An Excavation of Air is a collaboration between archaeologist Alan Endacott and artist Alex Murdin which will explore the aesthetics of time through known and unknown Neolithic and Bronze Age stone settings and artefacts from Dartmoor. It aims to develop long term environmental thinking by connecting human scales and the particularity of place with timefulness – an overall sense of shallow, deep and high(future) time – through a collaboration of archaeology and art.
Alan is currently undertaking a Phd at University of Exeter on the the prehistoric ritual landscapes of Northern Dartmoor. This is the culmination of a lifetimes field research and aims to increase our understanding of the prehistoric inhabitants of Dartmoor and its borders and their belief systems, identifying new classes of monument and uncovering more of the legacy of our ancestors.
Photos: bottom, Restoration at Down Tor row supervised by Rev W Gray, 1894, Dartmoor Trust Archive, “sacred crescent”, gradiometer survey Alan Endacott; top, Sittaford Circle Alan Endacott