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 civilians would spot them from a distance.
Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hillfort 1.6 mi (2.6 km) southwest of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age.
Uffington Castle is an early Iron Age univallate hillfort in Oxfordshire, England. It covers about 32,000 square metres and is surrounded by two earth banks separated by a ditch with an entrance in the western end. A second entrance in the eastern end was apparently blocked up a few centuries after it was built. The original defensive ditch was V-shaped with a small box rampart in front and a larger one behind it. Timber posts stood on the ramparts. Later the ditch was deepened and the extra material dumped on top of the ramparts to increase their size. A parapet wall of sarsen stones lined the top of the innermost rampart. It is very close to the Uffington White Horse on White Horse Hill.
The Durotriges were one of the Celtic tribes living in Britain prior to the Roman invasion. The tribe lived in modern Dorset, south Wiltshire, south Somerset and Devon east of the River Axe and the discovery of an Iron Age hoard in 2009 at Shalfleet, Isle of Wight gives evidence that they may also have lived in the western half of the island. After the Roman conquest, their main civitates, or settlement-centred administrative units, were Durnovaria and Lindinis. Their territory was bordered to the west by the Dumnonii; and to the east by the Belgae.
Danebury is an Iron Age hillfort in Hampshire, England, about 19 kilometres (12 mi) north-west of Winchester. The site, covering 5 hectares, was excavated by Barry Cunliffe in the 1970s. Danebury is considered a type-site for hill forts, and was important in developing the understanding of hillforts, as very few others have been so intensively excavated.
The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, which had an independent Iron Age culture of its own. The Iron Age is not an archaeological horizon of common artefacts but is rather a locally-diverse cultural phase.
Cadbury Hill is a small hill, mostly in the civil parish of Congresbury, overlooking the village of Yatton in North Somerset. On its summit stands an Iron Age hill fort, which is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Prehistoric Wales in terms of human settlements covers the period from about 230,000 years ago, the date attributed to the earliest human remains found in what is now Wales, to the year AD 48 when the Roman army began a military campaign against one of the Welsh tribes. Traditionally, historians have believed that successive waves of immigrants brought different cultures into the area, largely replacing the previous inhabitants, with the last wave of immigrants being the Celts. However, studies of population genetics now suggest that this may not be true, and that immigration was on a smaller scale.
Burledge Hill is on the southern edge of the village of Bishop Sutton, Somerset, England. It is the site of a Site of Special Scientific Interest and an univallate Iron Age hillfort.
Bats Castle is an Iron Age hillfort at the top of a 213 metres (699 ft) high hill in the parish of Carhampton south south west of Dunster in Somerset, England.
Black Ball Camp is an Iron Age hillfort South West of Dunster, Somerset, England on the northern summit of Gallox Hill. It is a Scheduled Monument.
Kenwalch's Castle is probably an Iron Age hill fort that may have been converted into a Roman fortress, near Penselwood, Somerset, England, 6.6 kilometres (4 mi) east south east of Bruton at grid reference ST747335. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is believed to be named after Cenwalh of Wessex.
Kingsdown Camp is an Iron Age hillfort at Buckland Dinham 4.5 kilometres (3 mi) South East of Radstock, Somerset, England. It is a Scheduled Monument.
Eddisbury hill fort, also known as Castle Ditch, is an Iron Age hill fort near Delamere, Cheshire, in northern England. Hill forts are fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age. Eddisbury is the largest and most complex of the seven hill forts in the county of Cheshire. It was constructed before 200–100 BC and expanded in 1–50 AD. In the 1st century AD, the Romans slighted the site. It was reoccupied in the 6th–8th centuries AD, and an Anglo-Saxon burh was probably established at Eddisbury in 914. In the medieval and post-medieval periods quarrying and farming have damaged the site. Ownership is currently split between the Forestry Commission and a local farm. Eddisbury is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Blewburton Hill is the site of an Iron Age hillfort located in Oxfordshire, in the southeast of England. It was a univallate hillfort. The area is mostly farmland with some small areas of wooded copse to the south and the northeast. The hill fort may have been occupied from the 4th century BC to the 1st century BC, and replaced a small settlement surrounded by a stockade, which is estimated to have been built in the 5th or 6th century BC.
Battlesbury Camp is the site of an Iron Age bivallate hill fort on Battlesbury Hill near the town of Warminster in Wiltshire, South West England. Excavations and surveys at the site have uncovered various finds and archaeological evidence.
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.
Charterhouse Camp is a univallate Iron Age hillfort in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The hillfort is situated approximately 0.6 miles (0.97 km) east from the village of Charterhouse. There is some evidence, in the form of burials in local caves, of human occupation since the late Neolithic times and the early Bronze Age. The site is associated with Charterhouse Roman Town and may have been the site of Iscalis. The site is a scheduled monument.
Taps Combe Camp is an Iron Age hill fort in North Somerset, England. The hill fort is situated approximately 1.8 miles (2.9 km) east from the village of Brockley. The hill fort is shaped like a "D", and is approximately 50 metres (160 ft) by 50 metres (160 ft) wide.
The Celtic currency of Britain were the various items and coins used as currency between approximately 200 BC and AD 60. The earliest currency consisted of various forms of iron bars. Coins were first imported in large numbers in around 150 BC and domestic minting began around 100BC. Coin production was largely ended by the Roman conquest of Britain, first by the Claudian invasion of AD 43 and later by the Defeat of Boudica in AD 60 or 61. Cast coins may have been produced for a few more years around Hengistbury Head. Exact dating of coins often changes in the light of new research.
