Hillfort
A hillfort is a type of fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late European Bronze Age and Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roman period. The fortification usually follows the contours of a hill and consists of one or more lines of earthworks or stone ramparts, with stockades or defensive walls, and external ditches. If enemies were approaching, the inhabitants would spot them from a distance.
Prehistoric Europe saw a growing population. It has been estimated that in about 5000 BC, during the Neolithic period, between 2 million and 5 million people lived in Europe; in the Late Iron Age, Europe had an estimated population of around 15 to 30 million. Outside Greece and Italy, which were more densely populated, the vast majority of settlements in the Iron Age were small, with perhaps no more than 50 inhabitants. Hillforts were the exception, and were the home of up to 1,000 people. With the emergence of oppida in the Late Iron Age, settlements could reach as large as 10,000 inhabitants. As the population increased, so did the complexity of prehistoric societies. Around 1100 BC hillforts emerged and in the following centuries spread through Europe. They served a range of purposes and were variously tribal centres, defended places, foci of ritual activity, and places of production.
Hillforts were frequently occupied by conquering armies, but on other occasions the forts were destroyed, the local people forcibly evicted, and the forts left derelict. For example, Solsbury Hill was sacked and deserted during the Belgic invasions of southern Britain in the 1st century BC. Abandoned forts were sometimes reoccupied and refortified under renewed threat of foreign invasion, such as during the Dukes' Wars in Lithuania, and the successive invasions of Britain by Romans, Saxons and Vikings.
Celtic hillforts
Celtic hillforts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC, and were used in many Celtic areas of central and western Europe until the Roman conquest. They are most common during later periods:- The Proto-Celtic Urnfield culture and Atlantic Bronze Age
- Hallstatt culture
- La Tène culture
Great Britain
The reason for the emergence of hillforts 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 not located in the same places as 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 also played a role and has stated " provided defensive possibilities for the community at those times when the stress 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".Hillforts in Britain are known from the Bronze Age, but the great period of hillfort construction was during the Celtic Iron Age, between 700 BC and the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD. The Romans occupied some forts, such as the military garrison at Hod Hill, and the temple at Brean Down, but others were destroyed and abandoned. Partially articulated remains of between 28 and 40 men, women and children at Cadbury Castle were thought by the excavator to implicate the Cadbury population in a revolt in the 70's AD, although this has been questioned by subsequent researchers. However, the presence of barracks on the hilltop in the decades following the conquest suggest an ongoing struggle to suppress local dissent.
Maiden Castle in Dorset is the largest hillfort in England. Where Roman influence was less strong, such as uninvaded Ireland and unsubdued northern Scotland, hillforts were still built and used for several more centuries.
There are over 2,000 Iron Age hillforts known in Britain, of which nearly 600 are in Wales. Danebury in Hampshire, is the most thoroughly investigated Iron Age hillfort in Britain, as well as the most extensively published.
Cadbury Castle, Somerset, is the largest fort reoccupied following the end of Roman rule to defend against pirate raids and the Anglo-Saxon invasions. The cemetery outside Poundbury Hill contains east-facing Christian burials of the 4th century CE. In Wales, the hillfort at Dinas Powys was a Late Iron Age hillfort reoccupied from the 5th-6th centuries CE; similarly at Castell Dinas Brân a hillfort of was reused in the Middle Ages, with a stone castle built there in the 13th century CE.
Some Iron Age hillforts were also incorporated into medieval frontier earthworks. For example Offa's Dyke, a linear earthwork generally dated to the 9th century CE, makes use of the west and south-west ramparts of Llanymynech hillfort. Similarly the hillfort at Old Oswestry was incorporated into the early medieval Wat's Dyke. The Wansdyke was a new linear earthwork connected to the existing hillfort at Maes Knoll, which defined the Celtic-Saxon border in south-west England during the period 577–652 CE.
Some hillforts were re-occupied by the Anglo-Saxons during the period of Viking raids. King Alfred established a network of coastal hillforts and lookout posts in Wessex, linked by a Herepath, or military road, which enabled his armies to cover Viking movements at sea. For example, see Daw's Castle and Battle of Cynwit.
It has been suggested on reasonable evidence that many so-called hillforts were just used to pen in cattle, horses, or other domesticated animals. The large sprawling examples at Bindon Hill and Bathampton Down are more than. Even those that were defensive settlements in the Iron Age were sometimes used for corralling animals in later periods. For example, see Coney's Castle, Dolebury Warren and Pilsdon Pen. However, it is difficult to prove that people definitely did not dwell there, as lack of evidence is not proof of absence.
Ireland
Bronze Age and Iron Age hillforts are widely found in Ireland, with more than 500 identified in Ireland and Northern Ireland. They are large circular structures between 1 and 40 acres in size, enclosed by a stone wall or earthen rampart or both. These would have been important tribal centres where the chief or king of the area would live with his extended family and support themselves by farming and renting cattle to their underlings.About 12 are multivallate, distinguished by multiple ramparts or a large counterscarp. The imposing example at Mooghaun is defended by multiple stone walls.
One must be careful to not confuse a hillfort with a medieval 'ringfort', a common archaeological feature across the whole island of Ireland, of which over 40,000 examples are known; one source claims there may be 10,000 undiscovered ringforts.
Other Hillforts in Europe
Iberian Peninsula
In Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Basque Country, province of Ávila and Northern Portugal a castro is a fortified pre-Roman Iron Age village, usually located on a hill or some naturally easy defendable place. The larger hillforts are also called citanias, cividades or cidás.They were located on hilltops, which allowed tactical control over the surrounding countryside and provided natural defences. They usually had access to a spring or small creek to provide water; some even had large reservoirs to use during sieges. Typically, a castro had one to five stone and earth walls, which complemented the natural defences of the hill. The buildings inside, most of them circular in shape, some rectangular, were about long; they were made out of stone with thatch roofs resting on a wood column in the centre of the building. In the major oppida there were regular streets, suggesting some form of central organization. Castros vary in area from less than a hectare to some 50 hectare ones, and most were abandoned after the Roman conquest of the territory.
Many castros were already established during the Atlantic Bronze Age period, pre-dating the Hallstatt culture.
Many of the megaliths from the Bronze Age such as menhirs and dolmens, which are frequently located near the castros, also pre-date the Celts in Portugal, Asturias and Galicia as well as in Atlantic France, Britain and Ireland. These megaliths were probably reused in syncretic rituals by the Celtic Druids.
The Celtiberian people occupied an inland region in central northern Spain, straddling the upper valleys of the Ebro, Douro and Tajo. They built hillforts, fortified hilltop towns and oppida, including Numantia.