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Hill-Forts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Christopher Hawkes
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Extract

The British hill-fort in these days needs no introduction. Everybody, certainly every reader of ANTIQUITY, is familiar with the ancient earthworks that crown the blunt spurs and whale-backed ridges of the chalk downs, and the grimmer ramparts of stone that take their place as one penetrates the lands of sharper contours and more obstinate rock that lie to the west and north.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 5 , Issue 17 , March 1931 , pp. 60 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1931

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References

1 Fully described by DrCecil Curwen, E. in ANTIQUITY 1930, 4,22–54, and thus needing no further discussion here. All known neolithic earthworks in Britain are of this causewayed type. The ‘ Danes’ Dyke ’, indeed, the great simple promontory–fortress of Flamborough Head, was excavated by Pitt–Rivers and found to be associated with a flint industry of neolithic character—but until the whole complex of dykes in the East Riding is systematically examined it would be premature to try to date it closely.Google Scholar

2 The pottery exhibits some regional variation, but the village at All Cannings Cross is the most famous approach to a type–site.

3 Scheme for recording Ancient Defemve Earthworks and Fortified Enclosures:Congress of Archaeological Societies (revised 1910), classes A and B.

4 This also occurs at Rybury in Wiltshire, overlying what seem to be neolithic works.

5 See p. 81.

6 Information kindly supplied by Mr Heywood Sumner, F.s.A.,who has allowed me to examine the pottery from his trial excavations ; the responsibility for this dating of it is, of course, my own only.

7 The special case of so–called ‘ vitrified forts ’, where a stone rampart is supposed to have been vitrified or calcined into a solid mass by subjecting it to intense heat, cannot be considered here : itdeserves a paper to itself. Such forts are well known on the Continent and exist in Scotland and Ireland, but are unrecorded in England and Wales.

8 The seventh is a patching of earth to complete the contour of the sixth.

9 He says nothing of the sarsen facing more recently noticed (p.70).

10 The excavator, Dr E. Cecil Cunven, has most courteously enabled the writer to anticipate here the forthcoming report in Sussex Arch. Colls.

11 ANTIQUITYD,Dec. 1927, 1, 397.

12 The Glastonbury lake-village is of course the type-site for the pottery by which this culture can so well be recognized.

13 I am greatly indebted to the excavator, Miss Dorothy M. Liddell, for permission to include this notice of her work, and for much information concerning it, as well as the opportunity of examining pottery and objects found.

14 Archaeologia, LXXX. I am much indebtedfor Mr Gray’s loan of the typescript of his paper prior to publication.

15 I am indebted to Mr J. W. Lucas, F.L.A., Librarian of the Malvern public library, for information andthe loan of the typescript excavation-report by Mr I. T.Hughes preserved in his charge.

16 I am indebted to him for much information and material from his forthcoming report.

17 Who kindly provided me with a copy of his interim report in advance of its appearance in Antiquaries Fourn.XI, 70–71.

18 Described by Caesar at Avaricum, B.G. VII, 23 ; Déchelette,Manuel, IV, p. 491 ff.

19 Cf. pp. 68, 81,92.

20 M N indicate intrusive walls of a much later date.

21 Elgee, Early Man in N.E. Yorkshire, 1930, 152ff. Detailed report of the excavations forthcoming.

22 I have not presumed to include any Scottish forts in the lists or maps here appended.

23 Their typical pottery is the pedestalled ware of the Aylesford and Swarling cemeteries, whereas the second invasion is characterized rather by bead–rim vessels.

24 B.G., v, 21, 1.

25 B.G., v, 9,4 ff.

26 Kindly shown me by Mr Stuart Piggott.

27 Cf. p. 81.

28 Suetonius, Vespasian, 4 :‘ superque viginti oppida ’.

29 Arch. Cambr, Dec.1926,221.

30 Roman and Native in Wales,Cymmrodorion Soc., 1920–1,40.