A Sample of French Hill-forts

Extract

To British archaeologists, the hill-forts in France are likely to be second in interest only to those in this country; they also form natural attractions when touring. For the southern sixsevenths of the country, however, information about these sites is very sparse, while plans or detailed directions for access are almost entirely lacking. In these circumstances the following notes may be of use. The accompanyingplans, save where noted, are merely pace-and-prismatic sketches, but give a better indication of the character of the remains than would be possible by description alone; for ease in comparison, they are reproduced to 1/2500 or some simple multiple. They are believed to be fairly correct representations, but it must be noted that many of the sites are very thickly overgrown. It must be emphasized that this is in no way a systematic study of French hill-forts, but merely the results of a brief tour made in 1966 to gain some personal knowledge of what the sites are like, supplemented by a few additional notes made during other visits.