Nature, Culture, Clitter

Abstract

This article addresses the problem of how to distinguish between natural and humanly modified features of the cultural landscape with reference to clitter (boulder and stone) masses in the south-west of England using the example of Leskernick hill, Bodmin Moor with its well-preserved Bronze Age settlement. We first set out a series of criteria for distinguishing between natural and humanly placed stones on the basis of a series of formal geomorphological criteria. We then discuss the stones from an archaeological perspective setting out a series of archaeological criteria by means of which we can recognize the presence of humanly modified stones. From this basis we discuss four examples in detail. Finally we attempt to interpret the significance of the cultural modification of stone masses, previously regarded by both archaeologists and geomorphologists as being entirely natural in origin, by challenging the very culture/nature distinction for ascribing meaning on which the previous considerations are made. Whilst acknowledging that the distinction between a stone that has been moved by human agency, and one that has not, is important for interpretation this does not make it more or less culturally significant.