. Happy caching.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Lbh qbag ernyyl arrq n uvag qb lbh...vg vfag gung qvssvphyg! :C