Hillforts in Britain


Hillforts in Britain refers to the various hillforts within the island of Great Britain. Although the earliest such constructs fitting this description come from the Neolithic British Isles, with a few also dating to later Bronze Age Britain, British hillforts were primarily constructed during the British Iron Age. Some of these were apparently abandoned in the southern areas that were a part of Roman Britain, although at the same time, those areas of northern Britain that remained free from Roman occupation saw an increase in their construction. Some hillforts were reused in the Early Middle Ages, and in some rarer cases, into the later medieval period as well. By the early modern period, these had essentially all been abandoned, with many being excavated by archaeologists in the nineteenth century onward.
There are around 3,300 structures that can be classed as hillforts or similar "defended enclosures" within Britain. Most of these are clustered in certain regions: south and south-west England, the west coast of Wales and Scotland, the Welsh Marches and the Scottish border hills. British hillforts varied in size, with the majority covering an area of less than, but with most others ranging from this up to around in size. In certain rare cases, they were bigger, with a few examples being over in size.
Various archaeologists operating in Britain have criticised the use of the term "hillfort" both because of its perceived connection to fortifications and warfare, and because not all such sites were actually located on hills. Leslie Alcock believed that the term "enclosed places" was more accurate. J. Forde-Johnston commented on his preference for "defensive enclosures".

Nomenclature

The spellings "hill fort", "hill-fort" and "hillfort" are all used in the archaeological literature. The Monument Type Thesaurus published by the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage lists hillfort as the preferred term. They all refer to an elevated site with one or more ramparts made of earth, stone and/or wood, with an external ditch. Many small early hillforts were abandoned, with the larger and greater ones being redeveloped at a later date. Some hillforts contain houses.
Similar but smaller and less defendable earthworks are found on the sides of hills. These are known as hill-slope enclosures and may have been animal pens.

Historiography

Excavations at hillforts in the first half of the 20th century focussed on the defences, based on the assumption that hillforts were primarily developed for military purposes. The exception to this trend began in the 1930s with a series of excavations undertaken by Mortimer Wheeler at Maiden Castle, Dorset. From 1960 onwards, archaeologists shifted their attention to the interior of hillforts, re-examining their function. Currently, post-processual archaeologists regard hillforts as symbols of wealth and power.
Michael Avery has stated the traditional view of hillforts by saying, "The ultimate defensive weapon of European prehistory was the hillfort of the first millennium B.C.". By contrast, Professor Ronald Hutton wrote in the English Heritage Members Magazine in March 2020 "It now seems that they were assembly places where farming families would meet seasonally..."

Types

Beyond the simple definition of hillfort, there is a wide variation in types and periods from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages.
Here are some considerations of general appearance and topology, which can be assessed without archaeological excavation:
  • Location
  • * Hilltop Contour: the classic hillfort; an inland location with a hilltop defensive position surrounded by artificial ramparts or steep natural slopes on all sides. Examples: Brent Knoll, Mount Ipf.
  • * Inland Promontory: an inland defensive position on a ridge or spur with steep slopes on 2 or 3 sides, and artificial ramparts on the other level approach. Example: Lambert's Castle.
  • * Interfluvial: a promontory above the confluence of two rivers, or in the bend of a meander. Examples: Kelheim, Miholjanec.
  • * Lowland: an inland location without special defensive advantages, but surrounded by artificial ramparts; typical of later settled oppida. Examples: Maiden Castle, Old Oswestry, Stonea Camp.
  • * Sea Cliff: a semi-circular crescent of ramparts backing on to a straight sea cliff; common on rocky Atlantic coasts, such as Ireland and Wales. Examples: Daw's Castle, Dinas Dinlle, Dún Aengus.
  • * Sea Promontory: a linear earthwork across a narrow neck of land leading to a peninsula with steep cliffs to the sea on three sides; common on indented Atlantic coasts, such as Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany and west Wales. Examples: Huelgoat; The Rumps and other promontory forts of Cornwall.
  • * Sloping Enclosure or Hill-slope enclosure: smaller earthwork on gently sloping hillsides; not significant defensive position. Examples: Goosehill Camp, Plainsfield Camp, Trendle Ring.
  • Area
  • * > 20 ha: very large enclosures, too extensive to defend, probably used for domesticated animals. Example: Bindon Hill.
  • * 1–20 ha: defended areas large enough to support permanent tribal settlement. Example: Scratchbury Camp
  • * < 1 ha: small enclosures, more likely to be individual farmsteads or animal pens. Example: Trendle Ring.
  • Ramparts, walls and ditches
  • * Univallate: a single circuit of ramparts for enclosure and defence. Example: Solsbury Hill.
  • * Bivallate : a double circuit of defensive earthworks. Example: Battlesbury Camp.
  • * Multivallate: more than one layer of defensive earthworks, outer works might not be complete circuits, but defend the weakest approaches; typically the inner circuit is original, with outer circuits added later. Example: Cadbury Castle.
  • Entrances
  • * Simple opening: might indicate an enclosure, rather than a defended position; sometimes the main ramparts may turn inward or outward, and be widened and heightened to control the entrance. Example: Dowsborough.
  • * Linear holloway: sunken lane with a parallel pair of straight ramparts dominating the entrance; projecting either inward, outward, or occasionally overlapped along the main rampart. Example: Norton Camp.
  • * Complex: multiple overlapping outer works; staggered or interleaved multivallate ramparts; zig-zag entrance way, sling platforms and well planned lines of fire. Example: Maiden Castle.
Some forts were also settlements, while others were only occupied seasonally, or in times of strife. Archaeological excavation reveals more about the dates of occupation and modes of use. Typical features for excavation include:
  • Ramparts and ditches
  • * Original depths and profiles of ditches.
  • * Rampart construction: murus gallicus, pfostenschlitzmauer.
  • * Guardhouses and defended entrances.
  • Settlement and occupation
  • * Raised platforms, roundhouses, longhouses.
  • * Post holes for rectangular granary huts.
  • * Pits for food storage, souterrains, fogous.
  • * Pottery
  • * Coins, jewellery and hoards.
  • Temples and peacetime burials
  • * Platforms and temple foundations.
  • * Graves and offerings
  • Warfare
  • * Weapons: sling-shot, shields, armour, swords, axes, spears, arrows.
  • * Sieges and conquest: ballista bolts, ash layers, vitrified stones, burnt post holes.
  • * Wartime burials: typically outside the ramparts:
  • ** Contemporary individual burials by local inhabitants.
  • ** Massed grave pits dug by a conquering army.

    Bronze Age hillforts

British hillforts, as now recognised, first appeared in the Late Bronze Age. Archaeologists Sue Hamilton and John Manley believed they were a part of "...substantial landscape and social reconfigurations at the start of the first millennium ", that coincided with the change of three characteristics of British Bronze Age society: "...disappearance of an archaeologically visible burial rite, ... increased deposition of prestige metalwork in rivers, ... and the demise of a middle Bronze Age settlement format of groups of round houses set within enclosures."
They noted that "Accrued place-value may have been important in the establishment of the earliest hillforts. These are often in locations with conspicuous traces of previous ritual monuments. This may have been a means of validating new social practices through making links with the past".
This idea was examined in more depth by ethnologist J. Forde-Johnston, who made note of how a number of Iron Age hillforts had been built close to earlier Bronze Age barrows. Commenting on the fact that both types of monument typically were constructed in high locations, he said, "It is not surprising that the two features should coincide in several dozen cases." He added that it was possible that hillforts had been intentionally sited near barrows for defensive protection from the "...sacred associations of the burial place."

Iron Age hillforts

The Iron Age hillforts have remained dominating features in the British landscape: as ethnologist J. Forde-Johnston noted, "Of all the earthworks that are such a notable feature of the landscape in England and Wales few are more prominent or more striking than the hillforts built during the centuries before the Roman conquest." He continued, describing them as an "eloquent testimony of the technical ability and social organization of the Iron Age peoples." On a similar note, the English archaeologist J. C. D. Clark remarked that " Hillforts are at once among the most impressive and informative of our prehistoric antiquities. They impress by their mere size, by the height of their ramparts, by the depth of their ditches, by the extent of the areas they enclose, and frequently by their commanding position."
There was "immense variation subsumed within the class of monuments called hillforts". Those of the British Iron Age have been characterised as belonging to four different types. The main two are contour and promontory forts, and the lesser two are hill-slope and plateau forts. Contour forts are those "...in which the defences cut off the upper portion of a hill from the ground below by following, more or less, the line of the contours encircling it." Promontory forts are typically defined by "...an area to which the approach is limited, to a greater or lesser extent, by natural features such as cliffs, very steep slopes, rivers etc. Where such features exist little or nothing in the way of man-made fortification is required."
File:Badbury Rings Hillfort in Dorset.jpg|thumb|A lidar view of Badbury Rings Iron Age hillfort in Dorset
File:A lidar view of Caer Caradoc Hillfort in Shropshire.jpg|thumb|A lidar view of Caer Caradoc Iron Age hillfort in Shropshire
File:Danebury Hillfort in Hampshire.jpg|thumb|A lidar view of Danebury Iron Age hillfort and Celtic-like field system in Hampshire
Hill-slope hillforts, rather than "enclosing the hilltop in the manner of contour forts, are situated on the sloping ground on one side of it, overlooked by the crest". Plateau forts "face level ground on all sides, regardless of their elevation above sea-level". Plateau forts are often, although by no means always, located in plateaus, hence their name.
Iron Age hillforts made use of both natural and man-made defences. Natural defences include cliffs, steep slopes, rivers, lakes and the sea. Man-made defences largely consist of banks and ditches. There were two forms of banks built at such sites: revetted and glacis. Revetted banks present "a vertical or near-vertical outer face to the enemy. This outer face or revetment is normally of timber or dry stone walling, or a combination of the two, and retains the core of earth, chalk, clay etc., derived in most cases from the outer ditch." Glacis banks "are usually triangular in cross-section and at their simplest consist of a single dump of the material excavated from the ditch."
The number of these such ramparts differs in Iron Age British hillforts. Univallate, are single-rampart only. Multivallate, are multi-rampart forts. Commenting on their distribution across southern Britain, Forde-Johnston stated that "roughly one-third of the Iron Age forts in England and Wales have multivallate defences, the remaining two-thirds being univallate." It has been suggested that only the innermost rampart would be manned, with the other ones serving more to make space and breakup charges.