Location | Hembury, Devon |
---|---|
Coordinates | 50°49′14″N03°15′41″W / 50.82056°N 3.26139°W |
Type | Hillfort |
History | |
Periods | Neolithic, Iron Age, Roman |
Site notes | |
Ownership | Devon Archaeological Society |
Public access | Yes |
Website | http://www.hemburyfort.co.uk |
Official name | Hembury Fort |
Designated | 9 October 1981 |
Reference no. | 1018850 |
Hembury is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure and Iron Age hillfort near Honiton in Devon. Its history stretches from the late fifth and early fourth millennia BC to the Roman invasion. The fort is situated on a south facing promontory at the end of a 240m high ridge in the Blackdown Hills. It lies to the north of and overlooking the River Otter valley and this location was probably chosen to give good views of the surrounding countryside as well as for defensive reasons. [2] The Devon Archaeological Society bought the hillfort in 2022. [3]
Originally a neolithic site, an Iron Age hill fort was later built on the same site. [4]
It was excavated between 1930 and 1935 by Dorothy Liddell. She identified a timber framed entrance to the causewayed enclosure and an oval arrangement of postholes in the middle which she interpreted as being a building destroyed by fire before the enclosure earthworks were built. Other evidence of neolithic occupation included pottery, flints, axes, querns and charred grain. [5]
During an excavation in the 1980s headed by Malcolm Todd, archaeological evidence was found on the site of Roman military occupation, suggesting a fort within the existing Iron Age site. [6]
The site has given its name to some of the earliest Neolithic pottery in southern Britain after a large collection of pieces of this type of pottery were found during excavations by Dorothy Liddell. [7] Hembury ware pottery was generally characterised by round bottomed bowls with lug handles. Much of it was made further west, around The Lizard using Gabbroic clay and it was traded throughout the British Isles. It was made at the end of the fifth millennium BCE and early 4th millennium BCE. [8] Several pieces of Hembury ware Gabbro pottery are on display in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, Devon. [9]
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.
A causewayed enclosure is a type of large prehistoric earthwork common to the early Neolithic in Europe. It is an enclosure marked out by ditches and banks, with a number of causeways crossing the ditches. More than 100 examples are recorded in France and 70 in Southern England and Wales, while further sites are known in Scandinavia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Ireland and Slovakia.
Windmill Hill is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure in the English county of Wiltshire, part of the Avebury World Heritage Site, about 1 mile (2 km) northwest of Avebury. Enclosing an area of 21 acres (8.5 ha), it is the largest known causewayed enclosure in Britain. The site was first occupied around 3800 BC, although the only evidence is a series of pits apparently dug by an agrarian society using Hembury pottery.
Combe Hill is a causewayed enclosure, near Eastbourne in East Sussex, on the northern edge of the South Downs. It consists of an inner circuit of ditches and banks, incomplete where it meets a steep slope on its north side, and the remains of an outer circuit. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. The historian Hadrian Allcroft included the site in his 1908 book Earthwork of England, and in 1930 E. Cecil Curwen listed it as a possible Neolithic site in a paper which attempted to provide the first list of all the causewayed enclosures in England.
Hambledon Hill is a prehistoric hill fort in Dorset, England, in the Blackmore Vale five miles northwest of Blandford Forum. The hill itself is a chalk outcrop, on the southwestern corner of Cranborne Chase, separated from the Dorset Downs by the River Stour. It is owned by the National Trust.
The Blackdown Hills, or Blackdowns, are a range of hills along the Somerset-Devon border in south-western England. The plateau is dominated by hard chert bands of Upper Greensand with some remnants of chalk, and is cut through by river valleys.
Blackbury Camp, also known as Blackbury Castle, is an Iron Age hill fort in Devon, England. It is managed by English Heritage.
Figsbury Ring is an 11.2 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Wiltshire, England, notified in 1975. It is owned and managed by the National Trust.
Aileen Mary Fox, Lady Fox, was an English archaeologist, who specialised in the archaeology of south-west England. She notably excavated the Roman legionary fortress in Exeter, Devon, after the Second World War.
Raddon Top is the highest point of the Raddon Hills, a small ridge of hills in the Shobrooke area of Mid Devon. The summit is at some 235 metres above sea level, making it a significant feature in the surrounding countryside.
Norton Camp is a Bronze Age hill fort at Norton Fitzwarren near Taunton in Somerset, England.
The Trundle is an Iron Age hillfort on St Roche's Hill about 4 miles (6 km) north of Chichester, West Sussex, England. It was built on the site of a causewayed enclosure, a form of early Neolithic earthwork found in northwestern Europe. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. Hillforts were built as early as 1000 BC, in the Late Bronze Age, and continued to be built through the Iron Age until shortly before the Roman occupation.
Scratchbury Camp is the site of an Iron Age univallate hillfort on Scratchbury Hill, overlooking the Wylye valley about 1 km northeast of the village of Norton Bavant in Wiltshire, England. The fort covers an area of 37 acres (15 ha) and occupies the summit of the hill on the edge of Salisbury Plain, with its four-sided shape largely following the natural contours of the hill.
Whitehawk Camp is the remains of a causewayed enclosure on Whitehawk Hill near Brighton, East Sussex, England. Causewayed enclosures are a form of early Neolithic earthwork that were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC, characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, or meeting places, or ritual sites. The Whitehawk site consists of four roughly concentric circular ditches, with banks of earth along the interior of the ditches evident in some places. There may have been a timber palisade on top of the banks. Outside the outermost circuit there are at least two more ditches, one of which is thought from radiocarbon evidence to date to the Bronze Age, about two thousand years after the earliest dated activity at the site.
Knap Hill lies on the northern rim of the Vale of Pewsey, in northern Wiltshire, England, about a mile north of the village of Alton Priors. At the top of the hill is a causewayed enclosure, a form of Neolithic earthwork that was constructed in England from about 3700 BC onwards, characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known: they may have been settlements, or meeting places, or ritual sites of some kind. The site has been scheduled as an ancient monument.
Dorothy Liddell, MBE (1890–1938) was a pioneering woman archaeologist and mentor to both Mary Leakey and Mary Eily de Putron.
Maiden Bower is an Iron Age hillfort near Dunstable in Bedfordshire, England. The site, which also has traces of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure, is a scheduled monument.
Offham Hill is a causewayed enclosure near Lewes, East Sussex, England. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until about 3300 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. The site was identified as a possible causewayed enclosure in 1964 by a member of the Sussex Archaeological Society. The Ordnance Survey inspected the site in 1972 and recommended an excavation, which was carried out in 1976 by Peter Drewett.
The prehistory of Cornwall spans an extensive timeframe from the earliest evidence of archaic human presence in Cornwall, perhaps c. 225,000 years ago, to the Roman conquest of Britain c. 43 CE, encompassing the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age periods. Throughout this era Cornwall underwent significant cultural and environmental changes, evolving from a sparsely-populated hunter-gatherer society reliant on rudimentary stone tools to an agricultural society characterized by developed metallurgical practices, expansive trade networks, and emerging social complexity.