Surname & Place Name Indexes

to

Notes on Dartmoor Kistvaens

by

Robert Burnard

Trans. Devon. Assoc. 1890, Vol. XXII, plan, pp. 200-207.

Prepared by Michael Steer

The paper was presented at the Association’s July 1890 Barnstaple meeting and provides the genealogist with a treasury of names associated with the earliest research into our county’s unique prehistory and archaeology. The term ‘Kistvaen" from the Cornu-Celtic Cist-veyn or Cist-vyin, refers to a stone box. These boxes are generally oblong square in shape and constructed of four stone slabs for sides and end, with a fifth as the cover. The resultant chamber was covered by a barrow (or mound) and surrounded with a circle of vertically set stones. In cases of inhumation the body was placed in the kist in a contracted position; or if cremated, the ashes were deposited in an urn. The author was a contributing member of the Dartmoor Preservation Association. His obituary including a portrait is available here. The article, from a copy of a rare journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.