| View previous topic :: View next topic |
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
 |
|
Ever wondered why hillforts tend to be on the tops of hills? Well, if you take a chalk landscape (or any highly erodable surface) and build random animal enclosures, the hard trampling of the beasts packs down the enclosure surface and it doesn't erode nearly as much as the landscape in general.
Erode the whole landscape for five thousand years and you end up with random hilltops each with a 'hillfort' on top.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Chad
In: Ramsbottom
|
|
|
|
|
Simply brilliant!!!
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ishmael
In: Toronto
|
|
|
|
I don't know what to make of it.
It sure is novel.
But was human society ever so stable?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
In theory, this principle (called The East Anglia Effect qv) is completely natural, not requiring--further--human intervention. The sequence goes like this:
1. There is a broad natural chalkland landscape suitable mainly for grazing animals
2. Every few miles there is an animal enclosure
3. Not only do the animals compact the soil in these enclosures but the constant rain of manure changes its nature (some chemistry, please!)
4. A thin crust is formed that slows down erosion (a slight differential is all that is required)
5. Gradually these animal enclosures (not necessarily animal enclosures any more) start sticking up out of the landscape
6. Such eminences begin to be employed for other purposes eg true forts, the big house, rabbit warrens, suggestions please.
7. Years pass
8. Archaeologists come along and are puzzled...there seems little pattern but since a few undoubtedly have some kind of military function, and since their only common feature is that they are on tops of hills, they are called hillforts.
9. Years pass
10. M J Harper comes along....
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mick Harper wrote: |
10. M J Harper comes along.... |
|
However Hill forts have ramparts and ditches which suggests a fort-type structure?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ishtar
|
|
|
|
| frank h wrote: | | However Hill forts have ramparts and ditches which suggests a fort-type structure? |
Could these ditches be some kind of herding path? Today we use fences.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
| Ishtar wrote: | | Could these ditches be some kind of herding path? Today we use fences. |
That could well be true.Animals have to be segregated especially if more than one flock converge on the 'fort' at once; two or three surrounding ditches are not uncommon. If Mick's right about the ground being compacted over time to become more resistant to erosion, it'd explain why ancient tracks like the Ridgeway aren't holloways. (Though that rather begs the question whether the various ridgeways originally were on the tops of hills rather than a little further down the, preferably south-facing, escarpments).
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
| However Hill forts have ramparts and ditches which suggests a fort-type structure? |
But, Frank, this is the best support for my theory. In order for the process to happen, there has to be 'an enclosure'. In other words, in fact in your words, every hillfort must have some kind of 'rampart and ditch' in order to come into existence. From either a practical or more especially from an archaeological point-of-view, how do you distinguish between an animal stockade and a people stockade? Form follows function.
I am not denying that people might convert an animal stockade into a proper fort, nor that some 'hillforts' are actual military structures and have nothing to do with animal enclosures. What I am saying is that the sheer number of 'hillforts' in Britain, and their apparent military shortcomings, AND their various archaeological anomalies, is best accounted for by my explanation.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mick Harper wrote: | However Hill forts
is best accounted for by my explanation. |
The most comprehensive account of Hill fort records is given by Hogg in his 1970's book, where he does indeed describe some examples where animals may have been enclosed. Indeed I gather until the need for major strengthening with heavy ramparts and deep ditches starting in the mid 1st mil BC many were regular enclosed places of abode. Why the 'celts' chose to live mostly in the uplands escapes me however- but that's seemingly where they mainly chose.
I've visited a few Hill forts myself particularly those near the Welsh border - very inaccessible indeed and most unsuited to getting animals up there - try for example the Wrekin in Shrops.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
You continue to make my case, Frank. Most gratifying since you are our resident expert..
| Indeed I gather until the need for major strengthening with heavy ramparts and deep ditches starting in the mid 1st mil BC many were regular enclosed places of abode. |
You have to bear in mind that this is an accretional business. Given that domestication of animals didn't happen until c 5000 BC in Britain, it may well be the Iron Age before any of these non-eroded bits of the landscape will be sufficiently pronounced to turn into actual forts.
| Why the 'celts' chose to live mostly in the uplands escapes me however- but that's seemingly where they mainly chose. |
This is another artefact-of-history. The "Celts" as an invading military elite would rather naturally occupy suitable hillforts (why build them from scratch?) But hillforts get quite disproportionate attention from archaeologists precisely because they are not normally part of village life. "Hill forts" will only exist in areas of the country that are subject to rapid erosion.
| I've visited a few Hill forts myself particularly those near the Welsh border - very inaccessible indeed and most unsuited to getting animals up there - try for example the Wrekin in Shrops. |
Exactly! If you start from the presumption that all hillforts are animal enclosures at zero altitude, then at some stage in the erosional process, as their relative altitude goes up and up, they will be too high for conveniently putting animals in. In fact it is practically a matter of definition: any piece of land that is high enough to be militarily useful, is going to be too inconvenient for sticking animals in. Remember, only the highest ones receive the accolade "hillfort"!
As I have stated before, every succeeeding culture will make use of these local features if they feel the need. The archaeology is pretty clear that a few were used as forts, most were just left. Actually we are just the latest culture to do exactly this: a few we have turned into tourist attractions, most are just kept mouldering as nothing more than Gothic type on OS maps.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mick Harper wrote: | | "Hill forts" will only exist in areas of the country that are subject to rapid erosion. |
Most hill forts are in the uplands on rocky ground not likely to have eroded quickly.
Before about 500BC the 'celtic' population apparently managed ok in the upland regions, the change to defended places on the hill tops and then on to major rampart Hill forts occurred after the introduction of Iron working into Britain.
Maybe other people living in the nearby 'don' named villages were the culprits and protagonists expanding from the lowland farms. Seemingly not many folk prior to the introduction of these intruders favoured the lowlands in eastern England.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
| frank h wrote: | | Most hill forts are in the uplands on rocky ground not likely to have eroded quickly. |
Can you be more specific about the type of rock and where? Two people, independently, told me today that the hill tops we'd climbed were several hundred feet higher in prehistoric times, the chalk over the greensand has apparently been completely eroded away (in a region unaffected by glaciation). The summits are as level as a cricket pitch.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Hatty wrote: | | Can you be more specific about the type of rock and where? |
Hogg's book shows 2000 or so Hill forts, sited on a variety of ground types, which vary in distribution across Britain, many being located in Cornwall, Wales and Scotland, plus a large cluster from the Chilterns to Cotswolds, and a huge bunch in Hampshire/Wiltshire, with a few on isolated hills scattered around eastern parts of England.
Most were not developed until after about 500BC which is a short time for hard rocks to weather away I suppose.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
| Most were not developed until after about 500BC which is a short time for hard rocks to weather away I suppose. |
This is the key question. How do you distinguish between a hillfort 'developed' in the Iron Age and one that just happened to exist then? Every piece of ground extant in 500 BC is going to have some Iron Age archaeology on it. Since according to me they all existed by then, presumably the Iron Age found uses for (some of) them. Isn't this entirely consistent with the general picture? Our systematic knowledge of hillforts in general is nowhere near complete enough to answer these kinds of questions but my own theory simply accounts for an otherwise puzzling phenomenon rather better than other explanations.
| Can you be more specific about the type of rock and where? Two people, independently, told me today that the hill tops we'd climbed were several hundred feet higher in prehistoric times, the chalk over the greensand has apparently been completely eroded away (in a region unaffected by glaciation). |
The entire landscape of Britain is less than fifteen thousand years old (since all of it was covered by or radically effected by an ice sheet before then). If, every time you see a mountain or a valley, you say to yourself, "Strewth, that was made in fifteen thousand years", you will have no trouble looking at a medium-sized hillock and saying. "Strewth, that was made in five thousand years."
| plus a large cluster from the Chilterns to Cotswolds, and a huge bunch in Hampshire/Wiltshire, with a few on isolated hills scattered around eastern parts of England. |
If my theory is correct. then hillforts will be maximised in areas that a) erode fast ie chalk downland and b) are mostly suitable for animal grazing ie chalk downland.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mick Harper wrote: | | How do you distinguish between a hillfort 'developed' in the Iron Age and one that just happened to exist then? |
The (limited)archaeology of Hill forts seems to be people living mostly in open settlements in the uplands up to about 1000BC, who then moved to lightly pallisaded hill tops, which were thereafter either abandoned or heavily strengthened with ditches and ramparts from about 500BC. The ramparts vary from timbers to heavy stonework, depending on the site. Round houses, dated pottery, storage pits and sling stones are common items found.
Virtually all in England south of the Tyne and west to the Severn had been abandoned by the time of the Roman occupation, who dismantled much of the rest, except for parts of Gaelic Scotland.
An interesting phenomenon is the close proximity to Hill forts of settlements on the modern map ending in 'don or down' in England(mostly), 'dun' in Scotland(mostly) and 'dinas' in Wales. A term apparently being gaelic for a 'fort'.
My interpretation is these were the immigrants that upset the Iron Age 'celtic' peoples' way of life, by farming rather than animal grazing.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
The Library Index 
FAQ 
Search
Register
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
